Metazoa: Animal Life And The Brith Of The Mind, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Peter Godfrey-Smith, c. 2020.
July 31, 2026: first notes taken along Sandy Creed, Oxbow Regional Park with Tim, Laura, Judah and Levi.
Books on sponges??
Huxley HMS Cyclops, 1857, North Atlantic --> 1867, Bay of Biscayne.
discovered a new kind of organism
new form named after Ernst Haeckel
Bathybius Haeckelii
Darwin's Theory -- On The Origin of Species, 1859
Haeckle -- spontaneous generation of life
Bathybiu -- bridge or line between life and dead
Interesting at that time:
Linnaeus: animal, plant, and Lapides -- rocks
kingdom kingdom -- kingdom
1670s: Leeuwen hoek
1860: John Hogg -- 4th Kingdom
Protoctista --> Protista
Then life and mind, p. 7
17th century: Aristotle overthrown by "Scientific Revolution.
Rene Descartes -- physical vs mental --> "dualism" -- p. 8
What defines life? p. 9
1870s: Bathybius -- artifact!! LOL
the bridge between life and inorganic failed
Materialist view of life -- p. 11
explains only why the view that life follows same rules of all the universe.
Ribosomes: 100 million ribosomes could fit on this period. -p. 11
So life: ot a special substance -- rather indescribaly small!!
Materialism
Evolutionary perspective-- makes dualism hard to follow (mind/physical)
Computer technology -- p. 12
the bridge made of logic rather than life, p 13.
AI!! wow p. 13 c. 2020
AI -- great leap over Covid lockdown; 2020 - 2021
Huang Jensen!!
AI -- seems to be alive!! p. 13.
software -- material / physical -- computers
brain /mind/life
software: doesn't care / matter
With AI ----------------------Mind
Materialistic consciousness
terms subjective experience
more resistant to solving
Memory
p. 13 computer-like Feels -- seems to have a mind
panpsychism
idealism
Haeckel's dualism
Information Processin
Computerlike probably
Feeling of Experince
?
p. 15: Joseph Levine" "the explanatory gap" <-- theme of book
goal: to make sense of why it feels like something to be a material being of the kind that we are ---
explain "experience in general" -- not just in humans or "higher" mammals
approach of this book: "biological materialism" -- p. 16
but broader: MONISM
physical <__________"something else"__________________>mental
Start with life minds
materialist way --> rise to mental p. 17
go back to Thomas Nagel -- 1974 -- "feeling" -- "feels like"
-- human mind -- a "feeling"
This book in some ways -- "the evolution of subjectivitiy"
and also the evolution of the mind -- p. 19
His project: tryng to advance a project that can be described in many ways -- all difficult -- the project is to show a universe of processes that are not themselves mental, or conscious, can organize themselves in a way that gives rise to felt experience. Somehow, a part of the world's often-mindless activity folded itself into minds. p. 19
p. 20 / top: coming into being -- topic of the book . Evolving -- mind.
How to do this? Through studying the "minds" of those animals that mark transitions in the evolution of the mind -- especially the sage by which the mind came to be. Most of these are marine animals, p. 19.
Chapter 2: The Glass Sponge
electricity -- atoms -- ions -- action potential -- p. 31
cell membrane -- transition, p. 32
bacteria -- transistors -- controlling electricity with electricity , p. 32
why? no answer is widely agreed upon
???????-- se author -- p. 32 -- bacteria transistor
voltage-gated ion channel -- a landmark in the taming of charge -- and we don't know why bacteria had it -- wow?
transistors: digital quality-- again -- see author -- top of p. ee
Redox rollercoaster -- p. 35 -> transfer of electrons
Sensing -- p. 35!!!
Metazoa -- p. 36
Ernest Haeckel, 19th century
contrasted metazoa with protozoa
Metazoa: multicellular
Protazoa: single-celled
meta: originally after, beside (Greek), now also higher.
Protozoa: no longer means animal
Protists: single-celled
Animals: by definition, must be multicellular.
p. 41: "cousins" -- p. 41 -- animals gaining more shape
a trio: Sponges, comb jellies, placozoans
all very different
Sponges: motionaless
Placozoans: crawl (microscopic); no nervous system;
Comb jellies: swim -- do have a nervous system
Sponges --> p. 42
Hexactinellida = glass sponge, p. 47
Hex -- actin -- ellida = glass sponge
Light along glass channels -- p. 45ff.
