This is the John Fugel-Sang Podcast.

What does the word sentient mean?

Does it mean that our ability to experience the world to feel the world

is sentients the same as being conscious I mean does it simply describe the senses

or does it pertain to the way we experience what we call reality?

These are big questions and there is a wonderful, accessible, brilliant delightful book by Jackie Higgins who went to Oxford and his work for Oxford scientific films for over a decade along with National Geographic, PBS Nova, Discovery Channel.

She's written and directed and produced films at BBC Science.

Her new book, Sentient,

How Animals Illuminate The Wonder of Our Human Senses

is an absolutely fascinating look,

not just at the natural world but about existence itself and how

living things experience it. It is such a great pleasure to welcome Jackie

Higgins and let me begin by thanking you for making these big concepts so tangible

to my tiny American mind.

Welcome.

Yeah, John, thank you so much for having me.

It's an absolute pleasure to be here and I'm really excited about the conversation

we're about to have. As am I because this book is delightful I said to you in the break I'm recommending this to all my

believer friends all my atheist friends my conservative friends, my conservative loved ones, you

point out in the book that it's really Aristotle who first declared that we humans have

five senses. That's it, those five. Some of us believe maybe there's a sixth and

over the centuries we as a species haven't really wavered from that belief very much

...