Cephalopod consciousness: Asking the right questions
Animal Sentience August 3, 2026 DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1903 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Behavior and ethology Evolution Cognition and perception Marine biology |
| Key points | Argues that the term 'consciousness' is scientifically misleading due to its diverse uses and checkered history, despite popular enthusiasm. The commentary acknowledges advances in cephalopod cognition research and the significance of studying a clade separated from vertebrates by over half a billion years. |
Abstract
Jennifer Mather has provided a comprehensive and fascinating overview of the various cognitive accomplishments of cephalopods and their sensory, behavioral, and neurophysiological attributes. The advances in our understanding of a clade that has been separated from vertebrate evolution by well over half a billion years is a testament to advances in both methodology and the questions we now feel free to address. Mather embeds her review in the issue of consciousness, which is certainly a perennial issue in mental evolution, going back to Romanes and earlier. I argue that the term “consciousness” has such a checkered history and is used in such diverse ways even today that, despite current popular enthusiasm, it is scientifically misleading.