Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith – Book Review

I teetered on the edge of giving this a four instead of a three but it’s not quite there. Still a fascinating book and you won’t look at an octopus the same afterwards. The author takes us on an exploration under the sea to explore the private lives of the octopus (and to some extent cuttlefish and squid). From their bizarre behaviour of hand-holding to lightbulb stealing we…

…are informed how the mind of an octopus actually works and the book enticingly suggests that it’s probably the closest we can get to understanding the mind of an alien.

We are given an advanced though not overly complicated background in how the octopus and other cephalopods first came to be and how it relates to us in the tree of life. From this, and interweaved with various anecdotes, Mr Godfrey-Smith looks at the various parts of an octopus and bit by bit gives us a greater picture of how everything about it works and how the animal uses this to perceive and alter the world around it.

It is all quite fascinating. The ability of an octopus to recognise different humans even when they are all wearing the same clothes springs to mind. Likewise it’s ability to produce colours on it’s body that, as far as we know, are colours it can’t actually see. The passion and enthusiasm of the author for his subject are evident, however, it slightly on occasion falls into the sensation of being mildly dry. Not always. And in fact some complex topics are explained quite well. That occasional hint of dry is what stops it from getting a four out of five from me, but still an interesting read.

Score: 3 / 5