Other Minds

This book by Peter Godfrey-Smith came up once on Diary of a CEO in the episodes we index. That mention was a genuine on-air recommendation, not just a passing reference. The people who brought it up: Johann Hari. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.

"Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this book, he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself. Mammals and birds are widely seen as the smartest creatures on earth. But one other branch of the tree of life has also sprouted surprising intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. New research shows that these marvelous creatures display remarkable gifts.