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What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)

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Re: What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)

#61

Post by sgt101 »

mrec wrote: post #47
louisvgchi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also read both books. It's a good exploration into the minds of spiders and octopuses, if given "uplift". A recent study I read about shows that spider intelligence is ill-studied but actually holds a wealth of interesting facets. Jumping spiders plan, such as when hunting, and can be surprised. They are also doing elaborate planning when building webs, and make adjustments to strength/stickiness in webs based o…

If you're recommending A Deepness in the Sky , you should also recommend A Fire Upon the Deep by the same author (Vernor Vinge). A very different take on alien intelligence, and possibly more relevant to the octopus model in that it covers distributed selves, albeit over individuals rather than limbs.

rather than tell the OP what to do you should recommend things yourself. Or not.

Re: What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)

#62

Post by gregfjohnson »

I wonder about the relationship between consciousness and Turing completeness. Although we don't have infinite tapes inside our heads, it seems that one could imagine a succession of progressively richer finite approximations to Turing-style computational universality. Perhaps "degrees on consciousness" as discussed in the article have to do with the depth of the approximation a creature with a given physiology can make to computational universality. I believe that the independent evolution of eyes resulted in surprising similarities, because of the underlying physics of photons, and the constraints placed on solving the same problems of interpreting streams of photons. It might be that there is some similar unifying computational phenomenon that drives evolution to similar mutually intelligible consciousnesses even via radically distinct evolutionary paths.

Re: What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)

#64

Post by kharak »

quercusa wrote: post #2

The novel Blindsight by Peter Watts considers the issues humans would face in contact with similarly alien aliens. It's an intriguing read. Available under CC: https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm#CC

To this day I wonder if consciousness is needed, or a hindrance for intelligence. That is that SF is all about, raising and play with these kind of questions. Can truly recommend Blindsight.

Re: What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)

#66

Post by 0_____0 »

e40 wrote: post #49
sradman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cephalopods are magnificent. I knew they were smart and curious but I was caught off guard the first time I realized that a curious cuttlefish was making eye contact with me. No other reef animals exhibit anything like this kind of intelligence; the dissimilarity is striking. When you start to doubt your interpretation they quite literally flash their emotional state through color changes that seem as telling as huma…

We're all home (probably), but that [1] is NSFW! (it wasn't totally obvious to me before clicking, I thought it would be a text description)

Funny enough, there is a text description on the woodcut itself. If you click through to the photo on Wikipedia I believe there's a translation in the description.

For the lazy: it's pure, unadulterated smut

Re: What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)

#67

Post by iguy »

nabla9 wrote: post #57
iguy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But I'd reverse these questions: why so much intelligence, with seemingly few opportunities to use it?

Most likely because they have complex tentacles that need fine motor control. Their brains developed to control their body. Their eyes seem to be good as well. Even in human brain huge area of brain dedicated into hands. Human fine motor skill (or dexterity) is superior compared to other apes. We can do small detailed moves. Other apes and monkeys are clumsy. After the complexity of brain developed to control their d…

I guess that's it. Some other asocial animals are pretty smart, because they need it for hunting, or something. (Although even the most anti-social mammals still interact with their mom!)

Re: What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)

#68

Post by powersnail »

nico_h wrote: post #37
wombatmobile wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How?

Gorillas can use sign language, dogs can use speaking buttons, I’m sure dolphins or orcas could be taught something we would recognise as language, maybe even chimpanzé

In the case of Gorilla, I think it wasn't quite the level of sign language that it learned, but vocabularies and phrases.

I had a psychology professor who was part of the research teaching Koko sign language. And according to him, what Koko learned was really impressive, more than they anticipated. But it was still fundamentally different from human language.

It was a long time ago, and I don't recall what exactly was lacking. It could be on the lines of grammatical structures, that for Koko, there was no difference between "not want banana" and "want banana not". She didn't have an idea of what the negation was directed at. In the eye of linguistic psycholinguistics, the difference wasn't trivial.

In contrast, human children, even with limited vocabulary, could grasp and even invent grammars.

Re: What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)

#69

Post by mindfulplay »

Fantastic article. Superb writing and makes me ponder about our species in general.

I do have a general take on how humans perceive or judge other organisms through a very human lens. We characterize organisms based on their social structure, longevity, 'cleverness' etc. While looking at how humans compare with octopuses at a meta level, octopuses seem to be not waging wars, more peaceful, seem to have survived for more than 600 millions years. I wonder if human beings would have a similar track record: looks like humans are well into destroying their own kind and the environment faster than most other creatures.

At the same time human beings seem ill equipped to judge or characterize 'alien' lives: we often want to 'make contact' or have a communication or social channel with aliens. As if a show of our mental power and social structure is the most important aspect..

Just looking at how octopuses are being measured by humans, it feels rather silly the kind of approaches humans use to evaluate other species let alone aliens.

Re: What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)

#70

Post by bserge »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #36
jbotz wrote: post #3

It's an old trope in Sci Fi that alien intelligences would be so different from us that we couldn't even begin to comprehend them. Octopuses belie that idea... although we share some DNA, our last common ancestors barely had a nervous system, so any similarities in cognition between us really are the product of paralllel evolution. And since their environments are also very different from ours, this parallel evoution…

I personally believe that at some point civilizations will stop using their bodies and live in something like computers or whatever it will be by then. So we may already be living in a highly networked universe without noticing it. With all the technological progress I can’t imagine why someone would want to deal with our very flawed bodies in the long run. We are already getting more and more of our experiences thou…

Our bodies are extremely powerful and versatile. If we actually understood how they work and how to build/modify them, we'd get way more mileage out of them than an electromechanical alternative.

Imagine a body with perfect physique, maximum strength, a bigger/denser brain, programmable immune system, etc. It could even be adapted for deep sea or outer space life.

We haven't even begun to understand biotech at this level, because of moral/ethical concerns and a general aversion to anything organic (understandable, experimentation with sentient life is seen as bad, and our primitive side rejects most foreign biomatter altogether).

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