Peter Godfrey Smith on Understanding Minds

Summary

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Philosophy Bites: Peter Godfrey Smith on Understanding Minds

Date: January 1, 2025
Hosts: David Edmonds, Nigel Warburton
Guest: Peter Godfrey Smith

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Episode Overview

In this episode, philosophers David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton interview Peter Godfrey Smith, renowned for his work on animal consciousness—especially in octopuses and other cephalopods. The discussion delves into the philosophy of animal minds, evolutionary perspectives on intelligence and sentience, and the value of direct encounters with non-human animals. Godfrey Smith shares insights from his unique approach: philosophical reflection informed by firsthand interaction with diverse species, especially through diving and observation.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Doing Philosophy in a Wetsuit: Firsthand Encounters with Animal Minds

• Immersive Beginnings ([00:35]): Godfrey Smith recounts how unplanned diving experiences in Australia led him to encounter giant cuttlefish and octopuses, sparking a shift in his philosophical focus.
  • “These were animals… the first thing you notice about them is the extraordinary color changes and just how beautiful and weird they are… Then... they're interested in a human, in a diver, or actually ideally a snorkeler... And then... they are more closely related to oysters than to us.” (Godfrey Smith, 00:45–02:46)
  • Emphasizes the importance of moving from abstract theorizing to “particularist” engagement with real, individual animals.
• Uniqueness of Direct Observation ([03:11]):
  • Philosophers like Dretske, Millikan, and Dennett profoundly influenced Godfrey Smith, but their approach was highly abstract. Directly engaging with animals, he felt, added crucial richness.

2. Organizing Animal Minds: The Tree of Life Approach

• Evolutionary Context Matters ([05:11]):
  • Godfrey Smith organizes philosophical thinking around phylogenetic relationships—how far each species is from humans evolutionarily.
  • “Whenever you encounter an animal, you can think about the common ancestor… how far do you have to go back to get to a great, great, great grandmother of both me and this animal?” (Godfrey Smith, 05:19)
  • Similarities (like the “camera eye” in octopuses and humans) and differences (octopus’ distributed nervous system, shapeless body) are mostly products of independent evolutionary paths.
  • “If we have things in common, it's mostly because independently these have evolved on the two different lines... there's quite a long list of features in common where most of them would have been independently arising traits on both sides.” (Godfrey Smith, 06:17–07:28)

3. The Value and Limits of Firsthand Engagement

• Chaos vs. Regularity in Animal Behavior ([08:20]):
  • Reading about animal behavior in books gives a sense of patterns and predictability. In reality, behavior is messy, unpredictable, and chaotic.
  • “If you then go out and hang out with the animals described, you know, God knows what they're doing half the time. I mean, it's chaos... octopuses... are able to do new things. They have this inherent complexity in what they do, which is hard to summarize.” (Godfrey Smith, 08:41–09:42)
  • Emphasizes repeated, in-person observation—now also with birds—to better appreciate the complexity and unpredictability of animal life.

4. What Studying Other Minds Tells Us About Ourselves

• Learning About Minds in Nature ([10:27]):
  • Confronted with the question of whether studying animals teaches us about ourselves, Godfrey Smith focuses on understanding non-human minds in their own right.
  • “I'm rarely struck by a lesson about us from, from these encounters though.” (Godfrey Smith, 10:57)
  • However, acknowledges the exceptionality of human minds due to language and culture.
  • “I think that once one steps back and thinks about the similarities and differences, I have something of a human exceptionalist outlook because the role of language and culture... has very deep effects.” (Godfrey Smith, 11:28)
  • “Language is a public, cultural, interpersonal thing, essentially. But once it’s been honed and refined… it becomes an extraordinary internal resource. It becomes a gift from the public to the private.” (Godfrey Smith, 11:55)

5. Why Philosophers Have Lagged Behind Biologists

• History of Animal Minds in Philosophy ([13:43]):
  • Reminisces on the philosophical neglect of animal minds, particularly in the 1980s, but sees this gap narrowing.
  • “I look back at that time… What would the reading list be?… Very short list. I don’t think it’s a short list anymore.” (Godfrey Smith, 13:49)
• Slow Adoption of Evolutionary Context ([14:16]):
  • The dominance of philosophy of language and logic made philosophers slow to embrace evolutionary approaches to the mind.

