Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, Peter Godfrey-Smith
A mixture of science and philosophy about consciousness, I found this book really fascinating. The joins between the two are pretty seamless, so they lead into one another and contribute to one another — if you hate philosophy, this would probably still be okay for you, because it does lean a little toward the science end. To my mind, anyway. If you don’t have a strong grounding in either, it’s still accessible and fascinating, as long as you have some level of interest in the subject.
What we know about cuttlefish and octopus minds is just astounding — their intelligence is almost uncanny, and yet we know very little about how they experience the world. There were a few surprises here for me — their typically short lives, their decentralised control of movement, the seeming personalities of the animals the author observed…
There’s a lot of anecdotes and such, so if you’re looking for hard science, this isn’t really what you want. But if you’re casually interested, then I recommend it. And if you can end it without wanting to dive and meet some cuttlefish and octopi for yourself, you must be made of stone. (Not really, but. I’m left so curious! That’s a thing I love in a book.)
This sounds interesting. Wish-list grows longer…
That’s what a wishlist is for, right? Endlessly expanding…
Occasionally it depresses me, though when I despair at reading everything I want to before I die…
Sometimes I end up just sitting there looking at all the books feeling so spoilt for choice I can’t pick one…
I have a complicated partially stochastic method for picking the next book…
Lately me and Lisa have figured out a way that seems to work. I pick five options, she narrows it down to two, and then I pick just from those two. I didn’t think it’d work, but so far it has.
That’s waaaaaaaaaaaaaay simpler than mine…
Things like octopus fascinate me. I have been known to spend a lot of time in aquariums just watching the sea creatures. I find that very relaxing!
Yeah! It really is pretty awesome.