ANOTHER MIND: How the Evolution of Consciousness Changes and Controls Our Planet
Peter Godfrey-Smith is a professor at the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. Photo: Daniel Boud / petergodfreysmith.com
It is possible that humans are not the only intelligent beings on our planet. This is the conclusion drawn by Peter Godfrey-Smith, who studies the evolution of consciousness, intelligence, and perception. However, humans are the only species acting as agents of planetary change, striving for total control over all living things. Without acknowledging their human responsibility, the evolution of consciousness could lead to a global catastrophe.
DIFFERENT WAYS OF BEING INTELLIGENT
Peter Godfrey-Smith is a renowned Australian scientist and professor of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Sydney. He has previously collaborated with Harvard, Stanford, the University of California, and the Australian National University. His primary field of research focuses on the evolution of consciousness in the animal kingdom.
His books present astonishing facts collected through his observations of birds, fish, mollusks, and their environments. Godfrey-Smith believes that humans are not the only intelligent beings on the planet. Earth is home to a multitude of different intelligences, distinct from humankind, a reality that humanity must take into account in its activities.
Godfrey-Smith’s new book, published in 2024, is titled Living on Earth: Life, Consciousness, and the Making of the Natural World. It is essentially a philosophical meditation on life, intelligence, the world, and our place within it, continuing the themes explored in his previous works, Other Minds (2016) and Metazoa (2020).
In studying the cognition and evolution of octopuses, Godfrey-Smith sought to understand the subjective experience of animals. He concluded that there exists a «non-human way of being» parallel to human existence, one that emerges from the integration of sensory information within nervous systems.
INTELLECTUALS OF THE UNDERWATER WORLD
Sensitivity and subjectivity are widespread throughout the tree of life. They create life-shaping combinations of perception, goals, and values, allowing us to speak of the intelligence inherent in all living things. For example, Peter Godfrey-Smith’s beloved octopuses are true intellectuals of the underwater world, rivaling primates, dolphins, and crows — and perhaps even us.
What sets them apart is their extraordinarily complex, highly conscious, and even superhuman behavior (unsurprising, given that octopuses live with three hearts), their incredible ability to mimic both living and non-living surroundings, eyes as sophisticated as those of humans, and as many as five brains: in addition to the central brain, each tentacle contains its own neuron-rich mini-brain.
Understanding what it means to be an intelligent octopus is challenging for an intelligent human because their evolutionary path to consciousness has clearly diverged in a unique direction. Unlike the human nervous system, octopus nerve fibers lack the myelin sheath that insulates nerves from one another.
Without myelin, neuronal chaos and a breakdown of bodily coordination would occur — something akin to multiple sclerosis. However, nature has somehow enabled the octopus to harmonize its biological systems without this insulating layer.
ONCE LIFE EMERGED, IT CHANGED EARTH
In his new book, Godfrey-Smith explores the question of how the intelligence and activity of living beings have influenced Earth. After all, we can clearly see the transformative power of human intelligence on the planet. He suggests that the history of life is not just a sequence of new beings appearing one after another on the planetary stage.
«New arrivals change the stage itself», Godfrey-Smith asserts. Even the earliest forms of life began altering the planet’s chemistry and geology to suit themselves. When bacteria mastered photosynthesis, they released increasing amounts of oxygen, which eventually spread across the entire Earth. This activity left its mark on mountain formations and even gave rise to new minerals such as malachite.
When oxygen accumulated in sufficient quantities, it triggered the rapid evolution of aerobic life. This is a vivid example of how one evolutionary lineage transforms the environment, creating conditions for the flourishing of others. At a certain point, these changes led to the emergence of animals — creatures capable of purposeful actions such as seeking food, interacting with others, and gathering and processing information. This signified even greater transformations for Earth.
Over time, animals gained more control over their behavior, which also meant a greater ability to actively shape their environment. For instance, the excretions of whales during their migrations redistribute nutrients in aquatic ecosystems.
This process supports other species within the food chain and ultimately benefits the whales themselves. Doesn’t this resemble how farmers fertilize their fields?
COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE
Peter Godfrey-Smith places particular emphasis on the complex communication systems that have developed in the natural world. For example, consider the extraordinary mimicry of the lyrebird, which it uses in tropical forests to attract mates. With astonishing speed, it assumes dozens of roles — imitating black cockatoos, laughing kookaburras, magpies, and other birds. Similarly, fork-tailed drongos mimic alarm calls of other species to deceive them and steal their food.
This suggests that living creatures may have their own species-specific «ethics». In any case, the ability to deceive and trick, just like the ability to be honest and adhere to social rules, is not an exclusively human trait. It represents a highly complex behavioral transformation that can constantly reshape the visual and auditory environment.
Culture, as a communication system distinguishing right from wrong and good from bad, allows humans to internalize norms passed down among peers and across generations through informal or structured learning. Traces of this can already be seen in the history of early hominids.
From early childhood, humans demonstrate an awareness of rules and a readiness to engage in such learning. Godfrey-Smith argues that the ways humans help others internalize socio-cultural norms set us apart from many other species. This ability enabled us to develop unique aspects of communication — such as understanding another person’s thoughts and feelings through their words.
WITHOUT ETHICS, CHANGE AND CONTROL ARE DESTRUCTIVE
Human communities coordinate their behavior far more effectively than other species. This helps humans live in large, stationary groups. However, this high level of coordination also dramatically increases our ability to control and alter nature.
Unfortunately, this can lead not only to benefits but also to irreparable harm to living systems. Godfrey-Smith believes that humans bear responsibility for ensuring the ethicality of their forms of control and interventions in the lives of other beings. Our actions toward all forms of life must align with moral imperatives.
For instance, how ethical is modern industrial farming? The scientist specifically notes that ethical choices do not necessarily mean abandoning farming or control altogether. Instead, humans can modify their practices to make them more humane.
After all, such modifications are also part of the natural world. Ethical behavior involves supporting and protecting the lives and experiences of other species. Humans can use their agency for good, addressing the planet-scale problems they have created — such as climate change or waste that destroys ecosystems.
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