Hi there, I'm Jason Gots and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

Started in 2008, Big Think is a kind of an online think tank of important emerging ideas

from some of the most creative thinkers on the planet. On this podcast, we revisit these ideas in new ways.

Our producer surprised me and my guests

with short interview clips from Big Thinks, archives,

ideas that we didn't come here necessarily expecting to discuss.

My guest today is Peter Godfrey Smith.

He's a distinguished professor of philosophy

at the Graduate Center of the City

University of New York and a professor of the history and philosophy of science at the University

of Sydney and Australia. He has also spent a lot of time floating around in an octopus colony

in Australia studying smart cephalopods and taking photos and videos that have been used by

National Geographic.

His fascinating new book is called Other Minds, The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness.

Welcome to think again, Peter.

So let's begin with the greatest cephalopotic controversy of them all.

Octopuses versus Octopi. Octopuses versus octopi.

Octopuses is essentially correct.

So octopuses, it's not a Latin word, it's a Greek word.

So if you were going to do a classical plural, it would be octopodes.

I see.

I'm not sure if it's actually exactly the right Greek pronunciation, but it would be essentially octopodes.

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