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:

“I came across the octopuses by chance, by spending time in the water. I began following them around, and eventually started thinking about their lives. After all, the sea is the original home of the mind, at least in its first faint forms.”

Professor Godfrey-Smith 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. He 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.

In this second episode, he explores what is known about octopus intelligence.

“Octopuses in at least two aquariums have learned to turn off the lights by squirting jets of water at the bulbs when no one is watching, and short-circuiting the power supply. And an octopus took such a dislike to one member of the lab staff that whenever that person passed by she received a jet of half a gallon of water in the back of her neck.”

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

Read by Tim McInnerny
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
Sound design by Chris Maclean
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4 Show less