{"id":372,"date":"2026-06-05T16:10:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=372"},"modified":"2026-06-05T16:10:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:10:49","slug":"what-dogs-see-that-we-cant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=372","title":{"rendered":"What Dogs See That We Can\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"<section>\n<p><small><em>This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors\u2019 weekly guide to the best in books. <\/em><i>Sign up for it here.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=370\">You Might Soon Own a Piece of SpaceX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Humans used to spend a lot of time thinking about what separated us from animals. Ren\u00e9 Descartes, who wrote, \u201cI think, therefore I am,\u201d practiced vivisection on rabbits and dogs because he thought that they lacked consciousness. Then Charles Darwin argued convincingly that humans are indeed animals\u2014and now, in the time of AI, we tend to think a lot more about what separates us from machines. I certainly have been, especially after reading Michael Pollan\u2019s recent book on consciousness, <i>A World Appears<\/i>, and seeing his ideas reverberate in the <i>Atlantic <\/i>staff writer Judith Shulevitz\u2019s article this week about the depiction of dogs in art.<\/p>\n<p>First, here are five stories from <i>The Atlantic<\/i>\u2019s Books section:<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>How to save marriage<\/li>\n<li>The art of the joyful tearjerker<\/li>\n<li>The plight of the radical\u2019s children<\/li>\n<li>What to read to really understand music<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMemories of Green,\u201d a poem by Adam Harris<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Shulevitz begins her essay, about Thomas W. Laqueur\u2019s new book, <i>The Dog\u2019s Gaze: A Visual History<\/i>, by describing a sensation familiar to most dog owners (and to me as I write this and my terrier gazes up from under my desk): that we are being stared at. \u201cPeople speak with their eyes all the time,\u201d Shulevitz writes, \u201cbut every so often I\u2019d be struck with wonder that a consciousness as radically different from mine\u201d as a dog\u2019s \u201ccould communicate so effectively.\u201d Laqueur\u2019s book dwells on the way that canines often function in art\u2014as seers of things that people miss. In Giovanni Battista Tiepolo\u2019s <i>The Finding of Moses<\/i>, a dog spies a young girl whose presence unlocks the painting\u2019s meaning. In Francisco de Goya\u2019s <i>Blind Beggar With Dog<\/i>, a man has his eyes closed, \u201cbut the dog\u2019s eyes are open and piercing,\u201d Shulevitz writes, \u201cproviding a center of consciousness and a conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Pollan\u2019s exploration of consciousness, which he frames as our most vexing scientific conundrum, animals feature mostly in a chapter on feeling. Charles Finch, who wrote about Pollan\u2019s book in <i>The Atlantic<\/i>, believes that this section contains \u201cthe book\u2019s finest passages.\u201d He quotes one that neatly summarizes an important scientific shift on the subject: \u201cIt is one of the paradoxes of computer science that the \u2018higher\u2019 capabilities we once thought of as uniquely human\u2014reason, language, intelligence\u2014have proved easier for machines to master than the more elemental capacities we share with animals, including feelings and emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pollan\u2019s book is not explicitly about AI, but he is thinking about it as much as many other writers are at this moment. He believes that the biggest question on that topic is not what machines can do but what they <i>can\u2019t<\/i>. Among our non-machine capabilities are many that are not uniquely human: sentience, emotion, and the kind of felt experience that drives intuition. AI\u2019s lack of these qualities might explain why machine-made art is lackluster, and why large language models might fool some editors and prize juries but\u2014at least for the moment\u2014fall far short of brilliance. \u201cArtists use dogs to do what both they and dogs are good at: telling us where to look,\u201d Shulevitz writes. Maybe if Descartes had known that, he would have come up with a more enduring theory of consciousness. And maybe he would have left those poor pups alone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Where Dogs Go On With Their Doggy Life<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>By Judith Shulevitz<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Why are there so many canines in fine art? Read the full article.<\/p>\n<p><b>What to Read<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Nature Writings<\/i><\/b><b>, by John Muir<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The irony of contemporary digital culture is that, although it democratizes communication and information, it also encourages circular rhetoric, ennui, and claustrophobia. I\u2019m not the first person to lament the ubiquity of screens and the dangers of social media, though I may be the first to recommend the cleansing properties of Muir\u2019s <i>Nature Writings<\/i> to those in search of something beyond their smartphone. I\u2019m confident in saying that this more-than-900-page book, full of the 19th-century naturalist\u2019s carefully written odes to the awe-inspiring forests and granite cathedrals of Central California, is pretty close to a perfect antidote to the cynicism undergirding so much digital slop. The essays and stories here argue for approaching life with unapologetic earnestness: The wonder of the Earth is yours for the taking (the taking-in, that is) if you just pay attention, Muir seems to be saying. I, for one, am listening.\u00a0 \u2014 Anna Holmes<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=368\">Comedy\u2019s Biggest Stand-Up Won\u2019t Be Hollywood\u2019s Next Leading Man<\/a><\/p>\n<p>From our list: Read these books by the time you graduate.<\/p>\n<p><b>Out Next Week<\/b><\/p>\n<p><em>\ud83d\udcda <\/em><i>Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View From Behind the Supermarket Register<\/i>, by Ann Larson<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em>\ud83d\udcda <\/em><i>Red Sheet<\/i>, by James Ellroy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><em>\ud83d\udcda <\/em><i>Daughters of the Sun and Moo<\/i>n, by Lisa See<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Your Weekend Read<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Arch Is Atrocious<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>By Sebastian Smee<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The meanings of words such as <i>honor<\/i>, <i>sacrifice<\/i>, and <i>humility<\/i> have been leaking away from American civic life like red blood cells from an anemic. But if there\u2019s one place where they retain their rich, sticky, life-giving force, it\u2019s surely in the air around the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.<\/p>\n<p>The cemetery is where Americans remember those who sacrificed their lives for the nation. The memorial is where they remember their greatest president\u2014the man who proclaimed an end to slavery and kept the union intact, though the cost was staggering. The air between these two places is the medium through which Lincoln gets to speak with his war dead, and vice versa.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full article.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><small><em>When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic<em>.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><small><i>Sign up for The Wonder Reader,<\/i><i> a Saturday newsletter in which our editors recommend stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=366\">Texas Republicans Are Desperate to Sound Manly<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><small><i>Explore <\/i><i>all of our newsletters.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Consciousness separates us from machines. Need convincing? Just take a good look at a faithful canine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-briefing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What Dogs See That We Can\u2019t - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=372\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Dogs See That We Can\u2019t - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Consciousness separates us from machines. 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