Listening to Godfrey-Smith’s exploration of animal consciousness will rattle every nook and cranny of your brain with an onslaught of interesting questions. How does the flow of electrons in an electrical circuit differ from the electricity coursing through an animal’s nervous system? Where is the boundary between animal instinct and intention? What constitutes agency, individualism, or intelligence in animals? Narrator Mitch Riley presents these philosophical questions at the perfect pace for pondering. Riley also imparts the author’s enthusiasm and humor when interacting with “implausible animals” like sea sponges, octopuses, and banded shrimp. The author’s clever use of visual metaphors and images from art and architecture makes for a seamless translation into the audio format. By carefully dissecting the evolutionary building blocks of consciousness, the author leaves listeners with a radical new perspective on animal minds. J.T. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
This program is read by Peter Godfrey-Smith with Mitch Riley.
The scuba-diving philosopher who wrote Other Minds explores the origins of animal consciousness.
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.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
This program is read by Peter Godfrey-Smith with Mitch Riley.
The scuba-diving philosopher who wrote Other Minds explores the origins of animal consciousness.
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.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind
Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940177538426 |
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Publisher: | Macmillan Audio |
Publication date: | 11/10/2020 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |