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"She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

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Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#11

Post by RoyalHenOil »

slothtrop wrote: post #7

Here we go again anthropomorphizing creatures that live 1-2 years by misrepresenting data for clicks.

What aspect of it is anthropomorphizing? Do you mean the phrase "bouncing the ball" because it is not literally bouncing a ball? Nothing else in the article jumped out at me as ascribing human-specific behavior to octopuses.

Also, I don't follow what lifespan has to do with anything. Rats live about 2 years, yet they are dramatically more human-like (exhibiting higher intelligence, more play behavior, etc.) than most other animals, including animals with very long lifespans, such as turtles.

Not to mention that the article was specifically regarding an octopus species that lives longer than that; I take it you did not actually read it?

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#12

Post by paulrudy »

zztop44 wrote: post #6
roenxi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I preferred the bottle-bouncing behaviour. It seems unlikely that nature encoded that one as an instinct - or if it did, it is an adaptive enough instinct to be intelligence for me. It just happens that the leading example was not correct. That sort of thing turns up all the time in creatures that are effectively thoughtless automatons.

It’s a bit off topic I’m not sure behaviour being “instinctive” means it’s thoughtless (whatever that means). For example, being uncomfortable might be an instinctive response to being cold, but it’s hardly thoughtless. Some people choose to swim in icy water as a form of recreation. Some sit outside on a cool night and enjoy the crisp air. We write songs and poetry about the deep frost. It means something to us. I k…

> but I do always feel weird when I hear any living thing called effectively a thoughtless automaton.

I feel very weird about this too.

This de facto assumption that organisms are mechanisms first, that "higher-order" experiences we are familiar with as humans are at best "emergent" from these mechanisms--I wish people would understand that this is fundamentally as much a belief system, an article of faith, as the many alternatives are.

Saying this doesn't imply that every belief system is equally valuable or scientifically verifiable. But I think it's important to recognize one's axioms and/or biases.

The mechanistic view is certainly compelling and has the appearance of being all-encompassing.

Its all-encompassing appearance may actually be an artifact of how used to the story we've grown. A clockwork universe. We know that one by heart, whether we're scientists or not. We can apply that template to anything, and set about exploring (or reading about) the mechanisms. The fact that there are mechanisms everywhere doesn't prove that mechanism is all there is. That last part is an implicit belief system, a hidden article of faith, and that's how you get Descartes vivisecting dogs, and conscious experience necessarily (as though no other possibility could exist) having to be an "emergent" property.

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#13

Post by brookst »

I had a joyful experience at the octopus farm near Kona Hawaii (now sadly closed because they were even more sadly apparently not treating the animals well).

With hands in the tank, I was able to play catch with a small plastic ball and a roughly 2 month old octopus. It was definitely catch — I could scoot the ball anywhere and the octopus would grab it and throw it back.

Possibly a trained behavior, who knows? It was really charming and delightful.

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#14

Post by anileated »

RoyalHenOil wrote: post #11
slothtrop wrote: post #7

Here we go again anthropomorphizing creatures that live 1-2 years by misrepresenting data for clicks.

What aspect of it is anthropomorphizing? Do you mean the phrase "bouncing the ball" because it is not literally bouncing a ball? Nothing else in the article jumped out at me as ascribing human-specific behavior to octopuses. Also, I don't follow what lifespan has to do with anything. Rats live about 2 years, yet they are dramatically more human-like (exhibiting higher intelligence, more play behavior, etc.) than most…

It’s interesting how the same phrase can mean very different things to us depending on whether there is a human or not. It’s completely automatic and is not obvious.

A human bounces the ball: the connotation of play. Something or an animal bounces the ball: mechanical movement. Somehow, it feels like a different action.

In a more drastic version: a human is learning = self-fulfillment, becoming a better person and better member of society, advancement and progress, basic right; machine learning = consuming a dataset to create a black box that can “predict” the next token if you give it one.

If you see “bounces the ball” accompanied by “play” when talking about an animal, it can feel like the intent is to use one version of bouncing in place of another to anthropomorphize an animal (although it’s not clear what would be the alternative for the same mechanical action). I think it can be true that animals play, but someone who doesn’t think so can see it as sensationalizing and misleading public into being taken literally.

In a similar vein, a statement “LLM learns” could seem normal to some, but rub someone else wrong if they think attributing humanness to LLMs is sensationalizing and misappropriating industry term into being taken literally (probably to benefit the big tech).

