Jack’s Reviews > Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind > Status Update

“fish have learned to differentiate between different styles of music”

“we should at least consider the possibility that the octopus is a being of multiple selves”

“sea horses would float up like porcelain birds”

“…when [animals] evolved multicellular sensing: encouraging parts of their bodies to become maps or reflections of fragments of their surroundings”

“that is the arthropod way of evolving. when in doubt, add some legs. add some spatulas to your head!”

“when we build a computer we build something that will be distracted as little as possible by the undirected ruminations of its chemistry” I LOVE THIS BOOK

“if bacteria invented transistors what were they doing with them? why did they need to control electricity with electricity?”

“at this scale activity arises spontaneously without being made to happen”

“Somehow, a part of the world’s often mindless activity folded itself into minds”