 Macmillan Audio presents Other Minds, The Octopus, The Sea, and The Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith Read for you by Peter Noble The demand for continuity has, over large tracts of science, proved itself to possess true prophetic power. We ought therefore ourselves sincerely to try every possible mode of conceiving the dawn of consciousness, so that it may not appear equivalent to the eruption into the universe of a new nature, nonexistent until then. William James The Principles of Psychology, 1890 The drama of creation, according to the Hawaiian account, is divided into a series of stages. At first the lowly zoophytes and corals come into being, and these are followed by worms and shellfish, each type being declared to conquer and destroy its predecessor, a struggle for existence in which the strongest survive. Parallel with this evolution of animal forms, plant life begins on land and in the sea, at first with the algae, followed by seaweeds and rushes. As type follows type, the accumulating slime of their decay raises the land above the waters, in which, as spectator of all, swims the octopus, the lone survivor from an earlier world. Roland Dixon, Oceanic Mythology, 1916 Chapter 1 Meetings Across the Tree of Life Two Meetings and a Departure On a spring morning in 2009 Matthew Lawrence dropped the anchor of his small boat at a random spot in the middle of a blue ocean bay on the east coast of Australia, and jumped over the side. He swam down on scuba to where the anchor lay, picked it up and waited. The breeze on the surface nudged the boat, which started to drift and Matt, holding the anchor, followed. This bay is well known for diving, but divers usually visit only a couple of spectacular locations. As the bay is large and typically pretty calm, Matt, a scuba enthusiast who lives nearby had begun a program of underwater exploration, letting the breeze carry the empty boat around above him until his air ran out and he swam. Sample complete. Ready to continue?