Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life Audiobook (Free)

‘Brilliant’ Guardian

‘Fascinating and frequently delightful’ THE DAYS

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 ROYAL SOCIETY Research BOOK PRIZE

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

In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and an experienced scuba diver, tells a about Other Minds: The Octopus and the Progression of Intelligent Life bold new tale of how nature became aware of itself – a story that largely occurs in the sea, where animals initial appeared.

Tracking the mind’s fitful development from unruly clumps of seaborne cells towards the first progressed nervous systems in ancient relatives of jellyfish, he explores the incredible evolutionary trip of the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous molluscs who later give up their shells to go up above the ocean ground, looking for prey and acquiring the higher intelligence needed to achieve this – a trip completely independent from your route that mammals and birds would later take.

But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? How did the octopus, a solitary creature with small social existence, become so clever? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are therefore packed with neurons that they virtually ‘believe for themselves’? By tracing the issue of inner life back again to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal family members, Godfrey-Smith casts important new light on the octopus mind – and on our very own.