
Other Minds
The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
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Narrated by:
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Peter Noble
About this listen
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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Story
Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the apple sitting on your kitchen counter alive, or is only the apple tree it came from deserving of the word? If we can’t answer that question here on Earth, how will we know when and if we discover alien life on other worlds? The question hangs over some of society’s most charged conflicts - whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead.
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What is Life?
- By Shane S Shull on 04-29-21
By: Carl Zimmer
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Soul of an Octopus
- A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
- By: Sy Montgomery
- Narrated by: Sy Montgomery
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Sy Montgomery's popular 2011 Orion magazine piece, "Deep Intellect", about her friendship with a sensitive, sweet-natured octopus named Athena and the grief she felt at her death, went viral, indicating the widespread fascination with these mysterious, almost alien-like creatures. Since then Sy has practiced true immersion journalism, from New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, pursuing these wild, solitary shape-shifters.
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Eight legs and so much more!
- By Kirstin on 07-02-15
By: Sy Montgomery
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I Contain Multitudes
- The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
- By: Ed Yong
- Narrated by: Charlie Anson
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Joining the ranks of popular science classics like The Botany of Desire and The Selfish Gene, a groundbreaking, wondrously informative, and vastly entertaining examination of the most significant revolution in biology since Darwin - a "microbe's-eye view" of the world that reveals a marvelous, radically reconceived picture of life on Earth.
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Undoes what you've learned from the headlines
- By Tristan on 10-14-16
By: Ed Yong
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The Blue Machine
- How the Ocean Works
- By: Helen Czerski
- Narrated by: Helen Czerski
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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All of Earth’s oceans, from the equator to the poles, are a single engine powered by sunlight, driving huge flows of energy, water, life, and raw materials. In The Blue Machine, physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski illustrates the mechanisms behind this defining feature of our planet, voyaging from the depths of the ocean floor to tropical coral reefs, estuaries that feed into shallow coastal seas, and Arctic ice floes. Timely, elegant, and passionately argued, The Blue Machine presents a fresh perspective on what it means to be a citizen of an ocean planet.
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Pay to be lectured at
- By J. Luvmour on 10-12-23
By: Helen Czerski
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Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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De Waal reviews the rise and fall of the mechanistic view of animals and opens our minds to the idea that animal minds are far more intricate and complex than we have assumed. De Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal - and human - intelligence.
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Enlightening but not earth-shattering
- By Mark on 07-06-16
By: Frans de Waal
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The Tangled Tree
- A Radical New History of Life
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection - a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree David Quammen chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them.
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Very Enjoyable and Readable
- By Dennis on 08-18-18
By: David Quammen
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Consciousness Explained
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Paul Mantell
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The national bestseller chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 1991 is now available as an audiobook. The author of Brainstorms, Daniel C. Dennett replaces our traditional vision of consciousness with a new model based on a wealth of fact and theory from the latest scientific research.
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Confuses Consciousness with Ego
- By Rahul Yadav on 07-11-19
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Spineless
- The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
- By: Juli Berwald
- Narrated by: Juli Berwald
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Jellyfish are an enigma. They have no centralized brain, but they see and feel and react to their environment in complex ways. They look simple, yet their propulsion systems are so advanced that engineers are just learning how to mimic them. They produce some of the deadliest toxins on the planet and still remain undeniably alluring. Long ignored by science, they may be a key to ecosystem stability. Juli Berwald's journey into the world of jellyfish is a personal one.
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Very Little Jellyfish Science
- By Xangle on 06-13-19
By: Juli Berwald
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The Octopus Scientists
- Exploring the Mind of a Mollusk
- By: Sy Montgomery
- Narrated by: Sy Montgomery
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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With three hearts and blue blood, its gelatinous body unconstrained by jointed limbs or gravity, the octopus seems to be an alien, an inhabitant of another world. It’s baggy, boneless body sprouts eight arms covered with thousands of suckers—suckers that can taste as well as feel. The octopus also has the powers of a superhero: it can shape-shift, change color, squirt ink, pour itself through the tiniest of openings, or jet away through the sea faster than a swimmer can follow.
