Citation
Packard, Andrew (2019) Keeping hold of Nurse. Animal Sentience 26(21)
Thread
Jennifer Mather, What is in an octopus's mind?
Abstract
Mather draws from a lifetime devoted to studying individual octopuses in the wild and in aquaria to combine a natural history account of their actions with an argument from design adopted from second-, often third-hand sources. The 'distributed' [decentralised] nervous system said to contrast with that of vertebrates – a premise largely accepted by Mather’s commentators so far – does not reflect the original literature on motor control, nor the facts of comparative anatomy, functional morphology and morphogenesis. Ontogeny is absent. With the help of some old or little-known illustrations from my own participant-observer experimental investigations, I will try here to unpick threads of the pre-enlightenment embroidery shrouding the argument and will call into question the use of reductionist language.
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Cognition and Perception Commons, Cognitive Neuroscience Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Evolution Commons, Philosophy of Mind Commons, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons, Zoology Commons