Chapter 3 The Ascent of Soft Coral
Ediacaran: ~ 635 mya began -- fossil record begins
the Dickinsonia story -- p. 62!!!
cholesterol -- a chemical onlyk found in animals
bathmat
"sea pens" p. 63
Ediacaran: three stages -- three assemblages - p. 64 - 65, definition
1) Avalon from 575 mya, low oxygen world -- very, very deep sea
2) White Sea Assemblage --from 560 mya
shallower, oxygen rising slowly, gradually
3) NAMA -- even quieter -- crawling forms are gone -- everything seems to disappear -- p. 68
lots of time on conjecture -- little fact / little exidence
BILATERIAN BODIES p. 71
Last common ancestor: white sea assemblage, p. 72
bilaterian: important, innovative life form
? clue: flatworms -- p. 72
first time animals can "see"
The Cambrian
Ediacaran, again
Ediacaran: first time to see fossils
Cambrian: to crawling and burrowing; ~ 540 mya
hard parts, legs, shells, conspicuous eyes
old relatives of the shrimp
Arms race / eyes
Ediacaran specimens had disappeared by this time
Ediacaran: drifted offstage; replaced bya different cast, p. 80
Arthopods led the way
early -- look like crustacieans
most early: Trilobites
may be more closely related to spiders
invented claws to go with them
image-forming eyes
example: banded shrimp, p. 81.
18 limbs and projections
6 claws
4 legs
6 feelers
2 etc
Arthropod development: 500 million years:
largest: anomalocarid -- 7' long!!
Animal sensing -- 83
Eyes: a paradigm sense -- p. 84
Mantis shrimp; most elaborate eyes of any animal
Sensing now with movement: makes relation between self and others -- p. 87
Mirror test -- p. 88
banded shrimp, ow -->
Inquisitive Crab / Pain
hermits crabs
seem to sense pain
more than simply reflex
pain: p. 89 -- terminology
crustacians -- no brain, but
see;
feel pains.
Insets: likely an evolutionary offset that came out of a large "pancrustacean" group -- p. 93
Working toward an animal way of being, p 94
Modular body plan: coral
Bryozoans, p. 95
vs Unitary, organism, p. 95.
Claw and hinge -- p. 97 -- arthropods
skeleton shrimp -- p. 97.
The Decorator -- p. 97
Bilaterian!! again, p. 98
Ant
Crab
Octopus
A decorator crab -- p. 99
decorator crab -- uses sponges
hermit crab -- uses animones
first paragraph: summarizes where we are in history
Now: how are animals connected?
p. 104
!!!! -- subjectivity.
Agency
"The evolution of animal agency brings with it the origin of species." -- page 105.
Qualia -- p. 108.
--> Philosopher John Searle -- p. 115 -- Basal
Sense of presence -- p. 116.
Chater 6: The Octopus; the author's favorite subject.
Octopus loves crabs, p. 124.
Right third arm -- males -- p. 124
When Cephalopods Rules -- 2nd largest phylum after arthropodia
86,000 extant species -- molluscs: octopus, snails, oysters, clams
Special group of mollusks -- the cephalopods -- octopus, cuttlefish, squid, some few others.
Date perhaps from the Ediacaran -- certainly from the Cambrian.
After the Cambrian: became shelled.
In the Ordovician -- after the Cambrian --
cephalopods: some become huge
some 18 feet long
largest predator of that time
they flourished -- now almost all extinct
one survivor: the nautilus
p. 98 -- the tree -- diagram
sponges / corals --
Vertebrates / invertebrates
first bilaterians: 600 million years ago
starfish broke off before vertebrates
Chapter 7: Kingfish, p. 165. Generally Pacific only.
Mammals are an offshoot of the first part of life.
At the end of the day, the major phyla of the animal kingdom had to do with survival of eggs. They to remain moist and warm.
Fish -- appeared in the Cambrian -- very small slivers of fish --p. 166.
Reminder (last chapter):
Fish began as worm-like bilaterians
missile shape
nerve cord down the back organizing muscle
beginnings of hard parts -- but inside, not outside
Firsh -- early on -- developed eyes -- to protect against arthropod predators.
So early fish: eyes and mobility.
To develop a jaw or teeth, took a very long time -- ~ 420 mya
Cambrian: 541 - 485 mya -- so jaw / teeth -- after the Cambrian.
Now -- mobilit (swimming), eyes, and jaws -- a new role
Late Devonian: ~ 360 mya -- included sharks.
jawless fish disappearing
the one that hung on: lung fish, lampreys
develop a centered, cam... brain
initially no extremities, appendages
Whale shark: biggest fish
Rhicodon typus: only species in its genus; the only one in its family; largest animal alive except for whales.
probably mates near the Galapagos, p. 169
At this point, key to evolution, in this order:
keeping eggs moist (still in the ocean)
mobile
bilaterian
eyes
nervous system
hardened parts inside muscle
Triumph of muscle: p. 170
sharks -- mostly cartilage but can make bone
A more distinctive sensory invention.
true lateral line system
a tactile sense
NEURO MASTS spread on surfact
sensitive to motion of water
morph into sound
like "ears"
The fish's body is a giant pressure-sensitive ear.
