In The Investigation and Chain of Chance the unknown is probability and coincidence. All the investigator can do in these cases is carry on with such techniques as exist and come up with can explanation however obscure even though the true cause is unknowable.Usually in Lem, investigators become anthropomorphic; Solaris researchers consult their own archives for clues. In HMV Rappaport suggests looking at science fiction for ideas to interpret the code. In Fiasco the idea is to use a cartoon display to get through to the aliens; after all every civilisation must use symbols of some sort. In summary, to talk to the non human we tell stories about humans. Phillip Dick's electric ant/android cannot know it is not human-it has to believe it is the same as the humans
Perhaps the best example of epistemological defeat is Kafka's dog which will never know how it's food originates; as the dog ponders it tells mystical dog-stories to itself about singing and hovering dog-entities- more imaginative stories than Lem's. This lead Walter Benjamin to conclude that Kafka's dog inhabited a place 'far away from the continent of man' thus occupying a more privileged epistemological position that any of the above.
