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What is it like to be a crab?

aeon.co

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Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#11

Post by Justsignedup »

Etheryte wrote: post #8
timeagain wrote: post #4

Somehow I find it harder to imagine what it “would be like” to be even simpler creatures. As a crab I can kind of imagine having more legs and probably having a great sense of smell. I can imagine the excitement and urgency of spawning. How it would feel to think that a sea floor carcass would be tasty. In the other hand, what the hell would it feel like to be a worm? Would I have an inherent sense of “left” and “rig…

And most important of all, would she still love you if you were a worm?

There's a story about a man who woke up as a dung bettle...

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#13

Post by tablarasa »

timeagain wrote: post #4

Somehow I find it harder to imagine what it “would be like” to be even simpler creatures. As a crab I can kind of imagine having more legs and probably having a great sense of smell. I can imagine the excitement and urgency of spawning. How it would feel to think that a sea floor carcass would be tasty. In the other hand, what the hell would it feel like to be a worm? Would I have an inherent sense of “left” and “rig…

It is sometimes surprising to learn which organisms are more or less like us. Annelid worms like the ones you likely find in the soils where you live do have brains, for example, albeit ones with different characteristics than those of crustaceans or mammals [1]. They don’t have lungs though sometimes gills. Are they more like crabs or humans? Tough to say but fun to ponder. Incidentally, of the marine invertebrates, the ones we are most closely related to are tunicates and salps, which are blobs that filter feed [2]. Who said cladistics wasn’t cool?

Imagine all the ways we can’t imagine how other organisms experience their existence. But as you learn more about their biology it’s incredible how much we share.

1. https://frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...

2. https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/tunicates-not-...

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#17

Post by akomtu »

Etheryte wrote: post #8
timeagain wrote: post #4

Somehow I find it harder to imagine what it “would be like” to be even simpler creatures. As a crab I can kind of imagine having more legs and probably having a great sense of smell. I can imagine the excitement and urgency of spawning. How it would feel to think that a sea floor carcass would be tasty. In the other hand, what the hell would it feel like to be a worm? Would I have an inherent sense of “left” and “rig…

And most important of all, would she still love you if you were a worm?

If she was a crab, she certainly would.

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#18

Post by jemmyw »

timeagain wrote: post #4

Somehow I find it harder to imagine what it “would be like” to be even simpler creatures. As a crab I can kind of imagine having more legs and probably having a great sense of smell. I can imagine the excitement and urgency of spawning. How it would feel to think that a sea floor carcass would be tasty. In the other hand, what the hell would it feel like to be a worm? Would I have an inherent sense of “left” and “rig…

Most worms don't actually become separate organisms when cut in half, it's just a myth based on their reaction. They usually just die after while.

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#19

Post by dieselgate »

This is such a classic title for an Aeon article.

If anyone is interested in other related content I've always found the article about ctenophore nervous system/evolution [1] to be cool - also from Aeon.

Regarding the "higher animal" part: My SO is a neuroscience researcher studying fruit flies, it's common for people to ask "How does your work relate to human brains/health?" and the answer is usually "The work doesn't translate to humans." Their lab also focuses on "walking behavior" of the fly which can be funny in conversations, flies walk more than you think.

[1] https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-ctenophore-says-about-the-ev...

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#20

Post by logtempo »

timeagain wrote: post #4

Somehow I find it harder to imagine what it “would be like” to be even simpler creatures. As a crab I can kind of imagine having more legs and probably having a great sense of smell. I can imagine the excitement and urgency of spawning. How it would feel to think that a sea floor carcass would be tasty. In the other hand, what the hell would it feel like to be a worm? Would I have an inherent sense of “left” and “rig…

The book "the tree of possibilities" wrote by Bernard Werber, contains twenty "philosophy-fiction" stories. One of them is about a scientist who want to "free" its brain from its body, so he put his brain in a jar, and just...think. I think it kind of relate to your comment. It's a good reading (an other story is the left hand of one guy taking control and starting to act as a human).
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