By: Sy Montgomery
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Sing Like Fish
- How Sound Rules Life Under Water
- By: Amorina Kingdon
- Narrated by: Angelina Rocca
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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For centuries, humans ignored sound in the “silent world” of the ocean, assuming that what we couldn’t perceive, didn’t exist. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. Marine scientists now have the technology to record and study the complex interplay of the myriad sounds in the sea. Finally, we can trace how sounds travel with the currents, bounce from the seafloor and surface, bend with the temperature and even saltiness; how sounds help marine life survive; and how human noise can transform entire marine ecosystems.
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Good solid science mixed with storytelling.
- By Hawaiian 54 on 10-04-24
By: Amorina Kingdon
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Secrets of the Octopus
- By: Sy Montgomery, Warren K. Carlyle IV - contributor, Alex Schnell - foreword
- Narrated by: Sy Montgomery
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Remarkable new discoveries affirm the octopus as one of nature’s most intelligent and complex animals. This new book brings us closer than ever to these elusive creatures. The companion to the highly anticipated National Geographic television special, this book explores the alluring underwater world of the octopus—a creature that resembles an alien lifeform, but whose behavior has earned it a reputation as one of the most intelligent animals on the planet.
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Loved the narrative format
- By Kiana on 03-11-25
By: Sy Montgomery, and others
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Spirals in Time
- The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells
- By: Helen Scales
- Narrated by: Helen Scales
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Seashells, stretching from the deep past into the present day, are touchstones leading into fascinating realms of the natural world and cutting-edge science. In Spirals in Time, marine biologist Helen Scales shows how seashells have been sculpted by the fundamental rules of mathematics and evolution; how they gave us color, gems, food, and new medicines. Spirals in Time shows why nature matters and reveals the hidden wonders that you can hold in the palm of your hand.
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Fantastic book!
- By daniel Levit on 11-17-24
By: Helen Scales
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The Quantum Labyrinth
- How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality
- By: Paul Halpern
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1939, Richard Feynman, a brilliant graduate of MIT, arrived in John Wheeler's Princeton office to report for duty as his teaching assistant. A lifelong friendship and enormously productive collaboration was born, despite sharp differences in personality. The soft-spoken Wheeler, though conservative in appearance, was a raging nonconformist full of wild ideas about the universe. The boisterous Feynman was a cautious physicist who believed only what could be tested. Yet they were complementary spirits.
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Neither Fish Nor Fowl
- By Brooklyn on 12-02-17
By: Paul Halpern
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The World Is Blue
- How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One
- By: Sylvia A. Earle, Bill McKibben - foreword
- Narrated by: Sheree Wichard
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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A Silent Spring for our era, this eloquent, urgent, fascinating book reveals how just 50 years of swift and dangerous oceanic change threatens the very existence of life on Earth. Legendary marine scientist Sylvia Earle portrays a planet teetering on the brink of irreversible environmental crisis.
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Great book
- By rebecca tierney on 06-06-23
By: Sylvia A. Earle, and others
What listeners say about Other Minds
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- bryan m.
- 11-21-20
it was great
it was amazing. voice was captivating. stories were well written and ordered in a way that anyone from psychologists (I'm one) to biologist, or someone just interested in conciousness or philosophy will get something out of this book. cant give it enough stars. Well done, really well done.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Cal Y Craig
- 07-31-19
It's a good read and at times great.
Many parts were interesting and I liked how the author weaves in psychology. Some parts are unnecessarily complicated or seem less than crucial to the story. The narrator is really good.
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1 person found this helpful
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- J. Barna
- 06-06-18
The cephalopod story, movingly told
The cephalopod story, movingly told by Peter Godfrey-Smith. His subjects show amazing mental and physical capacity — but why still puzzles scientists, since they have such short lives. Very well narrated.
