paperback, 336 pages
Published Oct. 25, 2021 by William Collins.
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.
