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Other Minds

Other Minds

The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness

by Peter Godfrey-Smith
Paperback
Publication Date: 29/03/2017

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**Shortlisted for Royal Society Science Book Prize 2017**

What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but 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 nature became aware of itself - a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared.

Tracking the mind's fitful development from unruly clumps of seaborne cells to the first evolved nervous systems in ancient relatives of jellyfish, he explores the incredible evolutionary journey of the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous molluscs who would later abandon their shells to rise above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so - a journey completely independent from the route that mammals and birds would later take.

But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? 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'? 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.

ISBN:
9780008226312
9780008226312
Category:
Marine biology
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
29-03-2017
Language:
English
Publisher:
HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Dimensions (mm):
234x152x19mm
Weight:
0.38kg
Peter Godfrey-Smith

Peter Godfrey-Smith is a distinguished professor of history and the philosophy of science at the University of Sydney.

He is the author of four books, including Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, which won the 2010 Lakatos Award for an outstanding work on the philosophy of science. His underwater videos of octopuses have been featured in National Geographic and New Scientist.

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