the power of we

"Mars was empty before we came. That's not to say that nothing had ever happened. But all of that (geological activity) happened in a mineral unconsciousness, and unobserved. There were no witnesses - except for us, looking from the planet next door, and that only in the last moment of its long history. We are all the consciousness that Mars has ever had."

This sentiment is so unequivocally human. These words describe the manner in which we humans exist. Things, events must be seen, witnessed - by something, by someone. In order for something to be something, it must be attached to the human consciousness. We are everything. Everything else is nothing.

Despite the opposition of Ann and the other Reds, this idea - that something (unsettled and un-terraformed Mars in this case) isn't really anything until it is developed and experienced by humans - eventually predominates and determines the fate of Mars. It is to be experienced and developed and lived on and utterly transformed.

The irony of the situation lies in the fact that, through this process of terraforming and developing Mars into a human nest, it becomes impossible to experience the true Mars - what it really is. And the contradiction in the prior sentence lies here, in this question: How can we as humans ever experience something in its true form - that is to say, its form untouched, unseen, unchanged by humans? Must humans change things in order to "experience" them? I put "experience" in quotations because of the fact that we may not really be experiencing anything if we must change it in order to "experience" it.

Are we unable to experience anything other than ourselves?