- "Cephalopods are an independent experiment in the evolution of large brains and complex behavior. If we can make contact with cephalopods as sentient beings, it is not because of a shared history, not because of kinship, but because evolution built minds twice over." #Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith #Peter Godfrey-Smith
- "The signaling and sensing that connected one organism to another become the basis of new interactions which take place within the new forms of life now emerging. Sensing and signaling between organisms gives rise to sensing and signaling within an organism." #Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith #Peter Godfrey-Smith
- "The transition to a multicellular form of life occurred many times, leading once to animals, once to plants, on other occasions to fungi, various seaweeds, and less conspicuous organisms." #Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith #Peter Godfrey-Smith
- "In all but a few animals, the chemical interactions between some cells become the basis of a #Nervous system, small or large. And in some of these animals, a mass of such cells concentratated together, sparking in a chemo-electrical storm of repurposed signaling, become a #Brain." #Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith #Peter Godfrey-Smith
- "Evolution has transformed cell-to-cell signaling from an activity in which cells simply broadcast their signals to whoever is close enough and listening into something different: an organized network." #Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith #Peter Godfrey-Smith
- "What an amazing image: in a long evolutionary process, a motion-controlling brain marches up through your head to meet there some light sensitive organs, which become eyes." #Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith #Peter Godfrey-Smith
- "The story I'm working toward is one of gradual change: as sensing, acting, and remembering became more elaborate, the feel of experience became more complex along the way. Our own case shows us that subjective experience is not an all-or-nothing matter. We know half-conscious states of various kinds, such as waking from sleep. Evolution includes an awakening on a different time scale." #Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith #Peter Godfrey-Smith
See also: #Behavior, #Brain, #Mind, #Sentience, #Fungi