Anthropomorphism is usually thought of as an illusion that arises like a blister in soft human minds: untrained, undisciplined, unhardened. There are good reasons for this: when we humanise the world, we may prevent ourselves from understanding the lives of other organisms on their own terms. But perhaps there are things that we pass over – or forget to notice – when we reduce another life form to an ‘it’, an inanimate object. Might we be able to expand some of our concepts, such that speaking might not always require a mouth, hearing might not always require ears, and interpreting might not
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