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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

#21

Post by colechristensen »

brookst wrote: post #13

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 wa…

One of the struggles with researching octopus intelligence is that they’re basically untrainable. They’ll do what you want them to if they’re interested but it’s quite difficult to get them to be consistently interested.

In other words, it was probably fun for the octopus too.

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

#22

Post by rocqua »

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…

Instinctiveness means there isn't much modeling going on. And modeling reality to guide actions is a big part of intelligence, thought, etc.

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

#23

Post by telesilla »

brookst wrote: post #13

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 wa…

>treating animals well

At any farm where animals are bred as commercial food sources we don't treat them with dignity. Another farm on the way - https://www.npr.org/2024/02/07/1229233837/octopus-farm-spain...

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

#24

Post by rocqua »

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…

Occam's razor does support the mechanistic view. It is certainly necessary to explain the entire world, and it is sufficient to explain intelligence. So by Occam's razor we should accept it is the best explanation of intelligence.

That doesn't mean we have to give up on understanding the mechanism. Nor does it mean we shouldn't try to find out if it isn't a sufficient explanation. But calling it an unsupported belief system goes a bit far. It certainly isn't proven scientific theory. And there is room for it to be wrong. But there are good scientific principles behind this belief.

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

#25

Post by zilti »

telesilla wrote: post #23
brookst wrote: post #13

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 wa…

>treating animals well At any farm where animals are bred as commercial food sources we don't treat them with dignity. Another farm on the way - https://www.npr.org/2024/02/07/1229233837/octopus-farm-spain...

There are lots of farms where animals are treated well and with dignity. At least over here in Switzerland. Source: worked at one, and saw a lot of them (my father worked as a vet).

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

#26

Post by inglor_cz »

colechristensen wrote: post #21
brookst wrote: post #13

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 wa…

One of the struggles with researching octopus intelligence is that they’re basically untrainable. They’ll do what you want them to if they’re interested but it’s quite difficult to get them to be consistently interested. In other words, it was probably fun for the octopus too.

Boredom is likely a very good indicator of high cognitive capabilities.

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

#27

Post by inglor_cz »

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…

The jumper explanation is interesting, but it has a hidden catch.

While the Stone Age people who first came up with clothing certainly didn't understand heat flow equations, they still had to think in advance about the coming cold snap and make preparations: hunting down some game for its coat, skinning it etc. Quite a sophisticated set of actions, not a mere instinctive response to changing temperature.

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

#28

Post by jeffreygoesto »

colechristensen wrote: post #21
brookst wrote: post #13

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 wa…

One of the struggles with researching octopus intelligence is that they’re basically untrainable. They’ll do what you want them to if they’re interested but it’s quite difficult to get them to be consistently interested. In other words, it was probably fun for the octopus too.

Sounds a lot like my daughter. And me if I think about it :/

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

#29

Post by PeterisP »

inglor_cz wrote: post #26
colechristensen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the struggles with researching octopus intelligence is that they’re basically untrainable. They’ll do what you want them to if they’re interested but it’s quite difficult to get them to be consistently interested. In other words, it was probably fun for the octopus too.

Boredom is likely a very good indicator of high cognitive capabilities.

It seems quite plausible that "boredom" is a mechanism that is required (or at least useful) for building high cognitive capabilities.

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

#30

Post by card_zero »

PeterisP wrote: post #29
inglor_cz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boredom is likely a very good indicator of high cognitive capabilities.

It seems quite plausible that "boredom" is a mechanism that is required (or at least useful) for building high cognitive capabilities.

I don't exactly believe in it. I think one can only be bored by external forces, or some irrationality.
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