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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 life has shaped and been shaped by our planet?
He explores the last living stromatolite fields, examples of how cyanobacteria from the sea first began colonising the land and belching oxygen into the atmosphere as they photosynthesised the sun's light. Oxygen meant life, and so began a riotous tangle of coevolution between plants and new animals. And then, in our own evolutionary line, an initially unremarkable mammal changed in new ways, forming societies and technologies. This led eventually to change to the atmosphere itself, as carbon that was buried and transformed to oil was deliberately burned with life-derived oxygen, to power the elaborate world of humanity.
Humans belong to the infinitely complex system that is the Earth, and our minds are products of that system, but they are also an acting force within it. We are creatures of Earth, and we hold Earth's future in our hands.
Peter Godfrey-Smith is a distinguished professor of history and the philosophy of science at the University of Sydney. He is the author of five books, including the bestselling Other Minds, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Royal Society Science Book Prize and Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, which won the 2010 Lakatos Award for an outstanding work on the philosophy of science.
"An exquisite account of intelligence across species [...] Living on Earth is consistently rewarding, packed with insights and invitations to reflect, and blessed with some exquisite writing"
– Guardian
"Clever, compassionate and often deeply moving [...] An excellent finale to an ambitious trilogy exploring the evolution of intelligence"
– New Scientist
"Wide-ranging [...] [and] dynamic [...] An extraordinary journey"
– Observer
"Godfrey-Smith is overflowing with new ways of looking at old issues, and it is always a pleasure to be introduced to them"
– Literary Review
"A hugely important book [...] Sweeping, careful, and courageous [...] Godfrey-Smith writes with grace, humility, and wisdom"
– Anil Seth, director of the Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex and author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
"Only Peter Godfrey-Smith could write this book. It offers a vast, kaleidoscopic, and immensely thought-provoking overview of the development of life on Earth"
– Sean Carroll, professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of Quanta and Fields
"In Living on Earth, Peter Godfrey-Smith combines vivid and compelling descriptions of the natural world, unexpectedly fascinating scientific results, and philosophical arguments that are exceptionally clear and accessible as well as deep and profound"
– Alison Gopnik, professor at the University of California, Berkeley and author of The Gardener and the Carpenter
"An essential read for understanding the legacy of the spot we're standing in right now, and its future"
– David Eagleman, neuroscientist at Stanford University and author of Incognito and Livewired
"Yields rich new insights on the nature of life"
– Michael S. Gazzaniga, professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of The Consciousness Instinct
