Respecting human limits helps us to reach beyond those limits

Respecting human limits helps us to reach beyond those limits, argues Sylvain Neuvel in his novel Sleeping Giants. Humankind faces three principal kinds of limits in the novel: those of knowledge, those of technology, and those of morality. The limits of each must be understood to make proper or beneficial choices and decisions.

The hand proves to be mysterious to early researchers because they think inside the box. They do not recognize that they need to look at the hand beyond the limits of their own knowledge. They ascribe the hand to an ancient American Indian civilization. Rose recognizes human beings do not know everything, and so approaches it with an open mind. Because of this, she recognizes the decidedly nonhuman, non-Earthly origins of the device.

The hand, when assembled with the device, denotes a kind of...