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

    • Title:Other minds : the octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness / Peter Godfrey-Smith.
    •    
    • Variant Title:Octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness
    • Author/Creator:Godfrey-Smith, Peter, author.
    • Published/Created:New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.
      ©2016
    • Holdings

       
    • Library of Congress Subjects:Nervous system--Evolution.
      Consciousness.
      Cephalopoda--Behavior.
      Cephalopoda--Psychology.
    • Medical Subjects: Brain--physiology.
      Cognition--physiology.
      Biological Evolution.
    • Edition:First edition.
    • Description:x, 255 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm
    • Summary:"Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this book, he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself. Mammals and birds are widely seen as the smartest creatures on earth. But one other branch of the tree of life has also sprouted surprising intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. New research shows that these marvelous creatures display remarkable gifts. What does it mean that intelligence on earth has evolved not once but twice? And that the mind of the octopus is nonetheless so different from our own? Combining science and philosophy with firsthand accounts of his cephalopod encounters, Godfrey-Smith shows how primitive organisms bobbing in the ocean began sending signals to each other and how these early forms of communication gave rise to the advanced nervous systems that permit cephalopods to change colors and human beings to speak. By tracing the problem of consciousness back to its roots and comparing the human brain to its most alien and perhaps most remarkable animal relative, Godfrey-Smith's Other Minds sheds new light on one of our most abiding mysteries." -- Goodreads.com summary.
    • Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
    • ISBN:9780374227760 hardcover
      0374227764 hardcover
      9780374712808 electronic book
      0374712808 electronic book
    • Contents: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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