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Just how smart is an octopus?

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Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#141

Post by jcoffland »

virmundi wrote: post #88
danans wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like reductio ad absurdum. You could argue amorality in the specific case of you vs. the octopus, in the wild, but that's now how most of us get the octopus or other animals we eat. The instinctual human ability to mentalize about another creature's state of being is likely where our capacity to, for example, domesticate animals and keep them as a food source came from in the first place. That same ability…

Actually, I argue amorality in all things from an agnostic view. There is no such thing as a universal ethic. There is only force and its decay. For the general concept of animal herd vs people collective (effectually herd vs herd), this doesn't much matter. The best argument one can muster its that we, being rational, should preserve a reasonable food chain. The idea goes like this: A stable, sustainable food chain…

> continue living is a good thing

Why stop there? Why is continued living a good thing in the broader scope of the universe?

> Nothing here says that we should exclude from the food chain anything with an intelligence.

Then why not eat other humans too. If you do away with all ethics what argument do you have against it?

To deny that human emotion and feeling have any value is to deny the value of humanity.

Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#142

Post by virmundi »

Falling3 wrote: post #134
virmundi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because we've found empirically that torture doesn't work. If it did, why not? I know many will not like that conclusion, but again, presuming an amoral universe, and I have little evidence outside of a religious world view that I'm wrong to presume such, there is no right or wrong. You admitted in your first sentence. Comment is helpful in that many people, from all backgrounds, assume that ethics are absolute.…

Torture is used for reasons other than obtaining information. It's also used as a form of punishment/vengeance. Does that context change your answer?

If we're doing it for those reason, sure, go ahead as long as you don't weaken society. An arbitrary line is that society is good. If you Torture and it causes civil unrest to the degree that it destabilizes an otherwise productive society, then you should not do it.

Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#143

Post by codehero »

ch4s3 wrote: post #3
overcast wrote: post #2

Way to make me feel worse about eating them.

Well pigs are smarter than dogs, and many people eat them.

Pet pig owner here. Pigs are problem solvers. Pigs are optimizers.

The following videos of my pig demonstrate this.

Video 2: Pig is first learning the task.

Video 3: Pig has slightly optimized the task.

Video 1: Pig has mastered the task.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/37f48azh2bt4xk4/Wy3iHDMp1e?previe...

Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#144

Post by logfromblammo »

pacaro wrote: post #72
komali2 wrote: post #64

Total anecdote here, but when I volunteered at our aquarium in Charleston, SC (amazing aquarium, go check it out), we had a problem where our flounder were vanishing from their tank. We suspected theft and so put a camera up in the back room. The next time flounder disappeared we checked the feed - one of our octopi was escaping from his tank that we thought we had already anti-octopus'd, climbing over the walls, bre…

Pedantic mode here: linguistically it should be octopodes (but nobody who isn't speaking Greek would say that); by usage it should be octopuses; octopi or octopii are just wrong (it's not a second declension noun, despite the 'us' ending)

Octopus has three acceptable pluralizations in English.

  Octopuses is correct by English rules.
  Octopodes is correct by strict etymological Greek-origin rules.
  Octopi is correct by English's pseudo-Latin cognate rules.
The latter means that any singular noun ending in a consonant and "-us" can be pluralized by chopping off the "-us" and appending an "-i" or "-ii", like alumnus, hippopotamus, virus, bacillus, hummus, lotus, oculus, cactus, and platypus. This has even been abused to facetiously pluralize similar-sounding endings, like Elvis or Winklevoss.

This is likely due to the many Anglophone schoolchildren subjected to Latin language lessons over the centuries who simply never cared about proper Latin grammar rules.

Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#145

Post by actsasbuffoon »

pacaro wrote: post #78
enugu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from cognitive skills, an important factor is the capacity of suffering. So even dumb animals might be able to feel intense pain. In humans, while forms of suffering like loneliness, depression can be bad, pure physical pain can itself a terrible thing. For instance severe torture for 10 minutes can be worse than months of depression. Now even if cognitive aspects are diminished in animals, the physical senses…

In her book "Animals make is human" - Temple Grandin makes the argument (among many others, this is not the main thesis of the book) that we can have a symbiotic relationship with animals, wherein we provide secure food supply, protection from predation and the associated stress, etc. and in return we eat the animal. Factory farming, by contrast has more in common with a parasitic relationship.

