Audiobook narrated by Mitch Riley & Peter Godfrey-Smith.

I listened to Other Minds by the author a while back and enjoyed his take on the lives and experiences of octopuses and their near kin so when this book came up I thought I'd give it a listen.

- Lots of detail and complex thought chains. This book delves into philosophy, anatomy, biology, physics and other areas in search of what it means to have a mind. Lots of options are explored and debated well and we'll referenced.

- I enjoyed that we started with earlier life forms from pre-Ediacaran life right through to the modern day, with a good portion focused on earlier life forms and their modern day equivalents/descendents. Discussion of whether their nervous systems, sensory inputs, memory abilities, ability to learn gave them a mind, sentience or conciousness was in depth and well rounded.

- Whilst the above points were both good, audiobook was definitely not the format to ingest this book. If I hadn't already had a basic grasp of a lot of the concepts I would have been thoroughly lost and not having the ability to flick back and reread a section had a negative impact her. Also, due to the complexity of the subject matter at times my brain would skip over bits and I would miss certain points.

Those interested in animal development, ancient life, discussions on the nature of sentience would enjoy this book but I would highly recommend getting it in a physical format.