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- Matthew Weber
- 08-06-18
Interesting Read
An interesting introduction to consciousness theory. Also octopuses and cuddle fish seem dope too. Enjoyed it a lot
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- Tom
- 08-06-21
More supporting opinion about Octopus intelligence
Like the work Craig Foster has done in his Oscar awarded documentary My Octopus Teacher, Godfrey-Smith explores the behavior of octopus and cuttlefish. His book is yet more evidence that there are many different types of intelligent activity present in other species on Earth.
This is a very important perspective for us Humans to realize since we so often take a very arrogant, ethnocentric, even chauvinistic stance toward any type of intelligence we don’t possess or understand, whether in other humans or other “lower” species.
We have a lot to learn. This book can help, though there are a lot more stories he uses to make his points than we need to appreciate his position. Four stars.
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- melissa
- 09-18-18
very interesting and fresh viewpoints.
very interesting with fresh ideas about the conscious and thinking brains. good listen highly recommend.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-27-22
Good book, but hard to follow as an audiobook
Interesting topic, but was hard to listen to as an audiobook, because of a lot of biology/science terms like species, earth eras etc. Probably would be better to read.
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- Darwin8u
- 08-10-17
Mischief and Craft
"When you dive into the sea, you are diving into the origin of us all."
- Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds
"Mischief and craft are plainly seen to be characteristics of this creature."
- Claudius Aelianus, 3rd Century A.D., writing about the octopus
It is always fascinating reading a biology book that seems to resemble a physics book, or an economics book that borrows heavily from psychology. Cross-pollination and flexibility to squeeze into other academic boxes always pleases me. So, when I discovered a book that looks at the philosophy of cognition by examining the brains and evolution of cephalopods (primarily octopuses and cuttlefish) I was excited. One reason is my love for octopuses (while almost accidental) goes back nearly ten years. For most of the time I've had an Audible account, my avatar has been an octopus. Friends buy me Cthulhu masks and plush dolls (I'm still not sure what one does long-term with a Cthulhu doll. How long can you appropriately cuddle with an Elder God doll before it becomes creepy?).
Anyway, Godfrey-Smith uses the development of the Cephalopod brain as a way to highlight our own brain's development and also as a way to highlight different ways cognition may appear in other life forms. The unique neural patterns/structure in Octopuses makes the way they see the world significantly different than the way we see the world (despite our separately evolved, but similar eyes). As Godfrey-Smith also points out -- an octopus is probably the closest we will come to examining another mind:
"If we want to understand other minds, the minds of cephalopods are the most other of all" (p10).
As YouTube shows, part of the appeal of Octopuses is how they, for an animal so different from us (it is closer to a slug than us biologically) seems to flirt with behaviors that are both close to us (playful, clever, petty) and also completely foreign. They seem to exits in a weird uncanny valley that attracts us. How can we not be fascinated by something that seems to have almost dropped her from another planet, but acts a bit like a cat. Octopuses, and their brains, reminds me of the famous Montaigne quote about his cat:
When I Am Playing With My Cat, How Do I Know She Is Not Playing With Me?
Indeed. When we are watching octopuses on YouTube, they seem to be equally fascinated with us. It is strange and lovely, and opens up a lot of questions about what it means to be alive, to think, to have a subjective experience. Peter Godfrey-Smith moves well along this path and asks most of the big questions I would want asked. Many answers, however, seem largely unanswerable. But like a philosopher is want, he still asks.
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46 people found this helpful
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- isabella
- 10-09-17
if Philosophy and biology had a baby
This book is a happy marriage between philosophy and biology. It is captivating and enjoyable. I also think this is an interesting book for anyone who considers to or already work in academia.
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15 people found this helpful
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- IsaacT
- 09-22-18
Nicely done
I really loved this book’s exploration consciousness and subjective experience. It was measured and compelling. The performance was well matched and enjoyable.
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