paperback, 336 pages
Published Oct. 25, 2021 by William Collins.
Dip below the ocean’s surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms, whose rooted bodies, intricate geometry, and flower-like appendages are more reminiscent of plant life or even architecture than anything recognizably animal. Yet these creatures are our cousins. As fellow members of the animal kingdom—the Metazoa—they can teach us much about the evolutionary origins of not only our bodies, but also our minds. In his acclaimed 2016 book, Other Minds, the philosopher and scuba diver Peter Godfrey-Smith explored the mind of the octopus—the closest thing to an intelligent alien on Earth. In Metazoa, Godfrey-Smith expands his inquiry to animals at large, investigating the evolution of subjective experience with the assistance of far-flung species. As he delves into what it feels like to perceive and interact with the world as other life-forms …
Dip below the ocean’s surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms, whose rooted bodies, intricate geometry, and flower-like appendages are more reminiscent of plant life or even architecture than anything recognizably animal. Yet these creatures are our cousins. As fellow members of the animal kingdom—the Metazoa—they can teach us much about the evolutionary origins of not only our bodies, but also our minds. In his acclaimed 2016 book, Other Minds, the philosopher and scuba diver Peter Godfrey-Smith explored the mind of the octopus—the closest thing to an intelligent alien on Earth. In Metazoa, Godfrey-Smith expands his inquiry to animals at large, investigating the evolution of subjective experience with the assistance of far-flung species. As he delves into what it feels like to perceive and interact with the world as other life-forms do, Godfrey-Smith shows that the appearance of the animal body well over half a billion years ago was a profound innovation that set life upon a new path. In accessible, riveting prose, he charts the ways that subsequent evolutionary developments—eyes that track, for example, and bodies that move through and manipulate the environment—shaped the subjective lives of animals. Following the evolutionary paths of a glass sponge, soft coral, banded shrimp, octopus, and fish, then moving onto land and the world of insects, birds, and primates like ourselves, Metazoa gathers their stories together in a way that bridges the gap between mind and matter, addressing one of the most vexing philosophical problems: that of consciousness.
Combining vivid animal encounters with philosophical reflections and the latest news from biology, Metazoa reveals that even in our high-tech, AI-driven times, there is no understanding our minds without understanding nerves, muscles, and active bodies. The story that results is as rich and vibrant as life itself.
Excellent book on the theory of consciousness in the animal kingdom. Mostly focused on cephalopods. A bit similar to other works by the author. Makes the case for limiting animal experiments.
Нудятина страшная, могло бы быть тезисно изложено в десятистраничной статье и ничего б не потеряло.
Глава про осьминогов крутая только, но это практически небольшое включение из другой его книги, полностью им посвященной (в десять раз интереснее).
Dr. Godfrey-Smith is an Australian scuba diver who was trained as a philosopher of science and is the author of Other minds about the probable sentience of cephalopods. This book is a discussion of the notion that sentience or consciousness was acquired gradually, i.e. not as an all or none phenomenon, by animals as they evolved new kinds of senses and actions over time, and especially as they developed nervous systems. Furthermore, not only did consciousness develop in this way, but it exists today in various degrees in non-human animals.
The strength of the book is the author's fascinating description of various mostly sea creatures and his personal observations of their behaviors. Other less interesting parts of the book that are about theories of consciousness, including mention of neuronal oscillations and the generation of energy fields, are necessarily vague and require some hand-waving in their exposition.