6. Armchair Philosophy vs. Immersive Philosophy

• Theoretical vs. Empirical Engagement ([14:54]):
  • Godfrey Smith defends the value of “armchair” or purely theoretical work but says firsthand observation and immersion has uniquely enriched his own thinking.
  • “There’s a tradition of armchair theoretical biology which I would not want to slight... but for me at least... getting into the water, spending time with the individuals, I think has helped me enormously.” (Godfrey Smith, 15:10–15:46)

7. Phenomenology and Projecting Non-Human Experience

• Toward Non-Human Phenomenology ([16:19]):
  • Agrees that encounters with animals prompt us to try to imagine what their experience is like, projecting “phenomenology” beyond humans.
  • “Encounters with particular animals... will help you get beyond a human centric way of looking at that. And that’s very valuable.” (Godfrey Smith, 16:38)

8. The Deeper Value of Understanding Animal Minds

• Beyond Curiosity ([17:11]):
  • Studying animal minds goes to the heart of basic philosophical questions: “what minds are, where they are, how they arise, how they fit into the non mental world.”
  • “Those I think of as pretty close to compulsory questions in philosophy... so it never really crosses my mind to think that this might be a mere curiosity.” (Godfrey Smith, 17:11–17:32)

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Notable Quotes

• On encountering cephalopods:
  “This living video screen animal that looks a bit like an octopus attached to a turtle… they have a kind of engagement, an inquisitive way of being.” (Godfrey Smith, 01:33)
• On evolution and convergence:
  “If you meet an octopus, it has a camera eye, an eye on the same design as ours… there’s no way the common ancestor was like that… the meeting is a meeting of animals that have converged on this feature.” (Godfrey Smith, 06:17)
• On behavioral chaos:
  “If you then go out and hang out with the animals described, you know, God knows what they're doing half the time. I mean, it's chaos.” (Godfrey Smith, 08:52)
• On human exceptionality:
  “Language is a… public, cultural, interpersonal thing… But once it’s been honed… it becomes an extraordinary internal resource. It becomes a gift from the public to the private.” (Godfrey Smith, 11:55)
• On the purpose of studying minds:
  “It matters if we want to understand what minds are, where they are, how they arise, how they fit into the non mental world.” (Godfrey Smith, 17:11)

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Major Segments & Timestamps

• 00:35 – Opening remarks: Godfrey Smith on diving and beginnings of his animal focus
• 03:11 – On moving from abstract philosophy to animal-specific observations
• 05:11 – The “tree of life” as an organizing principle
• 08:20 – The value—and unpredictability—of observing real animal behavior
• 10:27 – Reflections on whether studying animals teaches us about ourselves
• 11:20 – The exceptional nature of human minds
• 13:43 – Philosophical history and the place of animal minds
• 14:54 – Value of theoretical vs. empirical work
• 16:19 – Experience and phenomenology of non-human minds
• 17:11 – Why understanding animal minds is more than a curiosity

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Memorable Moments

• “God knows what they're doing half the time. I mean, it's chaos… octopuses would be our natural teachers.” (Godfrey Smith, 08:52) — A vivid snapshot of nature’s unpredictability.
• “It becomes a gift from the public to the private.” (Godfrey Smith, 11:55) — On how language transforms thought.

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Conclusion

Peter Godfrey Smith’s work bridges philosophy, biology, and direct experience. His immersive approach champions the importance of understanding animal minds in their own right, enriching philosophical discussions about consciousness, evolution, and the diversity of minds in nature. His insistence on particulars, evolutionary context, and phenomenological projection urges philosophers to move beyond armchair speculation—without undermining its value—toward a richer appreciation of mind across the tree of life.

