Metazoa is a science book by author Peter Godfrey-Smith.
The diving philosopher who wrote Other Minds explores the origins of animal consciousness.

As you dive below the surface of the ocean, you’ll soon be confronted by life forms that seem almost impossible to be alien to us: sponges, soft corals and serpulid worms, species with rhizomes, complex geometries, and complex geometries. The complex and flower-like appendages are more reminiscent of plant life or even architecture than anything recognizable as an animal. These creatures are our cousins. As members of the same animal kingdom — Metazoa — they can teach us a lot about the evolutionary origins of not only our bodies but also our minds.

In his popular 2016 book, Other Minds, philosopher and diver Peter Godfrey-Smith explored the mind of an octopus — the closest thing to an intelligent alien on Earth. In Metazoa, Godfrey-Smith extended his research to animals in general, investigating the evolution of subjective experience with the aid of distant species. Godfrey-Smith shows that the emergence of the animal body more than half a billion years ago was a profound innovation that set life on a new epoch. Metazoa brings their stories together in a way that bridges the gap between mind and matter, solving one of the most vexing philosophical problems: consciousness.

Metazoa reveals that even in a high-tech, AI-driven age, it is impossible to understand our minds without understanding how our nerves, muscles, and bodies work. The result is a story as rich and vivid as life itself.

As other books by Peter Godfrey-Smith, he both educates you and makes you think. His familiarity with the real world of observational biology and also of the world of philosophy makes me highly respect his writings and this one does not disappoint. A thoughtful analysis of the evolutionary aspects of the development of consciousness and aspects of “mind” in relation to the evolutionary aspects of the neural system.

• Metazoa

• Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind
• By: Peter Godfrey-Smith

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