51–60 of 329 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Algae can also survive in conditions human couldn't. That isn't a very meaningful bar for intelligence.
Single celled organisms are in control, they're the original intelligence. Our minds are just slaves to supercolonies of trillions of cells.
Way to make me feel worse about eating them.
Way to make me feel worse about eating them.
Apart from cognitive skills, an important factor is the capacity of suffering. So even dumb animals might be able to feel intense pain. In humans, while forms of suffering like loneliness, depression can be bad, pure physical pain can itself a terrible thing. For instance severe torture for 10 minutes can be worse than months of depression. Now even if cognitive aspects are diminished in animals, the physical senses…
Way to make me feel worse about eating them.
Apart from cognitive skills, an important factor is the capacity of suffering. So even dumb animals might be able to feel intense pain. In humans, while forms of suffering like loneliness, depression can be bad, pure physical pain can itself a terrible thing. For instance severe torture for 10 minutes can be worse than months of depression. Now even if cognitive aspects are diminished in animals, the physical senses…
I love how completely alien they are compared to us. The sort of decentralized nature of their nervous system compared to our path of evolution. (I'm no marine/evolutionary biologist so I'm probably butchering the terminology...) I loved reading the two pieces Sy Montgomery wrote that are in Orion Magazine. https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/ And the follow-up: https://orionmagazine.org/2011/11/intervie…
https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Octopus-Surprising-Exploration-C...
Quick read, and also recommended for more good octopus anecdotes that inform this question.
> And yet . . . could we be missing something here? While they can’t see much of their own kaleidoscopic skins, they can clearly sense inside what they are doing. Remote cameras on the seabed show octopuses crackling with color changes, even when there is no other creature present to observe them. Godfrey-Smith believes this is just a byproduct of neural activity, no more than an expressive quirk. But maybe it isn’t.…
If you really think this is just "spasmodic blather," then I think you may be missing a lot of important things about the human experience--and even, I'd submit, some of the true wonder of science. (This is not to say, however, that you must find it interesting, much less persuasive. I don't.)
> And yet . . . could we be missing something here? While they can’t see much of their own kaleidoscopic skins, they can clearly sense inside what they are doing. Remote cameras on the seabed show octopuses crackling with color changes, even when there is no other creature present to observe them. Godfrey-Smith believes this is just a byproduct of neural activity, no more than an expressive quirk. But maybe it isn’t.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well pigs are smarter than dogs, and many people eat them.
Yeah, but a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
I always find it very hypocritical that the same people who have no problem eating pork are outraged over people eating dogs in Asia.
I love how completely alien they are compared to us. The sort of decentralized nature of their nervous system compared to our path of evolution. (I'm no marine/evolutionary biologist so I'm probably butchering the terminology...) I loved reading the two pieces Sy Montgomery wrote that are in Orion Magazine. https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/ And the follow-up: https://orionmagazine.org/2011/11/intervie…