Transcript

[A]

This is Philosophy Bites with me, David.

[B]

Edmonds and me, Nigel Warburton.

[A]

Philosophy Bites is available at www.philosophybytes.com. peter Godfrey Smith is known for his deep dives into philosophy, literally in a wetsuit. He's written a series of books about the minds of other non human animals, including octopuses. What fascinates him is why and how consciousness is intelligence and sentience have evolved.

[B]

Peter Godfrey Smith, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

[C]

It's a pleasure to be here.

[B]

We're going to focus on understanding minds. You strike me as quite unusual in that you do philosophy in a wetsuit. Could you say something about that?

[C]

Sure. That really did begin in a way that was fortuitous and not planned. I was spending a bit more time back in Australia when I was working at one point in the US and when I was back in Australia spending a bit more time in the water. I've always liked a bit of diving, but never took it that seriously or saw it as much connected to my academic work. And then I began encountering some particular animals, the giant cuttlefish in particular. And that process really did change everything for me because these were animals, the first thing you notice about them is the extraordinary color changes and just how beautiful and weird they are. This living video screen animal that looks a bit like an octopus attached to a turtle or something like that. And the next thing you notice in some cases is the fact that they're interested in a human, in a diver, or actually ideally a snorkeler, because the. You don't have the bubbles. A lot of individual differences, but they have a kind of engagement, an inquisitive way of being. And then the third thing that one realizes is that they are more closely related to oysters than to us. They're just so far from us in evolutionary terms, miles and miles away. And that combination of features seem to me to be philosophically important. Octopuses, similar kind of thing, the engagement, the distance from us. And there's more known about octopuses. So at that point I just immediately began thinking about these particular animals. And in retrospect it seems a bit odd. I'd been doing philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind for quite a long time, doing quite a lot of work in the intersection between those two. But there were no animals that I knew well, either in a kind of face to face way or even in an academic way. I just didn't know that much about any particular animals. It was all a bit more broad and schematic. And that now seems to me to have been a bit Unfortunate. And I'm very glad that the way I do things since these encounters, it's more particular. It's more particularist in my engagement with the animals.

[B]

There is a way of doing philosophy where you start with general abstractions and then look for specific examples. But you always seem to find meaning in those encounters. In the way that you describe interactions that you've had with specific individuals. Not just species, but like, individual animals. And that seems a really rich source of thinking that we haven't really seen in philosophy. I don't know whether you have precursors in philosophy, but I can't think of anybody who does that quite with approaching the mind in that way.

[C]

I can't think of any obvious cases either, although I wouldn't want to say that there aren't, because I suspect there are. It is true that when I was making my way through thinking about the mind in evolutionary terms, people like Dretsky and Millikan and Dennett were the central figures for me. Dennett was always this giant shape in the background. But when I was writing about this stuff, Fred Zetsky and Ruth Milliken's work were often central. And they certainly have that tendency towards extreme abstraction. I would say Dretsky has some famous examples, and Milliken has some famous examples. She did things with bee dancers that were very, very smart and interesting. And Dretsky discussed bacteria in ways that were surprising. But it was in a familiarly abstract philosophical style. That's how I went along for decades. And there must be examples of people who've done things like this, but I don't really know any.

[B]

But I think it takes a philosopher to avoid the merely anecdotal. So there's a sort of issue about whether you just describe in great detail phenomena which you do. And whether you can actually connect that with evolutionary theory with existing philosophy about the nature of the mind and so on. That's where I think the intersection of those things. That's what strikes me as a highly original approach. That is very fruitful, as you've shown.

