Other minds : the octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness / Peter Godfrey-Smith.

Book

Godfrey-Smith, Peter, author.

First edition.

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.

x, 255 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm

Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, a very distant branch of the tree of life, the cephalopods, have also developed higher intelligence. How is it that a creature with a remarkable mind evolved through an evolutionary lineage so different from our own? The author is a philosopher of science and a scuba diver who explores the ocean world of squid, cuttlefish, and octopus to follow how subjective consciousness came into being -- and how nature became aware of itself.

Nervous system -- Evolution.

Consciousness.

Cephalopoda -- Behavior.

Cephalopoda -- Psychology.

Octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Meetings across the tree of life. Two meetings and a departure ; Outlines -- A history of animals. Beginnings ; Living together ; Neurons and nervous systems ; The garden ; Senses ; The fork -- Mischief and craft. In a sponge garden ; Evolution of the cephalopods ; Puzzles of octopus intelligence ; Visiting Octopolis ; Nervous evolution ; Body and control ; Convergence and divergence -- From white noise to consciousness. What it's like ; Evolution of experience ; Latecomer versus transformation ; The case of the octopus -- Making colors. The giant cuttlefish ; Making colors ; Seeing colors ; Being seen ; Baboon and squid ; Symphony -- Our minds and others ; From Hume to Vygotsky ; Word made flesh ; Conscious experience ; Full circle -- Experience compressed. Decline ; Life and death ; A swarm of motorcycles ; Long and short lives ; Ghosts -- Octopolis. An armful of octopuses ; Origins of Octopolis ; Parallel lines ; The oceans.

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9780374227760

0374227764

957696590

3487638

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