This is Philosophy Bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warburton. Philosophy Bites is available at

www.philosophybites.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, intelligence and sentience have evolved.

Peter Goughrey Smith, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

It's a pleasure to be here.

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?

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. I mean, the first thing you notice about them is the extraordinary

colour changes and just how beautiful and weird they are,

this sort of living video screen animal that looks a bit like a 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 you don't have the bubbles.

A lot of individual differences, but they have a kind of engagement, an inquisitive way of being.

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