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What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but twice?

The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?

In ‘Other Minds’, the philosopher and scuba diver Peter Godfrey-Smith explores the startling evolutionary journey of the cephalopods. It all started for him when he began scuba diving near Sydney.

Peter explores what we know about the intelligence of cephalopods, including the tricks they play on the scientists who try to study them. He looks back 600 million years, to reveal the worm-like creature which was the last common ancestor connecting us with the octopus and visits an extraordinary site off the coast of Australia, Octopolis, where the animals have developed a kind of city under the sea.

He meditates on why the octopus, with such high intelligence, lives for such a short time. And he asks us to imagine what it feels like to be an octopus, raising big questions about the nature of animal consciousness.

Peter Godfrey-Smith is a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney.

Omnibus of five parts read by Tim McInnerny

Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke.

A Loftus Media production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4, first broadcast in May 2021.