Wow.
P. 173.
Blind cave fish: navigate with lateral line sensing (~bats)
Sharks: lateral line sensing can also include sensing electric fields (p. 174).
Fish: smart gregarious. (Hell is other people -- Jean-Paul Sartre)
Imitation: the archer fish
Braininess of fish, p. 181.
Rhythm and Fields
Hans Berger, 1920s, telepathy;
EEG, alpha waves, beta waves
closed eyes open eyes
slower, deep quick, shallower
other waves have since been described, including faster gamma waves and slower, much slower, while asleep.
Need to re-read this chapter!!!! <----------------------
p 182 - 201
Trevally -- a sport fish -- p. 201.
Chapter 8: On Land -- p. 203
Hothouse.
Transition to land.
First Arthropods -- spider, millipedes.
Arthropods were leaders in the Cambrian and apparently leaders again.
Insects.
Conscious -- "felt experience" -- p. 208
Do insects feel pain?
Distinct sensory / evaluative sides; feeling.
p. 214 -- emotion-like states in insects and gastropods -- hard to accept anything in this chapter.
Chapter 9: Fins, Legs, Wings
Now ~ 380 mya -- a different group of animals -- arthropods -- some groups reached a wholly terrestrial life
Arthropods seemed a perfect fitor moving to land.
Different for vertebrates
-- "evolving" from fish to land was very difficult to see / anticipate --
Most obvious change: to tetrapod body -- p. 230. The evolution of life.
Lungs: vestigial long before they came on land. p. 230. And the the EEG issue. -- p. 231.
Amphibians, then.
An early amniote species split into two lines:
Synapsids -- colossal mass extinction
Sauropsids -- took over, included the dinosaurs
The extinction before the dinosaur extinction.
252 mya: mammal-like animals dominant
67% -- 2/3rds of all land-dwelling animals perished.
Query:
I'm just "joking" here. I really don't mean it. But is was almost as if "Satan" tried to wipe out all the animals that "God" had created in the "Great Dying," but "God" got the last (and winning) blow when he had a meteor wipe out the dinosaurs so the mammals could recover. Obviously not a bit true but it helps me remember these things. But, wow, over and over and over there were mass extinctions. Stephen Jay Gould talks often of the "luck" that we (humans) are here to talk about it.
Reply:
I am truly amazed you took my "craziness" and went with an incredibly summary. Thank you. Bruce.
Emerging from the rubble -- a formerly less conspicuous group dramatically diversified -- producing the dinosaurs ...
Dinosaurs and a group of mammals.
-- reach body form independently -- p. 231.
Early form -- sprawl -- salamanders and crocodiles
Then, hoisted their body over / above
Their hips -- key to success
Then 66 mya -- extinction of the dinosaurs
On land, three features evolved at once, p. 233 -- land vertebrates from the Triassic
ability to manipulate objects
openness of bodily action
centralized braininess
This combination of three things -- arose independently in two branches
in early dinosaurs
in mammals
Transformed again
birds -- from the dinosaurs that survived!
a particular fruition in primates!
Earlier in book: LCA --- Octopuses
Primates
Now, easier to see -
LCA --- primates
-- birds
That relative ... a stumpy-looking lizard -- 300 mya
Synapsids (us)
Sauropsids (dinosaurs)
alternated during these chaotic years: synapsids vs sauropsids
Another feature that rose independently: endothermy.
Endothermy evolved independently in
mammals
birds
In the sea -- warm-bloodedness is RARE
seen in one group -- ray-finned fishes and tuna, swordfish, and
two groups of sharks including the great white shark
Swordfish: only warm the eyes / brain
The interesting thing -- warm bloodedness allowed animals to get very big -- suggesting that dinosaurs may have been warm blooded
Extinct dinosaurs of the Mesozoic Age --> Birds -- p. 236.
P. 237 -- final tree of life diagram
Now, the brain -- p. 237+++
Left brain: identifying food
Right brain: identifying social relationships
Among vertebrates -- weakest connection between left half and right half of the brain --
-- fish
-- amphibians
-- reptiles
-- birds are a mixed case, p. 240
With mammals -- evolution of the corpus callosum!!
But exceptions: no corpus callosum in marsupials, monotremes (platypus)
"eutherian" (see "placental")
are only animals with a corpus callosum! p. 241
Placental mammals and eutherians refer to the same group of living
animals in everyday conversation, but scientifically Eutheria is a
broader evolutionary branch that includes both modern placentals and
their extinct ancestral relatives.
The Roles of Land And Sea -- p. 245
Put Together By Degrees -- p. 249
Psychology; distinguished between 4 or 5 main kinds of memory.
p. 251
semantic memory -- memory of facts
procedural memory -- retains the ability to do things
"working" memory
episodic memory
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