Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind

This program is read by Peter Godfrey-Smith with Mitch Riley.

The scuba-diving philosopher who wrote Other Minds explores the origins of animal consciousness.

Dip below the ocean's surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms, whose rooted bodies, intricate geometry, and flower-like appendages are more reminiscent of plant life or even architecture than anything recognizably animal. Yet these cre...