Other Minds

My low rating may well be unfairly swayed by the fact that I bought this hoping for more of a study of octopuses specifically, and this book was about ‘intelligence' more generally and looking at the different types of intelligence that evolution has ended up creating. There are a few anecdotal stories about octopuses escaping their tanks to eat fish and some discussion of how they can change their skin colour but they are all too brief. The rest of the book deals more in the current scientific understandings of what intelligence means and how it might have evolved and while interesting, not really what I was looking for.

The author's style was a bit wishy washy. He often referenced research in passing but didn't offer any details about the experiments or how they worked, leaving you wanting more, and sometimes unclear as to how these unexplained studies actually related to the points he was trying to make.

For example:

rats with a severed spinal cord, and hence no channel from the site of body damage to the brain, can exhibit some of what looks like “pain behavior,” and can even show a form of learning that responds to the damage

An exploration of the minds of cephalopods (octopus, cuttlefish, squid) who are among the smartest creatures in the animal kingdom, while also being furthest removed from human brains, on the evolutionary tree of origin. Which makes them the most interesting “other minds” around, to study.

All the anecdotal descriptions of the cephalopod world, their sneaky behaviors, their watchful eyes, their forming of underwater society octopolis, and many more, were fascinating. The image of the lab-kept octopus with an attitude, who rejected its unsatisfactory meal by demonstratively dropping it into the tank's filter drain, while also making sure that the keeper watched, will definitely stick :)

It's also interesting to learn about the octopus's distributed neural system, and their color-changing and color-sensing skin. Such a crime that most of these fascinating creatures only get to live 2-3 years. All in all good read, but the book slightly lost me when it left the octopi world and dug more into general theories of consciousness.

Fascinating material, greatly enhanced by the author's diving experiences. Thought-provoking questions on the origins and purposes of communication and on the multiple independent origins (twice? possibly three times?) of intelligence. Mind-boggling facts (new to me) about octopus and cuttlefish behavior. Unfortunately, although the title promises an exploration of consciousness, I don't think there was much treatment of that question. I also found the editing somewhat lax: frequent disjointed thematic jumps, even mid-paragraph, requiring some mental gymnastics to reorient. Even so, I highly recommend this book as a way to learn more about our world and our selves.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, the premise of it seemed fascinating especially to someone like myself who has a fondness for marine life and has a background in biology, the octopus is even one of my favorite animals. Unfortunately the author didn't stayed academically focused and that's where it lost my interest. The author seemed to talk more about himself and personal experiences than what I thought the book would contain and it wasn't exactly what I signed up for. I made it about half way before giving up on this. Reading through other reviews it seems I'm not alone.

Surely this is one of the best book I've ever read about neuroscience, cosciousness, animal behavior and philosophy. I am usually a little bit skeptical about neuroscience books written by philosophers who just choose scientific results relevant to their theories. I prefer to read books about scientist. However, after reading this book, I think philosopher can give a great contribution to neuroscience even if this contribution has to be taken cautiously as not to cause prejudices. About this book, it is full of inspiring points about cosciousness related to animal behavior and humans.
Really worthy to read.