To play devil's advocate, would you accept the same trade? We've provided you with medicine, police protection, and subsidized food and shelter. Does that give me the right to presume that I should be able to eat you?

Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#146

Post by [deleted] »

virmundi wrote: post #88
danans wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like reductio ad absurdum. You could argue amorality in the specific case of you vs. the octopus, in the wild, but that's now how most of us get the octopus or other animals we eat. The instinctual human ability to mentalize about another creature's state of being is likely where our capacity to, for example, domesticate animals and keep them as a food source came from in the first place. That same ability…

Actually, I argue amorality in all things from an agnostic view. There is no such thing as a universal ethic. There is only force and its decay. For the general concept of animal herd vs people collective (effectually herd vs herd), this doesn't much matter. The best argument one can muster its that we, being rational, should preserve a reasonable food chain. The idea goes like this: A stable, sustainable food chain…

[deleted]

Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#147

Post by Analemma_ »

gcr wrote: post #60
Nexxxeh wrote: post #9

I love how completely alien they are compared to us. The sort of decentralized nature of their nervous system compared to our path of evolution. (I'm no marine/evolutionary biologist so I'm probably butchering the terminology...) I loved reading the two pieces Sy Montgomery wrote that are in Orion Magazine. https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/ And the follow-up: https://orionmagazine.org/2011/11/intervie…

If you like reading about minds that are fundamentally different from our own, you might also enjoy the science fiction novel "Blindsight" by Peter Watts. Exploring the space of possible minds in the universe is a fundamental theme of that work.

Solaris is another good novel about this.

Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#148

Post by pavel_lishin »

Nexxxeh wrote: post #9

I love how completely alien they are compared to us. The sort of decentralized nature of their nervous system compared to our path of evolution. (I'm no marine/evolutionary biologist so I'm probably butchering the terminology...) I loved reading the two pieces Sy Montgomery wrote that are in Orion Magazine. https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/ And the follow-up: https://orionmagazine.org/2011/11/intervie…

Others have already recommended Blindsight, but if you want a short story by Peter Watts specifically dealing with octopus consciousness, Colony Creature is a good read: http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5875

Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#149

Post by virmundi »

jcoffland wrote: post #141
virmundi wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I argue amorality in all things from an agnostic view. There is no such thing as a universal ethic. There is only force and its decay. For the general concept of animal herd vs people collective (effectually herd vs herd), this doesn't much matter. The best argument one can muster its that we, being rational, should preserve a reasonable food chain. The idea goes like this: A stable, sustainable food chain…

> continue living is a good thing Why stop there? Why is continued living a good thing in the broader scope of the universe? > Nothing here says that we should exclude from the food chain anything with an intelligence. Then why not eat other humans too. If you do away with all ethics what argument do you have against it? To deny that human emotion and feeling have any value is to deny the value of humanity.

> Why stop there? Why is continued living a good thing in the broader scope of the universe?

I don't necessarily think it is. I empathize with Joker in the dark night series. If I wasn't a Christian, I'd be a Nihilistic Existentialist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism).

> Nothing here says that we should exclude from the food chain anything with an intelligence.

I addressed this elsewhere. TL;DR: as long as you don't disturb society, go ahead. Disturbing society is a relativistic metric that I chose since it seems to make my life nicer.

Re: Just how smart is an octopus?

#150

Post by jacobush »

logfromblammo wrote: post #144
pacaro wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedantic mode here: linguistically it should be octopodes (but nobody who isn't speaking Greek would say that); by usage it should be octopuses; octopi or octopii are just wrong (it's not a second declension noun, despite the 'us' ending)

Octopus has three acceptable pluralizations in English. Octopuses is correct by English rules. Octopodes is correct by strict etymological Greek-origin rules. Octopi is correct by English's pseudo-Latin cognate rules. The latter means that any singular noun ending in a consonant and "-us" can be pluralized by chopping off the "-us" and appending an "-i" or "-ii", like alumnus, hippopotamus, virus, bacillus, hummus, l…

I don't know, could it also be because what became England was pretty romanised before the Saxon influence began in earnest?
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