Octopuses, Intelligence, and O.O.T.B.E. (Oxford Companion to the Mind - Richard L. Gregory)

Member Name: amygdala

Product:	Oxford Companion to the Mind - Richard L. Gregory
Date:	17/01/01 (41 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Plenty of fascinating facts and references.

Disadvantages: Some vacuous topics are included.

An octopus can learn to recognize the difference between a square and circle by sight, but not the difference between a cube and a sphere by touch. Why is this?

You can learn the answer from this book in the section on "Invertebrate Learning" and if it's the sort of question you like having answers to this book will reward you many times, because it's full of odd and illuminating information on all aspects of brains and behavior, whether human, octopus, or beetle.

What it isn't, on the other hand, is particularly full of information, odd, illuminating, or otherwise, on the mind, and perhaps that's as it should be, because minds are much trickier things to investigate and talk sense about than brains. In fact, the definition given under "Epiphenomena", one of the most important terms of the brain-mind debate, is just wrong:

"Phenomena that occur in association with, or are supervenient upon, a given set of events, yet supposedly are not caused by those events."

No, epiphenomena ARE caused, they just don't cause in their turn. That mistake sums up the value of most of the contributions on the mind rather than the brain in this book: they aren't very valuable at all. Perhaps "Companion to the Mind" was preferred because it would sell more copies, but "Companion to the Brain" would be much more accurate, as well as saying what IS valuable about this book: the insights and new ways of seeing the physical world that it can offer. Why do octopuses fail to learn the difference between cubes and spheres, for example?

Apparently because they don't have rigid limbs. A human being can judge distances and shapes by touch because he or she is comparing them against the fixed lengths and shapes of the hand and fingers. An octopus, on the other hand, has infinitely variable and varying tentacles, and can't compare its own body against the external world. r>
"Man is the measure of all things" takes on new significance after that, and you might start to look at your hands in a new way too. As you might start to look at many other things in a new way after reading some of the entries in this book, because it also looks at such topics as optical -- and auditory -- illusions, subliminal perception, sensation, intelligence, and neurochemistry.

Unfortunately Freudianism and psychotherapy are taken seriously too, but in such a general book that's hard to avoid and I suppose it had to do something to justify its somewhat misleading title. Much more pleasing is the inclusion of unexpected topics like astrology and out-of-the-body experiences. In other words, no-one is likely to be completely satisfied with this book, but almost everyone should find something of interest, although electro-chemical determinists like me will probably find most of all.