The eagerly anticipated conclusion to Peter Godfrey-Smith's three-part exploration of the
origins of intelligence on Earth which began with the bestselling Other Minds in 2018 and
continued with Metazoa in 2020. The eagerly anticipated conclusion to Peter Godfrey-Smith's
three-part exploration of the origins of intelligence on Earth which began with the
bestselling Other Minds in 2018 and continued with Metazoa in 2020. Peter Godfrey-Smith the
scuba-diving philosopher examined the evolution of sentience in Other Minds. In Metazoa he
asked how that consciousness shaped and was shaped by animal bodies. Now in Living on Earth
he takes that line of questioning a step further asking how has life shaped and been shaped
by our planet? He visits the largest living stromatolite fields examples of how cyanobacteria
began belching oxygen into the atmosphere as they converted carbon dioxide and water into
living matter using the sun's light. The extraordinary increase in oxygen in the atmosphere
resulted in an explosion in the diversity of life. And so began a riotous tangle of coevolution
between plants and animals as each changed the environment around them allowing others to
utilise these new ecosystems and thus new species to evolve. From cyanobacteria through algae
on to ferns or trees or grasses and from protists through invertebrates and fish through the
dinosaurs and on to birds and mammals - our planet has seen an explosion of life forms all
reacting to their environment and all creating new environments that allow other life to
evolve. In our own evolutionary line an initially unremarkable mammal changed in new ways
evolving to come out of the trees to inhabit new savannas and then onto inhabit the whole
planet. One of the most adaptable species ever found on Earth and arguably the species causing
the most change humans are still part of this 3.8 billion year history of life forms changing
the world around them. In Living on Earth Godfrey-Smith takes us on a grand tour of the
history of life on earth. He visits Rwandan gorillas and Australian bowerbirds returns to
coral reefs and octopus dens considers the impact of language and writing and weighs the
responsibilities our unique powers bring with them as they relate to factory farming habitat
preservation climate change and the use of animals in experiments. Living on Earth shows that
Humans belong to the infinitely complex system that is the Earth and our minds are products of
that system but we are also an acting force within it. We are creatures of Earth but we hold
Earth's future in our hands. It is a responsibility that we must all understand and accept.
