Thinking about cognition and higher consciousness after re-watching Arrival

So I’ve been mulling over this idea of completely different kinds of cognition—like, ways of thinking that aren’t just “smarter humans” but actually a different architecture. At first, it felt impossible to imagine, like the heptapods in Arrival perceiving time all at once. I was like… no way, that’s nonsense. But the more I think about it, it kind of clicks. If a mind works differently than ours, experiencing past, present, and future simultaneously actually makes sense.

It got me thinking about creatures below our cognitive level too. Like sharks. Sure, they sometimes attack people, but we can understand why, it’s instinct, not malice. That also makes it weird when humans respond by wanting to kill them all. If we step back, it doesn’t make sense; the sharks aren’t evil, they’re just… sharks.

Anyway, thinking about both ends of cognition makes you realize how limited our perspective really is. And it makes me wonder: what would beings higher than us be capable of? Some possibilities I find fascinating:

1. Multi-temporal thinking: experiencing past, present, and future all at once.

2. Hyper-empathic cognition: directly perceiving thoughts, intentions, or emotions of others.

3. Parallel problem-space navigation: holding dozens or hundreds of complex problems in mind at the same time.

4. Cross-dimensional thinking: integrating logic, perception, emotion, and probability in ways we literally can’t imagine.

My point in all this is, if we're the shark, or god forbid the ant, what's the chance we can even understand beings higher than us? Books and us in general like to think in terms of NHI good or bad, intent, and what not.

Has anyone else had that “ohhhh now it makes sense” moment when thinking about higher consciousness or cognition?