The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

“humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness” and that “nonhuman animals, including all birds and mammals, and many other creatures, including octopuses [italics added], also possess these neurological substrates.”

pattern called the Lévy distribution. This search pattern is an effective way to find food, a method also known to be used by albatrosses, monkeys, and deer, and the flies made reasonable, not random, choices, too. Scientists have found similar patterns in human behavior, in the flow of e-mails, letters, and money (and, Brembs observed, in the paintings of Jackson Pollock).

“But look at all those neurons in the arms!” he said. “They may have a radically different style of psychological organization from us. Perhaps in octopus we see intelligence without a centralized self

Peter Godfrey-Smith, a philosopher who spends his summers diving around Sydney Harbor among giant cuttlefish and octopus. He describes these encounters as “like meeting an intelligent alien.”

The ocean, for me, is what LSD was to Timothy Leary. He claimed the hallucinogen is to reality what a microscope is to biology,

“The self,” Blackmore writes, “is just a fleeting impression that arises with each experience and fades away again. . . . There is no inner self,” she argues, “only multiple parallel processes that give rise to a benign inner delusion—a useful fiction.” She argues that consciousness itself is a fiction.

“Science does not need an inner self,” writes psychologist Susan Blackmore, “but most people are quite sure we are one.”

Theory of mind is considered an important component of consciousness, because it implies self-awareness. (I think this, but you might think that.) Dr

How do you plan for so many possibilities? Doing so demands, to some degree, anticipating the actions—in other words, imagining the minds—of other individuals.

“Slime doesn’t wreck anything,” I explained to Jody. “After all,” I reminded her, “slime is part of the two greatest pleasurable experiences known to humankind.”
She thought for a moment.
“What’s the other one?” she asked.
“Eating,” I replied.