81–90 of 106 posts
Hesiod in his Works and Days (c. 700 BC) talks about the behaviour of octopuses, saying that when octopuses get hungry they will eat their own tentacles. Amazingly, Hesiod was right about this behaviour (octopuses do sometimes eat their own tentacles) but it's not because they're hungry, but because they're stressed.
> Amazingly, Hesiod was right about this behaviour I don't see why this is a surprise.
Hesiod in his Works and Days (c. 700 BC) talks about the behaviour of octopuses, saying that when octopuses get hungry they will eat their own tentacles. Amazingly, Hesiod was right about this behaviour (octopuses do sometimes eat their own tentacles) but it's not because they're hungry, but because they're stressed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Amazingly, Hesiod was right about this behaviour I don't see why this is a surprise.
I'd be pretty surprised if I saw a guy eating his hands.
But more to the point, if somebody from a coastal, extensively seafaring culture 2700 years ago says octopi sometimes eat their own tentacles, there is every reason to believe he's saying it because it's true. The options are (I) octopi sometimes eat their own tentacles, as advertised; (II) octopi sometimes engage in a behavior that looks very similar to eating their own tentacles, but is subtly different; or (III) someone made it up and nobody in a culture with extensive exposure to octopi ever noticed that it never happened.
Incidents of type III are far from unheard of -- I have a dictionary with the Tongue Map printed in it -- but they're not the way to bet.
"When octopuses are social, are they reaching out or simply reacting?" "Maybe octopuses don’t regard us so much as friends or associates as giant, elaborate levers they can manipulate for their own benefit. " Both these statements read as if it's a settled question that human aren't doing the same thing.
"When octopuses are social, are they reaching out or simply reacting?" "Maybe octopuses don’t regard us so much as friends or associates as giant, elaborate levers they can manipulate for their own benefit. " Both these statements read as if it's a settled question that human aren't doing the same thing.
The notion of sentience is something that's unsurprisingly well-trodden in both philosophy and neuroscience. Your statements presumes that such is flippant. While there's not a single well-agreed on definition, there are different things like ability to see and project oneself into the future and to assign value to those projections, the ability to empathize, the ability to miss things that are no longer there, etc.…
For example, I caught my dog looking at me through the mirror in the room when she didn’t have direct line of sight and we were the only two in the room and I was talking in ways that would get her attention. That indicates some level of recognition of the role a mirror plays and that the image in the mirror is a reflection and not a mystery animal. That animals utilize their senses differently and find different things interesting to them says more about the limitations of our ability to evaluate other animals than it does about their actual sentience and intelligence I think. Eg maybe the MSR test is simply a test that works well on animals that have a similar working sensory model to us (or at least vision is important enough and interest in mirrors is aligned).
> there are different things like ability to see and project oneself into the future and to assign value to those projections, the ability to empathize, the ability to miss things that are no longer there, etc. are often metrics used for higher levels of sentience.
That’s a bold claim. I’d say at most we have a sample size of one species because we’re able to communicate and compare notes with each other + within a species animals work fairly similarly enough for the most part. We have absolutely no knowledge of whether the things you said are important for sentience/intelligence. Not if candidates we think are likely closest in intelligence (elephants, dolphins, crows) demonstrate these traits as it requires a degree of insight and communication we don’t have. - we have to do convoluted experiments to try to tease out effects but we don’t actually know what the experiments are telling us.
Maybe if our brain imaging technology gets better some of these questions will become more answerable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The notion of sentience is something that's unsurprisingly well-trodden in both philosophy and neuroscience. Your statements presumes that such is flippant. While there's not a single well-agreed on definition, there are different things like ability to see and project oneself into the future and to assign value to those projections, the ability to empathize, the ability to miss things that are no longer there, etc.…
Well trodden yet nowhere close to being understood. I'll say it again - whether or not we are deterministic is not a settled question. I didn't take a position on that either way. My point was that because of our present (poor) understanding there's no reason to assume a human and an octopus have different degrees of agency, so questioning whether or not an octopus is deterministic is inconsequential to whether we ca…
But we still find it useful to talk about different strata of intelligence and to make predictions based on that. Like I said, your argument is basically, "It's all just chemicals." And that's true, but just doesn't move the conversation in any interesting direction. There is utility in reasoning about these things at the macro level, and that's what this article is about.
It's kind of like saying, "Is this apple red or blue?" And you object, "Red and blue are just labels on an infinite spectrum and don't exist as specific wavelengths!" That's true. But you can still, with high utility and reasonableness, talk about things being red and blue, despite those terms not being perfectly well defined.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The notion of sentience is something that's unsurprisingly well-trodden in both philosophy and neuroscience. Your statements presumes that such is flippant. While there's not a single well-agreed on definition, there are different things like ability to see and project oneself into the future and to assign value to those projections, the ability to empathize, the ability to miss things that are no longer there, etc.…
Something to remember about the MSR test. The high level conclusion that we draw from it is a large leap from what the experiment is able to show and we haven’t been able to distinguish it from any number of plausible theories. For example, I caught my dog looking at me through the mirror in the room when she didn’t have direct line of sight and we were the only two in the room and I was talking in ways that would ge…
Humans fail the PSR, the pee self-recognition test, are they even conscious?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would that be better to not have them? It sounds a bit presumptive of a universal morality rather than a logical statement.
It's not an insane idea that octopuses might not enjoy being stuffed into what amounts to a studio apartment for their entire life.
Hesiod in his Works and Days (c. 700 BC) talks about the behaviour of octopuses, saying that when octopuses get hungry they will eat their own tentacles. Amazingly, Hesiod was right about this behaviour (octopuses do sometimes eat their own tentacles) but it's not because they're hungry, but because they're stressed.
Eating your tentacle is a net negative in "calories" long term, and there is probably the opportunity cost of not having said tentacle (for some time?)
I guess maybe they want a quick snack for the high energy jet propulsion predator escape that they are preparing for when stressed.
But then Hesoid is kid of right, they do eat it because they need more energy.
When humans are social with humans, are they reaching out or simply reacting?