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Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

nytimes.com

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Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#51
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its better than basing it on how cute the animal is.

Serious question: why?

The higher an animal's intelligence the easier it is for us to emphasize with. Most humans don't like the idea of being eaten alive.

Expanding this idea to machines is very easy. It is ok to treat a machine like a slave that is only capable of moving an object from point a to point b? How about a machine that has a self-aware AI?

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#52
I'm currently reading The Soul of an Octopus and it's really joy inspiring. Part pop-science, part memoir, part inter-species romance. If you just come in for science you'll be annoyed by Clever Hans effect and confirmation bias, but that's all pop science writing on animal intelligence.

http://amazon.com/The-Soul-Octopus-Exploration-Consciousness...

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#53
post #14

I wonder if Inky knew that the drain hole led to the ocean, or if it was a just a lucky break.

Do octopi have a sense of smell? Maybe it/he/she could sense it in some way, or just noticed that when water flowed in the room, it all went down that drain. "I'll go where the water goes!" In that vein, how often do octopi get out of the water (except when being brought out by humans)? And, are they aware of "water" vs "not-water"? I already lmgtfy.com'ed all of these... just adding to the discussion.

Scents do not travel back up a drain pipe, and I doubt that sounds or other effects do, either.

And while a lost human might reason about following a river to civilization, I don't think there are similar drains in the ocean. If it made that connection, I am seriously impressed! While that's a well known tactic for explorers, many lost humans don't know it and don't figure it out!

My leading guess, though, is that he observed workers pouring other ocean things, probably including some tasty octopus food, down the drain.

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#55

Amazing. Most humans couldnt come up with an escape plan like this. It's possible he exhibiting long term goal oriented planning here. Have we considered octopi might actually be more intelligent than humans? Wouldn't it be funny if in the future we figured out how to communicate with them and they ended up solving our hardest problems or making breakthroughs in physics and math?

Octopi aren't more intelligent than humans, because intelligence in humans is partly external.

We're fairly dumb as feral individuals, but give us a herd memory for science and math and we can fly to the moon.

Octopi not only don't live very long, they're also aggressively solitary. So they have the usual smart-animal problem of starting life as a blank slate with a few baked-in instincts and no way to learn from previous generations.

The blank slate cycle has been repeating for millions of years, so they're unlikely to change now.

If they did, we'd be in trouble.

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#56

Amazing. Most humans couldnt come up with an escape plan like this. It's possible he exhibiting long term goal oriented planning here. Have we considered octopi might actually be more intelligent than humans? Wouldn't it be funny if in the future we figured out how to communicate with them and they ended up solving our hardest problems or making breakthroughs in physics and math?

Wasn't the plan just "Squeeze through a gap, then slide down a pipe"? I'd hope that most humans could come up with that.

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#57
post #24
post #7

It upsets me to no end that we find evidence such as this piece that cephalopods are actually (relatively speaking) remarkably more intelligent than common wisdom pertains[0], and yet the culinary abuse and harm (i.e. 'live sushi/sashimi') of these creatures continues. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence

According to seafood watch, market squid are at the very least sustainable [0]. Squid and octopus are different I believe, but calamari is squid if I'm not mistaken. As for Octopus, it appears a bit more iffy [1]. As for intelligence, that's secondary to sustainability for my eating habits at this point. [0] - http://www.neaq.org/conservation_and_research/projects/fishe... [1] - http://seafood.edf.org/octopus#bmb=1

there's good reason to suspect that a lot of calamari is pig asshole: http://www.dallasobserver.com/restaurants/npr-claims-pig-rec...

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#58

Amazing. Most humans couldnt come up with an escape plan like this. It's possible he exhibiting long term goal oriented planning here. Have we considered octopi might actually be more intelligent than humans? Wouldn't it be funny if in the future we figured out how to communicate with them and they ended up solving our hardest problems or making breakthroughs in physics and math?

Well, there brains can handle 8 arms all moving independently and with many control points in each arm all acting with out pattern. Can humans do that?

Before we jump on the intelligent octopus bandwagon, lets realize that intelligence in one area does not mean they are intelligent or some how superior in another. Qualification and acceptance in society transcends beyond intelligence.

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#59
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: why?

The higher an animal's intelligence the easier it is for us to emphasize with. Most humans don't like the idea of being eaten alive. Expanding this idea to machines is very easy. It is ok to treat a machine like a slave that is only capable of moving an object from point a to point b? How about a machine that has a self-aware AI?

Well self-awareness doesn't have a direct correlation with intelligence. I agree that it generally comes down to what/who we can easily empathize with, but I would argue it sentience matters more in that respect (as well as providing a more logical basis for what entities we should actually be concerned about).

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#60

Amazing. Most humans couldnt come up with an escape plan like this. It's possible he exhibiting long term goal oriented planning here. Have we considered octopi might actually be more intelligent than humans? Wouldn't it be funny if in the future we figured out how to communicate with them and they ended up solving our hardest problems or making breakthroughs in physics and math?

Octopi aren't more intelligent than humans, because intelligence in humans is partly external. We're fairly dumb as feral individuals, but give us a herd memory for science and math and we can fly to the moon. Octopi not only don't live very long, they're also aggressively solitary. So they have the usual smart-animal problem of starting life as a blank slate with a few baked-in instincts and no way to learn from pre…

What if we shared all of our knowledge with them to fix the blank slate problem?

But you're right. A single human with no knowledge is not very intelligent. It's disconcerting if you think about it.

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