Matthew Royal reviewed Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
Review of 'Other minds' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Good insights into what the definition of intelligence can be, and identifying our own chordate biases when approaching the development of artificial intelligence.
At points, he waxes philosophical, but never very deeply. I'd be more interested in examining how our monolithic human brain biases us when we think about our thoughts, our bodies, or intelligence. Explore the idea that our integrated subjective experience called "consciousness" is largely independent of our body's mechanisms for deciding to lift our arms or move toward food, as measured by neuroscientists who (perhaps wrongly) interpret it as neurological proof of our lack of "free will."
Even speculation into octopus qualia -- what does it feel like to be an octopus with semi-autonomous limbs -- or perhaps some thought experiments drawing analogies between human patients with inactivated brain regions vs an octopus with missing limbs.
Interesting, if a bit unfocused. The news that cephalopods use extensive …
Good insights into what the definition of intelligence can be, and identifying our own chordate biases when approaching the development of artificial intelligence.
At points, he waxes philosophical, but never very deeply. I'd be more interested in examining how our monolithic human brain biases us when we think about our thoughts, our bodies, or intelligence. Explore the idea that our integrated subjective experience called "consciousness" is largely independent of our body's mechanisms for deciding to lift our arms or move toward food, as measured by neuroscientists who (perhaps wrongly) interpret it as neurological proof of our lack of "free will."
Even speculation into octopus qualia -- what does it feel like to be an octopus with semi-autonomous limbs -- or perhaps some thought experiments drawing analogies between human patients with inactivated brain regions vs an octopus with missing limbs.
Interesting, if a bit unfocused. The news that cephalopods use extensive RNA editing to modify their brain structure came out about 4-5 months after this book was published, but I can't help but feeling that the author tilted more toward the side of diving into the water and playing with them to collect fun stories rather than toward the side of studying them in a lab and understanding the underlying physical mechanics. Even Disney in the movie "Finding Dory" spent considerable time writing software to simulate the physics and autonomy of Hank the octopus's limbs.
