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Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#91

Post by justacrow »

47635274172635 wrote: post #62
King-Aaron wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally that justification is based heavily on the taste.

Based on not having a realistic choice. The only person I personally know to successfully pull it off is an acquaintance that's rich by local standards, doesn't work, spends a lot of time sourcing and cooking it, and also eating it. He needs to eat more for same energy. It's so involved that most of his life revolves around it. It takes a good bit out of his time. The rest of the people from that friend group couldn'…

...just buy some beans/lentils and learn to cook those? It's not a herculean effort or particularly expensive.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#92

Post by ethersteeds »

47635274172635 wrote: post #67
bayganyo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how people justify (or not) whether to eat another animal.

Farm animals wouldn't even have existed in the first place if it wasn't for farming them. They wouldn't have experienced their life at all. I personally think hunting is horrible, that's going after something that is alive without you having a say in it. But say for farmed cows, living in a field for a while, that's better than not existing at all. You cannot judge if it's worth it from the cow's perspective, it got…

This is an interesting thought experiment, though I generally come to opposite conclusions. I personally think that hunting a wild animal situates the hunter in the broader context of the natural world, in which organisms live by their wits and try to outrun others doing the same.

Conversely, farmed animals owe their existence as you say to our cultivating them. But where you see a moral release in that connection, I see a corruption of life into industrial inputs. A hunted animal many times will catch scent or sound and take flight, winning their life for another day. Livestock can't change their destiny by wit or will. Their entire existence is within the technological apparatus of our species.

The corruption becomes evident in evolution cleaved from the organism's interest and placed in service of our appetites. In turkeys with breasts too large to be able to balance standing up, let alone walk. Such animals can only reproduce by artificial insemination and only eat when food is placed directly in front of them.

Power dynamics such as these tempt us to tell just-so stories about lives well lived. Can we say for them that their lives are preferable to not existing at all? We're surely not neutral.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#94

Post by [deleted] »

ortusdux wrote: post #5
BatFastard wrote: post #4

I found the article very interesting. Not click bait at all. I didn't realize that an octopuses brain was spread out all over its body.

Not only that, they have the highest ratio of brain-to-body-mass of any invertebrate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence

[deleted]

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#96

Post by make3 »

fmjrey wrote: post #6

I would imagine their intelligence is directly proportional to the so many degrees of freedom the arms have for grasping, but don't ask which one came first, chicken or egg?

why chicken or egg? it's way to imagine both evolving together in a mutually reinforcing relationship where the gains in one are direct incentives for the other to continue to evolve, etc

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#97

Post by verisimi »

47635274172635 wrote: post #67
bayganyo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how people justify (or not) whether to eat another animal.

Farm animals wouldn't even have existed in the first place if it wasn't for farming them. They wouldn't have experienced their life at all. I personally think hunting is horrible, that's going after something that is alive without you having a say in it. But say for farmed cows, living in a field for a while, that's better than not existing at all. You cannot judge if it's worth it from the cow's perspective, it got…

> You cannot judge if it's worth it from the cow's perspective, it got to live, enjoy the sun, eating in the field, doing cow stuff, same as us.

Yep, same as us.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#98

Post by fittingopposite »

blamestross wrote: post #72
hermitcrab wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, so maybe think twice before eating one.

Octopi essentially consent. They are avid cannibals. In the octopi universe eating an octopi is clearly ok.

Fyi octopus is a Greek not Latin word (meaning 8 feet) and its correct plural would be rather octopodes.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#99

Post by vasco »

hermitcrab wrote: post #9
ortusdux wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, they have the highest ratio of brain-to-body-mass of any invertebrate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence

Yes, so maybe think twice before eating one.

No, don't think too much because you'll be sad. Better to pretend its just dumb tasty meat.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#100

Post by lobofta »

47635274172635 wrote: post #60
suriyaG wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat). octopus passing a intelligence test does not keep it above the fold, neither does cattle go below the fold because they don't clear the bar (surprise, cattle are equally emotional, smart, curious etc.). sounds wrong when I type it out but that is just the truth. milk is actually more ethically wrong when you think about it (…

>eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat). I think this is very wrong. Doesn't account for when you don't have a choice, to be healthy. You need to eat more, you need to consider all possible situations, construction work people need to sustain all that physical labor somehow. It's a more serious chore to even attempt to build a non meat based diet, let alone sourci…

It is not only totally possible to be vegan, but it can be more healthy too. The Acadamy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the largest org for nutritionist and dieticians in the world, have a position paper out saying that a well planned diet is appropriate for all stages of life, including pregnancy. The NHS says the same thing. We even have vegan top athletes nowadays such as Djokovic and Hammilton. You can be vegan, so any justification you bring for violence against animals is for taste pleasure, habbit, culture and just generally not having evolved nor being up to date with the science.
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