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#15

Post by godelski »

roenxi wrote: post #2

> "Since the octopus was not reacting to any existing threat, but rather in anticipation of one, it had demonstrated foresight and planning." The journalist is hopefully misunderstanding a more correct explanation by the scientists. That most certainly isn't demonstration of foresight and planning. Nature is perfectly capable of encoding that sort of information as an instinctual response. Something like [trying to s…

While I agree with your distinctions I think it is important to note that the boundary of this is not explicitly clear and it can be difficult to differentiate.

Certainly instinctual responses are a form of planning, but more automated. For example, people often forego reaching for a jacket (that is well within reach or even in their literal hands) if they are quickly going from one warm place to another. And idk about you, but I've done this without a moment's thought about how the other end will be warm. The action feels fairly automatic in the same way walking outside in winter has an automatic response of grabbing a jacket.

Of course, this could be because (and likely is) a more complex equation is formulated in my mind but just operated outside the conscious part. But I think that just illustrates how the lines blur. Especially since many conscious actions turn into unconscious ones. Think about when you first learned to drive a car and how involved you were compared to now many years later. In fact, you WANT to have automated responses as these are quicker, but they come through experience. Do we call this foresight and planning? I think you can argue either side. You can easily argue that some algorithm with explicit foresight and planning was encoded into the subconscious.

I guess I'm just trying to say that it is quite complicated and we should be ensuring this complexity is known (the existence of complexity, not necessarily all the details), or it will be difficult to interpret.

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#16

Post by capex »

roenxi wrote: post #2

> "Since the octopus was not reacting to any existing threat, but rather in anticipation of one, it had demonstrated foresight and planning." The journalist is hopefully misunderstanding a more correct explanation by the scientists. That most certainly isn't demonstration of foresight and planning. Nature is perfectly capable of encoding that sort of information as an instinctual response. Something like [trying to s…

There's a video about an octopus solving a maze: https://youtu.be/7__r4FVj-EI?si=FH2QsL7BxlJ4h7KF. You could call that reactionary too, but at some point we have to admit octopuses do have a higher level of intelligence than we'd assume from an animal their size.

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#17

Post by zztop44 »

paulrudy wrote: post #12
zztop44 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a bit off topic I’m not sure behaviour being “instinctive” means it’s thoughtless (whatever that means). For example, being uncomfortable might be an instinctive response to being cold, but it’s hardly thoughtless. Some people choose to swim in icy water as a form of recreation. Some sit outside on a cool night and enjoy the crisp air. We write songs and poetry about the deep frost. It means something to us. I k…

> but I do always feel weird when I hear any living thing called effectively a thoughtless automaton. I feel very weird about this too. This de facto assumption that organisms are mechanisms first, that "higher-order" experiences we are familiar with as humans are at best "emergent" from these mechanisms--I wish people would understand that this is fundamentally as much a belief system , an article of faith, as the m…

Yes. Also, one of the most popular alternative views (that a non-“mechanical” soul is the origin of higher-order experiences) is probably even more deeply engrained in many of our cultures and patterns of thought. And operates very similarly, albeit with a different story about how these properties “emerge”.

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#18

Post by lpfnrobin »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #9
slothtrop wrote: post #7

Here we go again anthropomorphizing creatures that live 1-2 years by misrepresenting data for clicks.

Octopuses are crazy smart and theres tons of evidence for it; not sure where this comment comes from even if the article is mediocre.

What happens after the bottle?

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#19

Post by [deleted] »

roenxi wrote: post #2

> "Since the octopus was not reacting to any existing threat, but rather in anticipation of one, it had demonstrated foresight and planning." The journalist is hopefully misunderstanding a more correct explanation by the scientists. That most certainly isn't demonstration of foresight and planning. Nature is perfectly capable of encoding that sort of information as an instinctual response. Something like [trying to s…

[deleted]

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#20

Post by paulrudy »

zztop44 wrote: post #17
paulrudy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I do always feel weird when I hear any living thing called effectively a thoughtless automaton. I feel very weird about this too. This de facto assumption that organisms are mechanisms first, that "higher-order" experiences we are familiar with as humans are at best "emergent" from these mechanisms--I wish people would understand that this is fundamentally as much a belief system , an article of faith, as the m…

Yes. Also, one of the most popular alternative views (that a non-“mechanical” soul is the origin of higher-order experiences) is probably even more deeply engrained in many of our cultures and patterns of thought. And operates very similarly, albeit with a different story about how these properties “emerge”.

Yes, that's true. Generally, we see that point of view as a belief, an article of faith (and of course the subject of a lot of disagreement) but we're falsely conditioned to imagine that the purely-mechanical view is free of all that, and it's not.
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