Just read this old-school sci-fi gem I found in a vintage bookstore in Bologna, where a Practical Philosopher Corps is deployed across the galaxy to assess sentience and cognition in alien species. I guess the dream job for @birchlse.bsky.social @petergs.bsky.social

Driving down the east side of the Sierra Nevadas a few weeks ago. I keep coming back here.

In the @nybooks.com, a review by Verlyn Klinkenborg of all three books of the 'Other Minds' trilogy, plus David Scheel's octopus book and one by Craig Foster (of 'My Octopus Teacher'). Quite an armful. (Image by Jason Logan.) 1/ www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Australian whale populations – what a pleasure to read this.

Weather coming in over Eagle Lake, (California, near Tahoe), last week.

"Living on Earth: Life, Consciousness and the Making of the Natural World" by @petergs.bsky.social (published by William Collins) has been shortlisted for the 2025 Nayef Al-Rodhan International Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy. Learn more: royalinstitutephilosophy.org/news/shortli...

A century in the making - this week's University of Virginia conference on John Dewey's "Experience and Nature" (1925). A majestic, frustrating, (endless) book. Event organized by @cbarzun.bsky.social www.law.virginia.edu/event/sympos... 1/

Come to Melbourne for the 2025 Conference of the Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology Check out the great keynotes - submit your abstract Come join this exciting community of researchers Nov 24-25 - Register now! #philosophy #neuroskyence #philsky sites.google.com/monash.edu/a...

Later this month I am giving the 2025 Howison Lecture at UC Berkeley. "Evolution and Animal Minds." It will have quite a lot on recent work looking at play and dreams in nonhumans. 1/

One of a quartet of gang-gang cockatoos that came to visit last week. Very uncommon visitors, very welcome.

A good AI piece by James Gleick at @nybooks.com Aghast, for good reason, at what's happening. My only objection: a title unfair to parrots. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

A Giant Cuttlefish at Cabbage Tree Bay (the "Bower" dive site, Australia) last month. Perfect conditions that day. I wrote a blog post about the encounters: metazoan.net/124-bower-cu... One very relaxed cuttlefish, one very wild one.

Summer reading from the radio station KQED (@kqedarts.bsky.social) – *all* of the 'Other Minds' trilogy. www.kqed.org/forum/201010...

I saw the movie "DJ Ahmet" the other day (part of Sydney Film Festival). An absolute delight. Made by Georgi Unkovski. About a world combining TikTok and techno with arranged marriage [what a blight that practice is], and the call to prayer. Highly recommended if you get the chance.

🧵 I see my book Becoming Earth as one part of a larger emerging movement: a resurgence of holistic, planetary-scale thinking; an evolving Gaia as a modern coevolutionary framework for understanding Earth; and a renewed recognition of the animacy, agency, and rights of more-than-human living systems

📽️ The recording of the Sir Karl Popper Memorial Lecture 2025 by @petergs.bsky.social on freedom and tolerance is now available online! Watch it here: www.youtube.com/live/1TWy0xa...

Later today (London) is my Karl Popper Memorial Lecture at the LSE. (Also zoomable.) www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2025/...

The @newyorker.com's "Book Currents" has a conversation with me about three cephalopod-centered novels, in different styles: Ray Naylor's "The Mountain in the Sea," @aptshadow.bsky.social‬'s "Children of Ruin," and China Mieville's "Kraken." 1/ www.newyorker.com/books/book-c...

This event (London and hybrid, Wednesday) now has a suitable image. (Nudibranchs of the Armina genus, waltzing.) Good topic, very good line-up. www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/e...

I saw the new David Attenborough film "Ocean" yesterday. Very good, as always. A major point of agreement: the emphasis on marine reserves. Even small reserves can have dramatic effects..🧵 1/ www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ma...

Join us for the Sir Karl Popper Memorial Lecture 2025! Peter Godfrey-Smith @petergs.bsky.social will talk about tolerance and the freedom of expression. 📅 2 June 2025 - 6:30pm (London time) Hybrid and open to all! More about the event and link to the live stream: www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2025/...

In ch.7 of "Living on Earth," I single out US beagle experiments (toxicology especially) as among the worst forms of abuse of animals in science. Some discussion in the main text, more in the notes (see below). I didn't realize then that the NIH itself had a beagle lab on its main campus.. 🧵 1/

Please join me, @petergs.bsky.social, @jeffsebo.bsky.social, @aliboyle.bsky.social, Marta Halina, Nick Shea and Matt Sims online or in London, 28 May, for Grades of Mind: Agency, Memory, Sentience - a workshop so interesting it doesn't need a relevant image. www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/e...

