Before the explosions of body plans in the Cambrian, the Ediacaran fauna consisted mostly of mats of bacteria and algae grazed by crawling invertebrates-a seemingly tranquil tableau dubbed the Garden of Ediacara by one author. To make the reader appreciate just how different their intelligence is, Godfrey-Smith therefore first takes the reader down the evolutionary tree of life, back to our last common ancestor some 600 million years ago. But if like me, you have not read up on the more technical literature on their behaviour and cognition, it is hard to really fathom the octopus. And lacking a true case of “first contact”, Russel Powell mentioned in Contingency and Convergence that coleoid cephalopod mollusks “ are rightfully considered intelligent aliens on Earth” (his p.

Sy Montgomery’s incredibly touching The Soul of an Octopus, which I read some years ago, only added to this impression. Stories from aquarium owners and results from behavioural experiments make for popular fodder in (science) news outlets. It is hard not to be familiar with at least anecdotal evidence that octopuses are unusually smart and inventive creatures. Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life, written by Peter Godfrey-Smith, published in Europe by William Collins (a HarperCollins imprint) in March 2018 (paperback, 263 pages)

Other minds peter godfrey