A thought on "The Chase, Part II"

I'm working my way through the SFDebris coverage of the various Treks, and am midway through DS9. Chuck points out the hypocrisy of the Changelings' claim that they're trying to understand "solids" when they just use that "understanding" to reinforce their bigotry.

The Changelings' attitude that you can understand things by taking their shape reminds me of one of Richard Feynman's stories. His dad took him walking in the woods, pointed out a bird, and told him what it was called in other languages. He finished by saying (and I'm paraphrasing here) "but you can know every name for it in every language and still not know anything about the bird itself, so watch what it's doing instead."

I wonder if this is that story taken to its next level - you can know how it's shaped and how it behaves, but not know anything about how it feels and what motivates it. Knowing how to take its form doesn't tell you anything if you still think of it as an automaton.