Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
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Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness in Other Minds
Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?
In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being—how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind's fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys.
But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually "think for themselves"? What happens when some octopuses abandon their hermit-like ways and congregate, as they do in a unique location off the coast of Australia?
By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind—and on our own.
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Peter Godfrey-Smith. (2016). Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Peter Godfrey-Smith. 2016. Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.
MLA Citation (style guide)Peter Godfrey-Smith. Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.
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- bioText: Peter Godfrey-Smith is the author of the bestselling Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, which has been published in more than twenty languages, and Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. His other books include Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science and Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, which won the 2010 Lakatos Award. He is a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney.
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- fullDescription
Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness in Other Minds
Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?
In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being—how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind's fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys.
But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually "think for themselves"? What happens when some octopuses abandon their hermit-like ways and congregate, as they do in a unique location off the coast of Australia?
By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind—and on our own.- reviews
- premium: False
- source: Carl Safina, The New York Times Book Review
- content: "If this is philosophy, it works, because Godfrey-Smith is a rare philosopher who searches the world for clues. Knowledgeable and curious, he examines, he admires. His explorations are good-natured. He is never dogmatic, yet startlingly incisive."
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
September 12, 2016
Deftly blending philosophy and evolutionary biology, Godfrey-Smith (Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection), an Australian philosopher of science, uses his passion for cephalopods to address “how consciousness arose from the raw materials found in living beings.” Comparing vertebrate consciousness and intelligence with that of cephalopods is not as odd as it might seem, because “cephalopods are evolution’s only experiment in big brains outside of the vertebrates.” Godfrey-Smith demonstrates that octopuses are constructed from a dramatically different plan than vertebrates, with each of their arms having the ability to act and sense their environment semi-autonomously from their central brains. This striking difference raises intriguing questions about the nature of communication within organisms, as well as about the meaning of intelligence. Godfrey-Smith couples his philosophical and scientific approach with ample and fascinating anecdotes as well as striking photography from his numerous scuba dives off the Australian coast. He makes the case that cephalopods demonstrate a type of intelligence that is largely “alien” to our understanding of the concept but is no less worthy of wonder. He also ponders how and why such intelligence developed in such short-lived creatures (they generally live only a few years). Godfrey-Smith doesn’t provide definitive answers to his questions, but the journey he leads is both thoroughly enjoyable and informative.
- premium: True
- source:
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December 1, 2016
Philosophers don't usually practice their discipline at the bottom of the sea, but, for Godfrey-Smith, observing and videotaping octopuses in the wild have provided invaluable keys to the evolution of consciousness. In an engrossing blend of avidly described underwater adventures off the coast of Australia in what he dubbed Octopolis for its unusual congregation of busy cephalopods, and a fluid inquiry into the brain-body connection, Godfrey-Smith considers the protean nature of the octopus, a complex animal utterly divergent in its evolutionary trajectory from our own. Nonchalantly elucidating complex concepts, he describes the octopus' decentralized nervous system, phenomenally malleable body, and multihued light-show skin, all propelled by a mischievously curious and intrepid intelligence, well illustrated by lively tales about laboratory octopuses with attitude. Godfrey-Smith also performs an exceptionally revealing deep dive into the evolutionary progression from sensing to acting to remembering to the coalescence of the inner voice, thus tracking the spectrum between sentience and consciousness. Godfrey-Smith concludes with wonder The mind evolved in the sea, which is the origin of us all and concern: the sea must be defended and preserved.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)
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July 1, 2016
A professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and of history and the philosophy of science at the University of Sydney, Godfrey-Smith is also a crack scuba diver whose videos of battling octopuses have attracted hordes of viewers. Here he shows us how smart cephalopods, particularly octopuses, really are, how that intelligence developed, and what that means for our general understanding of life on earth.
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
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Starred review from November 15, 2016
What happens when a scuba-diving philosopher observing an octopus realizes that the octopus is observing him? The answer is this book: Godfrey-Smith (philosophy, CUNY Graduate Ctr.; Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection) weaves his undersea experiences with octopuses and cuttlefish with scientific and philosophical analysis. Conscious awareness has evolved more than once, Godfrey-Smith explains, as he investigates these otherworldly creatures and their ways of experiencing their aquatic environment. Avoiding technical scientific data, he focuses instead on a few key evolutionary concepts explained by means of simple analogies comprehensible to the general reader. Philosophically-oriented readers will be left wanting more precise explorations of the nature of consciousness, self-consciousness, awareness, sentience, and so on. Others will wish the author had more imaginatively conceived the creature's inner life. Godfrey-Smith ultimately stops short of such speculations, remaining the outside observer, a philosopher of science, even while haunting the imagination of readers after the book's covers are closed to wonder, "What is experience like for them?" VERDICT Godfrey-Smith's forays into philosophical analysis here are immanently readable. [See Prepub Alert, 6/19/16.]--Steve Young, McHenry Cty. Coll., Crystal Lake, IL
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
November 15, 2016
What happens when a scuba-diving philosopher observing an octopus realizes that the octopus is observing him? The answer is this book: Godfrey-Smith (philosophy, CUNY Graduate Ctr.; Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection) weaves his undersea experiences with octopuses and cuttlefish with scientific and philosophical analysis. Conscious awareness has evolved more than once, Godfrey-Smith explains, as he investigates these otherworldly creatures and their ways of experiencing their aquatic environment. Avoiding technical scientific data, he focuses instead on a few key evolutionary concepts explained by means of simple analogies comprehensible to the general reader. Philosophically-oriented readers will be left wanting more precise explorations of the nature of consciousness, self-consciousness, awareness, sentience, and so on. Others will wish the author had more imaginatively conceived the creature's inner life. Godfrey-Smith ultimately stops short of such speculations, remaining the outside observer, a philosopher of science, even while haunting the imagination of readers after the book's covers are closed to wonder, "What is experience like for them?" VERDICT Godfrey-Smith's forays into philosophical analysis here are immanently readable. [See Prepub Alert, 6/19/16.]--Steve Young, McHenry Cty. Coll., Crystal Lake, IL
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
February 28, 2017
When we think of intelligence in the animal kingdom, it is usually the mammals that spring to mind, like dogs or chimps—the creatures that we can most easily identify with. Yet evolution has produced a separate branch of animals whose brains and nervous systems are as large and complex as our own, who can learn to manipulate tools, remember intricate navigation routes and recognise individual humans. These are the cephalopods, a group of creatures including squid, cuttlefish and the octopus. What is it like to be an octopus? And what are we to them? In this beautifully balanced book, Australia-born, US-based author and professor Peter Godfrey-Smith writes with both the knowledge of a scientist and the wonder of an observer in an alien world. Interspersed with the history of how these animals evolved is the author’s own deeply personal interactions with them. How is it that these animals are so smart and yet live such short lives? What does this tell us about our own intelligence, and how we judge the consciousness of others? For those who enjoy the works of Fred Pearce, George Monbiot and Sy Montgomery, this is a welcome addition to the field of popular science. Helene Ephraim is a freelance reviewer who has worked as a bookseller and librarian
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Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness in Other Minds
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