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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

#171

Post by suriyaG »

brendyn wrote: post #152
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 (…

Stop doing it then. Often we see the logical conclusion to something, but then our brains just shrug it off and chooses ignorance. I think it is necessary at this point to find emotionally stimulating content such as videos of slaughterhouses not following regulation, this can help us come to terms with what we already know.

I agree with you.

but I find meat and the associated horrors that come with it, to be no more or less repugnant than the broader society and industrial complex that I'm forced to be a part of.

I suppose, I personally could contribute to be one less living being suffering. but in the broader scheme of things (new wars, poverty, deaths etc.). in a very nihilistic way, I don't see how it changes anything.

I'm probably just copping out.

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

#172

Post by fragmede »

Nursie wrote: post #112
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.

> I didn't realize that an octopuses brain was spread out all over its body. Yep, distributed around, though with concentrations in some areas. They have a concentration of neurons in a sort of doughnut shape gathered around the mouth and oesophagus area, their gullet actually goes through the middle of their most dense brain area. Very large potential for ice-cream headaches right there.

If they eat something too big they literally break their brain and become stupid.

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

#173

Post by dumberquestions »

47635274172635 wrote: post #156
dumberquestions wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you think having any drawbacks whatsoever to not eating meat is sufficient to justify eating it, I would've thought the drawbacks had to at least outweigh the suffering involved.

As compared to what, those animals never having experienced life ... at all? All farmed animals get to live and experience this place because of us. What you are fundamentally proposing is wiping them from existence, from possible existence. You cannot really argue for that without it being more goulish that you're trying to make it seem when they get turned into food. All of them die eventually, even if we don't eat…

If it was only a matter of painless killing I agree that it would've been a lot more gray, but that's not the type of world we currently live in.

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

#174

Post by verisimi »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #126
verisimi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Except it's a cow, so not the same as us. I mean, presumably.

Yes, we operate at a different level, and don't serve the same purpose (humans are not food). Similarities are that we are engineered (psychologically, 13+ years of schooling), operate in an artificial environment not a natural one. All sorts of manipulative tricks are used in order to convince us to gift the fruits of our labour. Typically most people hand over > 45% of their effort (taxes) for over 30 years. If the best value humans offered could be provided in just two years of physical growth (like meat cows), we would be facing different terrain and expectations.

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

#175

Post by jjtheblunt »

thelaxiankey wrote: post #168
jjtheblunt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what about it is not correlation, that you imply?

maybe he/she missed the part where they reconstituted the break in e coli to show that it had the molecular effect they said it did?

yeah that's what i thought too.

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

#176

Post by randomImmigrant »

yieldcrv wrote: post #169
randomImmigrant wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Octopus senescence isn’t a choice. It’s a fully programmed part of their life cycle. There’s a bunch of hormones released by the optic gland that put them in this stage where they stop eating, stop healing, and sometimes even mutilate themselves. For the mothers, the entire time is spent cleaning and blowing water over the eggs. It’s generally accepted this behavior is the necessary pair to their high aggression and…

That explains how the mutation was promoted But not whether other adaptations could be possible. Fix the digestive tract issue and keep the female well fed and defending the nest in a different way

There's no single mutation. Nor is their sensecense merely a digestive tract issue. This is a core feature of their lifecycle. If you mutate the genes that make the hormones that trigger it, or the receptors for those hormones, you won't just prevent their sensecense, because those genes have other functions important to other parts of their life cycle.

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

#177

Post by jjtheblunt »

jjk166 wrote: post #166
jjtheblunt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what about it is not correlation, that you imply?

The default assumption is non-correlation. No firm evidence was presented demonstrating correlation. Hence "not even clear it qualifies as correlation." This is a one time event that happened sometime after incirrates and cirrates split. This is like claiming there is a correlation between the Carrington Event of 1859 and the outbreak of the US civil war in 1860. One happened before the other. One could plausibly con…

i understand correlation and causation (as a math person for decades) and the article talks of trying to establish correlation with experiments on e coli and introducing similar breaks.

Inserting the same break in the ribosomes of Escherichia coli bacteria made the engineered cells produce proteins with about twice their usual accuracy.

they then went looking at the divergence data between the various distantly related cephalopods and again said they again couldn't find a counterexample to the conjecture that the RNA break and higher intelligence are correlated, but not established causal, because both phenotype and genetics are individually correlated to the same timeframes. that doesn't mean they're correlated to each other, let alone causal, of course, in either direction.

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

#178

Post by analog31 »

47635274172635 wrote: post #153
analog31 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's not existing like?

I know what existing is like, and I like it. Cows seem to like it when they sit in the grass looking at a sunset. Beats nothing.

Do cows experience non-existence the way that non-existent humans do, or more like non-existent rocks, or something in between?

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

#179

Post by constantius »

pitched wrote: post #69
colordrops wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of these "self-reported" vegans were true ethical vegans vs instgram influencer, "I eat chicken once a week" vegans. Also, what's your point? Is there a proven direct correlation between ethics/morals and educational level? And even if there were, does that imply that this less educated group is as a whole completely wrong? And are you implying that ethics and morals were even objective and measurea…

The linked study does show that correlation. But I personally believe it’s more of a second-order effect. Vegetarianism selects for openness and analytical/reflective thinking but the extra step to veganism selects for absolutism/purity and rigid category-based thinking. Reflective thinking and openness are definitely correlated to IQ so I believe the result in the article. The point here is to know your audience. Th…

You have a conclusion that you want to defend and some biases you're unaware of, so you're also not aware how tortured this argument sounds.

Pick some other topic. For example: are people who thinkthat slavery is inherently and always wrong just stupid extremists, compared to people who accept that 'some' slavery is fine?

I feel like you're the type to walk around with calipers.

Edit: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49436484 for a better written argument.

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

#180

Post by constantius »

colordrops wrote: post #162
dudefeliciano wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegetarianism, in Europe at least, requires one to be open to a different diet than what one is used to, usually going against social and cultural norms due to a personal conviction that is reached by analysis and reflection, while veganism brings that to the extreme

Everyone has different ethical frameworks. The label of "extreme" is arbitrary, not objective. I'm sure you would never rape or murder someone. Does that make you an extremist? You don't think it's OK to occasionally rape and murder people right? Vegans' ethical framework is that the murder of animals is unacceptable, and so there is no middle ground. That's not extremism, it's a different framework. To frame it as a…

Ah you said it much better than I did, I'll link your comment.
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