‘Amazing’ Guardian

‘Fascinating and often delightful’ The Times

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE

What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but double? The octopus is the closest we will come to getting together with an intelligent alien. What can we study from the encounter?

In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a recognized philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a about Other Thoughts: The Octopus and the Development of Intelligent Life bold new story of how nature became alert to itself – a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared.

Monitoring the mind’s fitful development from unruly clumps of seaborne cells towards the first developed nervous systems in ancient relatives of jellyfish, he explores the incredible evolutionary journey of the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous molluscs who later depart their shells to go up above the ocean ground, searching for prey and acquiring the higher intelligence needed to achieve this – a journey completely independent through the course that mammals and parrots would later take.

But the type of intelligence do cephalopods possess? How do the octopus, a solitary creature with small social existence, become so smart? What is it truly like to have eight tentacles that are therefore filled with neurons that they practically ‘believe for themselves’? By tracing the question of inner lifestyle back to its roots and comparing humans with the most remarkable animal family members, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light for the octopus brain – and on our very own.