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I'd have to give an anti-recommendation to this book. The author never explains his thesis and the book reads like his thesis was "Octopuses are cool" and spend
by pmb_ 4y ago
I'd have to give an anti-recommendation to this book. The author never explains his thesis and the book reads like his thesis was "Octopuses are cool" and spends the entire time listing fun facts and interesting stories about his interactions with cephalopods.
He spends very little time drawing connections to consciousness or speaking about what octopus life can tell us about consciousness. There is a whole chapter where he talks about the influence of language in human action (like self-talk), and then ends the chapter by with something like "and octopuses don't have this ability". What was the point of that whole chapter then?
Maybe my expectations were miscalibrated, and I thought he would spend more time drawing connections between octopuses and humans, and what those similarities could tell us about consciousness. Instead of that, the writing about consciousness in this book is quite shallow.
- xcambar 4y agoIs there a book or resource you would recommend then?
- pmb_ 4y agoIf you're just curious about octopuses, I think you can probably learn much more in much less time by doing your own research and finding articles like this. If you're more interested in consciousness a good place to start is "Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind" by Annaka Harris.
- comboy 4y agoSame. I had huge expectations. Basically what you learn is that octopuses are intelligent and for a long time we didn't realize because they are smart enough to know they are in custody when we catch them and they're pretty social. I mean, it's OK, but the whole book feels a bit like a preface to the thing which never came.
- JadeNB 4y ago> the book reads like his thesis was "Octopuses are cool" and spends the entire time listing fun facts and interesting stories about his interactions with cephalopods. That sounds like a recommendation to me!
- eyelidlessness 4y agoAgreed! My curiosity was piqued by OP, but this description is what actually convinced me to buy the book.
- pmb_ 4y agoThere are certainly good reasons to like it and it is highly rated on goodreads, it just wasn't my thing.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoWell thank you for the anti-recommendation! I’m looking forward to reading it. I get that it wasn’t your thing, but your description sounds very much up my alley and I hope I can enjoy what you didn’t.
- Matumio 4y agoHaving read that book, yes, "Octopuses are cool" is a pretty good summary. It's worth reading it for that. On the biology part, if you never have heard of terms like "efference copy" it will be interesting food for thought about what consciousness might be, but no "solution" really. And you'll learn that an octopus is a ten megapixel screen, but that's just the first point again. If you only want that first point, there is also a "My Octopus Teacher" on Netflix, which is great in its own way. If you wanted to read about human intelligence, I suggest "The Secret of Our Success" by Henrich instead.
- threads2 4y ago> if you never have heard of terms like "efference copy" it will be interesting food for thought about what consciousness might be Can you expand on this? I think I kind of understand where you're going with this: consciousness might be an efference copy of our actions? (so our actions don't "surprise" us? rather than consciousness creating actions?)
- Matumio 4y agoNo expert, but the way I remember it from the book, it's one idea how an evolutionary path towards consciousness might start. First it's just a nerve-path to prevent flinching back from the contact with something you wanted to manipulate. But once you have a fancy neural path that tells the visual cortex what light/objects to expect after you move your head left/right (maybe flee if it's unexpected), it's only a small evolutionary step to re-purpose this path, "execute" the same path while suppressing the head movement. So now you can process further what you are expecting if you move left vs right. Which could be interpreted as a step towards being conscious of your surroundings. (This is not 100% what the book says, but the idea I got from that chapter.)
- hbarka 4y agoI mean even for humans consciousness has been a mystery. I throw, therefore I am.