Great quote from Hawking. I think it puts into perspective both our ‘relative’ significance in the universe and reinforces perception as well — after all, who are us ‘slightly more advanced monkeys’ to assume that ‘advanced’ isn’t relative in itself, and that those ‘less advanced monkeys’ have, perhaps an even more, clear grasp on how the universe works?
In fact, perhaps those ‘less advanced monkeys’ define advanced differently — perhaps their understanding of the universe is intuitive and they view US as less advanced for fruitlessly breaking down particles more and more and exploring the cosmos further and further — and in the process, THE ONLY THING WE HAVE DISCOVERED IS INFINITY. 🙂