Cephalopods and Other Marine Intelligence
Book review: Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
Published: December 6, 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Book Synopsis:
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.
Rating:
Book review:
"When you dive into the sea, you are diving into the origin of us all."
- Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds
I picked up this book because I have become fascinated by octopuses over the last few years. Stumbling onto a YouTube channel that rescues octopuses that end up in fish stores or fish markets sparked a deep curiosity about these creatures. It quickly became apparent to me that they are much more intelligent than humans give them credit for. Because it is a kind of intelligence that we don’t understand and doesn’t mirror our own we discount it as lesser. Hubris at its finest. We, as a species, cannot comprehend an intelligence that might be equal to our own unless it precisely mirrors our own.
This book was quite an interesting mix of a book. Part biology, part observation, part psychology, and part philosophy. The author posits that octopuses are probably the closest that humans will ever come to examining an alien intelligence. Which I think is likely an accurate statement. While humans and octopuses share similar eye structures we are as different as species can possibly be in every other way. We are at the opposite ends of the evolutionary scale. And while both species have been evolving intelligence along the same timeline we have done so entirely separately from one another. Octopuses confined to the ocean, humans confined to the land.
I loved the exploration of octopuses as a species. This book delves deeply into their biology and evolution, as well as their behavior. Godfrey-Smith is deeply interested in the so-called “Octopus City”, which appears to be a group of octopuses that live together. This is stunning all on its own since octopuses are generally thought to be a solitary creature. But they also have separate living quarters, they erect barriers to separate their spaces, and they organize shells and rocks in common areas. These resident octopuses interact with each other and seem to have developed a unique social code for how to behave within the community. It’s utterly fascinating because it’s a behavior that we didn’t think any species except humans were capable of.
My only criticism of this book was that the latter half was almost entirely a thesis on the author’s theories of consciousness. I tried so hard to follow along but I was lost. It was too meandering for me. I couldn’t follow the author’s logic or train of thought and ended up lost in the weeds. This confusion notwithstanding the book was an excellent read. It only deepened my curiosity about octopuses and reaffirmed my belief that, perhaps, they are even more intelligent than we are as a species.
“The mind evolved in the sea. Water made it possible.”