When a scuba diver dives into the sea, he encounters life forms that seem utterly alien: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms whose bizarre bodies, intricate structures, and flower-like appendages resemble plants or even architectural forms rather than anything animal. And yet these creatures are our cousins. As equal members of the animal kingdom – the metazoans – they can tell us a great deal about the evolutionary origins of not only the human body but also the human mind. By trying to empathise with them and understand what it is like to perceive and interact with the world as other living things do, Peter Godfrey-Smith shows how the animal body, which evolved more than half a billion years ago, was the innovation that set life on a radically different path. Tracing the emergence of sponges, corals, shrimp, octopuses and fish through natural selection, and then moving onto land, among insects, birds and primates, Metazoa bridges the gap between mind and matter, bringing us one step closer to resolving one of philosophy’s deepest problems: consciousness. By embracing their experiences of perceiving and interacting with the world as other living things do, Peter Godfrey-Smith shows that the characteristic animal body, which evolved more than half a billion years ago, was the innovation that set life on a radically different path. Tracing the emergence of sponges, corals, shrimp, octopuses and fish through natural selection, and then moving onto land, among insects, birds and primates, Metazoa bridges the gap between mind and matter, bringing us one step closer to resolving one of philosophy’s deepest problems: consciousness.