Sentience

The Invention of Consciousness

By: Nicholas Humphrey

Narrated by: Michael Langan

Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

The story of a quest to uncover the evolutionary history of consciousness from one of the world's leading theoretical psychologists.

We feel, therefore we are. Conscious sensations ground our sense of self. They are crucial to our idea of ourselves as psychic beings: present, existent, and mattering. But is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? Weaving together intellectual adventure and cutting-edge science, Nicholas Humphrey describes in Sentience his quest for answers: from his discovery of blindsight in monkeys and his pioneering work on social intelligence to breakthroughs in the philosophy of mind.

The goal is to solve the hard problem: to explain the wondrous, eerie fact of "phenomenal consciousness"—the redness of a poppy, the sweetness of honey, the pain of a bee sting. What does this magical dimension of experience amount to? What is it for? And why has it evolved? Humphrey presents here his new solution. He proposes that phenomenal consciousness, far from being primitive, is a relatively late and sophisticated evolutionary development. The implications for the existence of sentience in nonhuman animals are startling and provocative.

©2023 Nicholas Humphrey (P)2023 Tantor

Beautiful and thought provoking

Humphries gives the reader an overview of his position on how evolution led to sentience and in doing so leads the reader through beautiful and entertaining anecdotes and thoughtful science.

What it's like to be sentient

Humphrey has taken pain to make the case for what constitutes sentience, why and to some extent, how it exists. Having read many books on this and related topics, I judge that he has aligned the nail squarely with the hammer and struck. Citing several current and recent philosophers and scientists, Humphrey has raised the solid points of their work and exposed the weaker ones. In very readable /listenable style, he explains the case for what sentience is, why it likely evolved, how it might be detected, where in the evolutionary tree it seems to be present. Do read /listen to this book. You will see this topic more clearly because you did.

Audible, please re-record this!

This is a fascinating and accessible book, if not without flaws. But the audiobook is really hard work to get through because of the inappropriate narration style for the material. It’s read as if it was a children’s story, with wildly exaggerated phrasing, feigned shock and excitement, theatrical pauses and the like. He actually does a stage whisper every time something is in parentheses! I’d love a new recording with a better narrator.

Rambling and unscientific

The author raises a very interesting question at the outset: Assuming that consciousness and sentience serve an evolutionary advantage, there must be some external manifestations of sentience that natural selection can act on. What are those manifestations and can they be detected in animals?

I hoped that the book would unpack and make sense of this question empirically. But unfortunately, the book falls into a rambling, circuitous narrative and does not manage to get to the point. The author uses old-fashioned armchair reasoning to address complex neuroscientific questions and too readily deflects alternative hypotheses and criticisms.