[C]

I think one way to do this that has certainly been helpful to me and has guided a lot of my work in this area, is to organize things around the tree of life, the genealogical tree. The fact of this great network of common ancestry that links not just all animals, but all life on Earth. It's animals, though, that are the important case where whenever you encounter an animal, you can think about the common ancestor, the most recent common ancestor. How far do you have to go back to get to a great, great Great grandmother of both me and this animal, there are all degrees of distance. And when we're dealing with animals that are very far from us, invertebrates, octopuses are the great case here. The tree organizes our thinking. Because you think to yourself, so much time has been spent separately on these evolutionary paths. The path leading to us, the path leading to them. If we have things in common, it's mostly because independently these have evolved on the two different lines. So the combination of similarities and differences become extremely interesting. If you meet an octopus, it has a camera eye, an eye on the same design as ours. They have a kind of inquisitive mode of engagement, which seems very human like to me, this interest in novelty, the inquisitive style. Not many animals have that kind of interest in novelty. And then you think to yourself, right, there's no way the common ancestor was like that. It was a little worm. This is something that has made sense evolutionarily on their path and made sense evolutionarily on our path. And the meeting is a meeting of animals that have converged on this feature. So there's quite a long list of features in common where most of them would have been independently arising traits on both sides. And then you have the sort of crazy differences, the weird differences, the marks of the distance between us and them, the fact that their nervous systems are largely spread through the body, the fact that their skin appears to have a kind of light sensitivity. Then you think to yourself, right, what's it like to have a body that has no fixed shape? And how does that affect the. The feedback between sensing and action? There's not a predictable shape. That is the sort of scaffold on which actions take place. An octopus can put an elbow wherever it feels like. It can be any shape at all. The tree, the differences in distance between us and other animals, I think that organizes an encounter with the individual. The individual has its richness, but you can see it in the context of the tree.

[B]

I know some philosophers will have read books about octopuses and thought about octopuses that way. What do you think comes from the actual face to face or tentacle to face interaction with an octopus that you wouldn't get from a book?

[C]

One thing I would emphasize, not just in the case of octopuses, but I think generally in the case of encounters with animals. I've come to appreciate how much more chaotic and noisy and complicated and all over the place animal behavior is. If you read an article or a book about some particular group of animals, they'll say, well, they do this, and mating works this way. And if there are contests, they work that way. Here's how they get food. You have a sense of a good deal of predictability. You know, it's to some extent inevitable in scientific writing. You're going to go for the central patterns, but if you then go out and hang out with the animals described, you know, God knows what they're doing half the time. I mean, it's chaos. Now, octopuses are an exemplary case here. If we ever needed to be taught how unpredictable and noisy and chaotic and messed up animal life in the wild is, octopuses would be our natural teachers. Because they are, in some species at least so interested in novelty, they're able to do new things. They have this inherent complexity in what they do, which is hard to summarize. But one of the things that I've begun to do as a consequence of writing the third book, especially living on Earth, spend a lot more time with birds than I used to. At a certain point I thought, I can't write another book on octopuses. I need some contrast, I need some different kinds of animals. So I've become a bit of a bird person. As with the octopuses, my preferred way of doing things is to go back to the same places over and over again. Try, if possible, to interact with the same individuals, although that's difficult, and get a sense of the patterns and a sense of the departures from patterns, the unpredictable stuff, the noisy stuff. So I think that one thing I've now got a strong appreciation of is just the sort of chaotic, noisy, all over the place ness of animal behavior in the wild.

[B]

Presumably these kind of interactions don't just throw up things about those particular individuals in the species, but by way of contrast, show up things about our own minds and how they might have evolved and how different we are from other animals.

[C]

It's natural to think that. But I don't find myself saying, yes, absolutely. You know, here's something about us, ourselves that I learned and that we can learn from hanging out with these other animals. I'm quite often asked to talk about this and I always, I find myself saying, no, I'm learning about them. And learning about them is learning about the place of the mind in the natural world, in a sense, how much of it there is around and what kind of distribution it has. I'm rarely struck by a lesson about us from, from these encounters though.

[B]

And yet you do talk about how different human beings are because of language, because of culture from other animals.

