This book looks at the evolution of intelligence in cephalopods (octopus and squids). It details the evidence for that intelligence and examines the implications of it occurring independently in two very different life forms. The vertebrate and cephalopod evolutionary lines diverged over 500 million years ago. Intelligence evolving in both must surely increase the chances of intelligent life occurring elsewhere in the Universe.
Cephalopods present some interesting puzzles: they have surprisingly short life spans (two to four years generally); they are colour blind, yet can camouflage themselves by changing their skin colour; the colour changes and patterns they produce seem to give a lot of information about their emotional state, yet these solitary creatures don't appear to use this for communication.
Cephalopods have a distributed neural network with 'mini brains' in their arms and live very different lives to ours. If they do have some degree of self awareness, what would their view of the world be like?
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| Slightly Washed Out Goth |
Peter Godfrey Smith: "Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins..." | Talks at Google - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iENXfnOobzw
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