The Humans

Zoë says she recognizes Andrew from somewhere. She realizes that he’s a math professor, a “legend” as she says, but assures him she was never his student. Andrew feels claustrophobic but carries on the conversation. Zoë tells Andrew that she’s not interested in math but loves philosophy. Schopenhauer’s book The World as Will and Representation, about the ways in which humans project their cravings onto the world and therefore remain unfulfilled, drove her to madness. She points out some of the other patients in the dining hall and what their unique tics are. Andrew decides that Zoë would be a good person to help him understand big ideas about human beings. He asks her what she thinks the meaning of life is, and she replies that there is none. He asks her about love, but she says she only dates violent men and can’t tell him much about how love really works. He realizes that he needs to talk to Isobel, who might know more about what human Andrew has been up to. He settles on the idea that humans are not prepared to handle the human Andrew’s discovery of extraterrestrial life.