"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star......but we can understand the Universe..... that makes us something very special"...so says Stephen Hawking.."
Perhaps "understand" is a mathematically/metaphysically reconstruction of what is out there.
And perhaps there is a "uncertainty principle" of sorts at play here...more we "understand", the lesser humaneness around that we can quantify, maybe?...
Ego is what separates us from monkey and adults from child!