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Quite disappointed by this book. My high expectations after reading ‘Other Minds� by the same author (read review here) weren’t met in the slightest. However, there was some interesting food for thought, so I’ll start off with that.

Subjects that interested me

- How animals went from passive eating (diffusion) to grazing to hunting
- How growing a bigger body in evolution could be achieved through either multiplying structures or enlarging them
- The crustacean body: adding body parts as a solution to many evolutionary issues
- Complexities of arriving on land for aquatic animals: swallowing, being able to move fast (fins --> legs), breathing (gills --> lungs), egg laying in dry areas (--> amniotic shell around egg / mammal solution).
- The distinction of different senses by seeing what effect an action has on that sense: it will have a big effect on touch and vision, but a smaller effect on hearing.
- Possibilities of measuring pain in animals: behavioral reaction, behavioral trade-off, chemicals.
- Theories about the brain of the octopus: do all arms have an independent brain or do they only work together and with the head? The writer proposes a ‘switching between whole-animal centeredness and a glimmer of autonomy in the arms, or some of them�.
- Other facts about how the left and right brains are (dis)connected in animals and how these animals deal with that.
- The complexity of appointing feelings and experiences to animals. It is really hard to empathize with animals that are so different than us, and we have no clue how to measure their intelligence or consciousness.
- A gradualist view on sentience which the writer proposes: evaluation and sensing for example, are two different things. Maybe insects have evaluative experiences but do not have sensory ones (cannot ‘sense� pain for example). And maybe this is evolutionary useful because insects are often very social animals and pain is not that useful, they should ‘soldier on�. This was really the most interesting and new part of the book for me. The writer says every animal (and even plant) has ‘minimal cognition�, since it is able to feel its surroundings in the most basic way (it should be able to respond to food, for example). But sentience in more complex ways has come into being gradually and is very different for distinct animal groups.

Disharmony

- Specificity: as a reader it feels like the writers wants two conflicting things: both to give a broad view on the evolution of consciousness throughout the evolutionary tree, but also to share many stories, fun facts about particular animals. The latter is maybe more fun to read, but really stops the flow of the timeline.
- Complexity: the consequence is that some parts are really basic and even unnecessarily simplified (from a biologist point of view), while other parts are very complex. You should be prepared to learn up to 5 new words in one page (which, again, stops the flow of the book). At the same time, when explaining what an evolutionary tree is, you are longing for an explanation on how evolutionary trees are created by us, how certain they are, and what they are based on (morphology, DNA, etc.). Traits that are gained but then lost and homology (similar structures, but separate evolutionary lines) are also important concepts which are skipped. ‘Populations occasionally split in two� is an example of an unncessary simplification: what is actually meant by this splitting into two, how does this work?
- Viewpoint: what is also conflicting is the scientific and philosophical viewpoints. These can go hand in hand of course but sometimes you really lose the message of the book (how did consciousness evolve) in the more broad question (how should consciousness be defined). He covers many theories and raises more questions than he answers. Then suddenly he brings up it will be hard finding a solution to ‘the problem� at which point he has done a poor job at explaining what problem he is talking about. The first part is called ‘protozoa� but is actually more about the philosophical viewpoint of the writer in preparation for the rest of the book. Which is � peculiar.

Unclarity

- These conflicting things described above are mostly annoying because you expect something different upon reading the title. I would suggest ‘in search of consciousness..� or something at least more philosophical / less conclusive.
- The structure of the book also leaves room for improvement. 1) A wrap-up of each chapter would have helped a lot, to know where we stand and what we have learned so far, but no, the writer prefers to end each chapter with a personal experience which is suppose to be a really fitting and wholesome ending but feels very forced. 2) The order in which he mentions different groups of animals but also species in more detail remains a mystery to me. It could be evolutionary timeline (but then why mention animals that live nowadays as an example?), or only the evolution of new traits related to consciousness (but then there are multiple paths from the same origin; why choose to mention one before the other?).
- If the writer does not have any issues with teaching some terminology to his readers only relevant for one page, maybe it would also be an idea to explain the Greek origin of these words, since that would make it more understandable and easier to remember (such as ‘acoel�, ‘polyclad� etc.).
- The pictures were nice, but I think there could have been many more for the purpose of clarity (one big evolutionary tree in the beginning, for example, and pinpointing where we find ourselves on this tree per chapter). Graphs, pictures of different eye structures / nerve systems, you name it, I want it.

In short, I think the writer should have thought more about his intention and public before writing this piece. The book went in every direction but a clear one, and therefore lost both my interest and its potential for the subject.

Quotes
“Over 100 million ribosomes [stations where protein molecules are assembled] could fit on the period printed at the end of this sentence.�
“[Brain processes] are not causes of minds; they are minds. Brain processes are not causes of thoughts and experiences; they are thoughts and experiences.