Peter Godfrey Smith is famous for his work on understanding the minds of other animals, particularly octopuses. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast he discusses animal minds with Nigel Warburton.
This is Philosophy Bites with me, David.
Edmonds and me, Nigel Warburton.
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peter Godfrey Smith is known for his deep dives into philosophy, literally in a wetsuit.
He's written a series of books about the minds of other non human animals, including octopuses.
What fascinates him is why and how consciousness, intelligence and sentience have evolved.
Peter Godfrey Smith, welcome to Philosophy Bites.
It's a pleasure to be here.
We're going to focus on understanding minds.
You strike me as quite unusual in that you do philosophy in a wetsuit.
Could you say something about that?
Sure.
That really did begin in a way that was fortuitous and not planned.
I was spending a bit more time back in Australia when I was working at one point in the US and when I was back in Australia spending a bit more time in the water.
I've always liked a bit of diving, but never took it that seriously or saw it as much connected to my academic work.
And then I began encountering some particular animals, the giant cuttlefish in particular.
And that process really did change everything for me because these were animals, the first thing you notice about them is the extraordinary color changes and just how beautiful and weird they are.
This living video screen animal that looks a bit like an octopus attached to a turtle or something like that.
And the next thing you notice in some cases is the fact that they're interested in a human, in a diver, or actually ideally a snorkeler, because the.
You don't have the bubbles.