[C]

Sure, yes. I think that once one steps back and thinks about the Similarities and differences. I have something of a human exceptionalist outlook because the role of language in culture, the effects it has on our minds, I think of as very deep effects. The role of inner speech, the role of the organizing, structuring power of language in giving rise to distinctively human forms of thought. All of these things I think of as very important. There's a way, I put it in the third book, thinking about, in particular inner speech and the transforming effect it has on thought. I think of this as a kind of gift from the public to the private. Language is a public, cultural, interpersonal thing, essentially. But once it's been honed and refined and brought into existence with the complexity that it has, it becomes an extraordinary internal resource. It becomes a gift from the public to the private. Now, all this sort of thing I think of as very distinctive to humans, and I think these are features of great importance.

[B]

So when you're engaging with animals, you're not doing it with a view to finding out about how humans evolve minds, but you're understanding what's in front of you. Your prime thought is, what am I observing? Is that right?

[C]

Yes. If I spend a lot more time with non human primates, it might be different. If I spend a lot of time with chimps or with orangutans, I can well imagine going down the road that you're describing. But if you spend most of your time with octopuses, with birds and occasionally animals such as shrimp, I find myself just thinking along different lines than that.

[B]

It's fascinating because you've written a book which is essentially the philosophy of octopus minds, and there could be a book about the philosophy of bird minds, the philosophy of insect minds, the philosophy of bee minds. And yet philosophers tend to ignore those topics. They're not really major topics in the history of philosophy, even though we're surrounded by wildlife.

[C]

I think there was a period in the recent history of philosophy when things really were a little weird. In the 1980s in particular, when I was a student. I look back at that time and I think, okay, suppose I was really interested in non human animal minds. What would the reading list be have looked like? Very short list. I don't think it's a short list anymore. Now I think there's a healthy amount of interest. I no longer think there's a kind of surprising underrepresentation in philosophy of these topics.

[B]

It is weird, considering how widely adopted evolutionary theory has been since the mid 19th century that philosophers have been so slow to put their speculation about the mind in an evolutionary context.

[C]

Yes, a Lot could be attributed to the importance of language and philosophy of language, the dominance of the logic and language tradition from the beginning of the 20th century through to this time.

[B]

Do you think it's also part of this belief that you can just do your philosophy in a quiet college room? You don't actually have to go out into the world?

[C]

I do think you can do philosophy in a quiet college room and you can do biology in a quiet college room. At Harvard, I spent quite a lot of time with David Haig, who's an evolutionary biologist who thinks about behavior, thinks about genetics. And David's a good contemporary example of a person who just has a very powerful mind. I don't think he goes out into the field very much, but it hasn't stopped him doing very significant theoretical work. There's a tradition of armchair theoretical biology which I would not want to slight. You don't have to get out into the jungle to do it. Well, for me at least it is true that getting into the water, spending time with the individuals, I think has helped me enormously.

[B]

Within the continental philosophy tradition, phenomenology is really important. You give a detailed description of the richness of human experience and somehow, allegedly the essences of things will be revealed. Not a view that I subscribe to. But do you think there's a place for a richer phenomenology within philosophy? I'm asking this because I feel that that's what you're giving us with animal minds. You're giving us a richer experience of what it is like to interact with specific individual animals.

[C]

Basically, yes. I think that one of the things that it's very natural to do as a philosopher is to try to phenomenologically project a bit, try to sort of work out what experience might be like for non human animals. And when we do this, I think we tend to miss the weirdness unless we, you know, really have it sort of put in front of our faces. Encounters with particular animals when they prompt an imagining of what experience might be like for them. The encounter will help you get beyond a human centric way of looking at that. And that's very valuable.

[B]

It is absolutely fascinating to read about the minds of animals that are quite distant from us in the evolutionary terms on the tree. But does it matter beyond just of curiosity, is there something else driving this for you?

[C]

It matters if we want to understand what minds are, where they are, how they arise, how they fit into the non mental world. Those I think of as pretty close to compulsory questions in philosophy. And given that this is a contribution to pursuing those questions. So it never really crosses my mind to think that this might be a mere curiosity. It might just be a sideshow. It never seems like that.

[B]

Peter Godfrey Smith, thank you very much.

[C]

Thank you. It was a pleasure to chat again.

[A]

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