A photo from my Royce Lectures at Brown (taken by Alison Simmons) that has the outline of all three lectures in the background. Life & Mind; Evolution & Goals; Biology & Idealism.

One of the outcomes of the Australian federal election. Much credit to @animalsaustralia.org. They worked hard for this.

Royce Lecture 3 - the last one. Collage of some slides. The role of (metabolic) life in consequence etiologies; information as an ingredient; panpsychism; the objective idealist tradition & Dewey's critique. Thanks again to Brown U. Philosophy.

Royce Lecture 2: "Evolution and Goals." A collage of some slides. "Consequence etiologies" in minimal and richer forms, feedback, and a bit of bee sentience continuing from lecture 1.

Royce Lecture 1, "Life and Mind." A collage of some slides. Haeckel (and a seeing cyanobacterium) on the left; Hans Jonas on the right. ...

From tomorrow - the Josiah Royce Lectures at Brown. Apt choice by Brown Philosophy of the photo of me in a western shirt. Royce was born in Grass Valley in the Sierra foothills (California), in 1855.

Details below for the Royce Lectures next week at Brown University (Providence, RI). IRL only as far as I know. Life, mind, teleology, idealism. Links: philosophy.brown.edu/events www.apaonline.org/news/698322/...

Five years and a bit since the start of the Australian Covid lockdowns. Photo below by Luke Kelly, which I included in a series of initial blog posts, March to April 2020. The main post: metazoan.net/81-the-lockd... The one with the photo and its context: metazoan.net/82-from-the-... 1/ 🧵

I am going through old photos of the "Octopolis" site (Booderee National Park, Australia) to find a few for a museum show in Italy. I'll post some out-takes here. This is from 2015 - a peak time. We remain very interested in these arm-raises. Sometimes they touch another octo, sometimes not.

A good conversation with @seanmcarroll.bsky.social.

New Q&A with @ayjchan.bsky.social in @bostonmagazine.bsky.social. Covid origins 5 years on, & her experience pressing for the lab-leak option to be taken seriously. www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2025/03... Chan has been impressive all through this period - measured in conclusions, always civil.. 🧵1/

New England folks: @petergs.bsky.social will be giving the Josiah Royce Lectureship on the Philosophy of Mind @ Brown on April 22, 23, & 24th #philsky #philsci #evobio #cogsci

This paper about tolerance is from about 5 years back, written with Ben Kerr. Looks at 'tolerating the intolerant' as a political question. I'm returning to this topic in talks, one this week at Sydney, a second in the UK in June. Preprint here: petergodfreysmith.com/wp-content/u... 🧵 1/

The previous post was about a recent trip to the "Octopolis" site, where things are pretty quiet (2 octos). I noted that things have been very quiet before and recovered. This video screenshot is from a blog post about such a time. 🧵 The photo is from 2013. 1/

A trip back to the "Octopolis" site, with Matt Lawrence who took this (GoPro) photo. A very engaging octopus. The site itself (formerly high density, central to the book "Other Minds") is quiet. Only two octopuses present. But a lot of fresh shells, enough to seem at odds with the low numbers. 1/

Reposting a review of a trio of animal minds books in the @nybooks.com last year - presently with no paywall. "Visible and Invisible Worlds." www.nybooks.com/articles/202... Books by @edyong209.bsky.social, Jackie Higgins, David Peña-Guzmán. Senses, dreams, the 'Umwelt,' animal experimentation.

A BBC article on loners among animals (very rich with examples) by Katya Zimmer. www.bbc.com/future/artic... Features one of my favorite octopus portraits, via discussion of the 'Octopolis' site. Also a good deal about tortoises, & the work of @coldbloodedcog.bsky.social.

A report of "voluntary passive movement" - a form of play - in fruit flies. 🧵 Voluntary passive play: an example in humans is riding a carousel. Also seen in flies. Via @wolfhuette.bsky.social and collaborators. www.cell.com/current-biol... 1/

Gloomy octopus. Hunkered down in the soft coral at Nelson Bay (Australia). Messing about with a rock.

Graphium macleayanum, I think. Though I'm not too good with butterflies. Some have the red stripe and others don't - not sure if it's a sign of sex, maturity, etc. A GT stripe. (Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah.)

In Living on Earth, @petergs.bsky.social argues that life doesn't just adapt to Earth—it actively shapes it. From forests to coral reefs, organisms transform their environments, influencing evolution and planetary systems. He explores how consciousness and agency emerge through these interactions.

Having a look around here...