
What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017) - samgilb
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n17/amia-srinivasan/the-sucker-the-sucker
======
jbotz
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 clearly hints that there is
something universal in this consciousness we share, something that seems to
want to evolve to similar parameters given half a chance.

We don't know how common or rare sentience and consciousness are in the
Universe, but because of the Octopus I believe that if ever we do encounter
non-terrestrial sentience we'll have no trouble recognizing it and will find
that we have enough in common to establish communications and a relationship.
Although first we'd do well to do a better job at communicating with and
respecting the many non-human sentient beings on _this_ planet.

~~~
sradman
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 human facial expressions.

The article mentions [NSFW!] _The Dream of the Fisherman 's Wife_ [1] (erotic
Japanese art from 1814) and the books _Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and
the Deep Origins of Consciousness_ [2] by Peter Godfrey-Smith and _The Soul of
an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness_ by Sy
Montgomery [3].

[1] NSFW!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s_Wife)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_Sea,_and_the_Deep_Origins_of_Consciousness)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sy_Montgomery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sy_Montgomery)

EDIT: added NSFW! warnings.

~~~
chrisweekly
Semi-related: "Arrival" was a terrific movie adaptation of "Story of Your
Life", an even better short story by Ted Chiang, featuring attempts at
communication with advanced alien intelligence. Highest recommendation for
both.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
"Terrific" is not the word I'd use to describe the adaptation. Arrival was
entertaining and had, to me, impressive visual and auditory direction, but it
completely missed the point of "Story of Your Life" in the way it changed the
ending.

~~~
chrisweekly
fair point; shouldve worded it "terrific movie, based on the even better book"

------
quercusa
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](https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm#CC)

~~~
centimeter
The second book in the Children of Time series by A. Tchaikovsky deals with
rapidly-evolved octopus intelligence. Similar vibe.

~~~
perardi
Somewhat off-topic, but I just couldn't get into the second book, whereas I
loved the first book.

I think it's because Children of Ruin didn't have as much of the way relatable
human (or Human, as the book goes into) characters to latch onto as an anchor
while they explore the evolution of a different kind of intelligence. I was
really rooting for some of the human characters in Children of Time, namely
Lain, whereas Children of Ruin just felt a little too, uh, alien.

------
deforciant
I would recommend these scifi books
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-
tim...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-time)

And [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40376072-children-of-
rui...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40376072-children-of-ruin)

Lots of fun reading them, great author :)

~~~
louisvgchi
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
on failed catches. It's sophisticated tool use. And yet their brains are teeny
weeny puny things.

Another novel that you might enjoy if you haven't read is "A Deepness in the
Sky", it's similar to Children of Time (and predates it), but told in a
different way. Both are highly enjoyable and packed with ideas.

~~~
mrec
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.

~~~
sgt101
rather than tell the OP what to do you should recommend things yourself. Or
not.

------
nabla9
Octopus intelligence is phenomenal achievement when you consider the
restrictions they have:

1\. No social interaction or learning. Octopuses[1] live alone.

2\. Short life span. Most of them live only few years in the wild.

\----

[1] [https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-many-
plura...](https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-many-plurals-of-
octopus-octopi-octopuses-octopodes)

~~~
GeneralMayhem
I can think of a couple more major disadvantages they have.

3\. Living underwater. Fire is the easiest way to extract energy from raw
materials, and there's no real substitute. On land, there's a lot of local,
controllable dynamism, but when you put things down they tend to stay where
you put them, at least on short timescales. Water is exactly the opposite:
lots of changes you can't control, but no way to get a lot of energy all in
one place. Dolphins would have a hard time developing technology for the same
reason, even if they had the dexterity.

4\. Not being apex predators. This is part of the short lifespan problem, but
I think it goes beyond that. Not many animals are going to mess with a human
if they can help it, which means that it didn't take much for us to get to the
point of having some free brain cycles to spend on improving things. An
octopus is comparatively small and squishy, and shares an environment with
comparatively more large and toothy carnivores, which means that even when
they do manage to survive for more than a couple years they're doing it by
spending most of their time eating and hiding.

~~~
chewxy
3 seems to be the an argument from the anthropic principle. Oxidation happens
in water too, in different forms. Perhaps not as rapid. I would imagine
someone from Mon Calamari would have came up with a completely "easiest" way
to extract energy.

~~~
nabla9
> Perhaps not as rapid

The point of fire is rapid oxidation that provides enough heat to melt metals.

------
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.

~~~
codeulike
Turing Completeness is pretty mundane. You just need GOTOs and IF statements,
and registers/variables. Thats it really. Its not hard to acheive at all.

The Emperors New Mind by Roger Penrose discusses the opposite idea, that
consciousness has a non-computational element that could never even be
approximated by a turing machine. I don't really agree with it but its an
interesting book.

~~~
codeulike
And for those who havent heard of him - Roger Penrose is a serious scientist
and philosopher who did some of the key work on Black Holes with Stephen
Hawking, so he's worth listening to.

------
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.

~~~
novia
> octopuses are more peaceful

female octopi like to eat male octupi

[http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150223-mysteries-of-
canniba...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150223-mysteries-of-cannibal-
octopus-sex)

~~~
bmitc
Thanks for the interesting article. I didn’t know their mechanism of mating
really besides the specialized arm.

However, it is my understanding from previous reading that male octopuses die
within months of mating and that female octopuses die after laying its eggs. I
am surprised this article doesn’t mention it because it puts the cannibalism
into perspective. It seems the biologically triggered death after mating and
laying eggs is an evolutionary strategy, so it makes the female eating the
already dying male less cannibalistic and more strategic.

[https://www.sciencealert.com/mother-octopus-senescence-
death...](https://www.sciencealert.com/mother-octopus-senescence-death-after-
mating-eggs-reproduction-rna-sequence-optic-gland)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/12/01/o...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/12/01/octopus-
surgery-has-a-surprising-end-longer-
life/a8fabbce-0d76-400f-a9b4-e95b8b93094e/)

------
felbane
For some reason I really expected this to be an interview with Danny Carey.

Parallel evolution is amazing. Developing complex communication between human
and octopus would be an amazing feat and would likely answer some of our
questions about the nature of consciousness.

------
gooseus
Does anyone know if there has ever been experimentation with training
octopuses to use some kind of user interface (buttons, dials, sliders,
joysticks) with a grayscale screen or some other kind of modulated output to
solve problems for rewards?

Could an octopus learn to play Super Mario Bros or Pac-Man to beat levels for
crab?

If we could find a reliable way to teach an input language to an octopus we
could start probing what classes of problems are easier or harder for them
solve. We could develop octopus input devices that maximize the size of the
'octo-bus', and find ways to give them an "immersive experience" by modulating
their environment (temp, salinity, pH, etc) as feedback.

Anyone with me on this? I haven't found anything, but I don't know if my
"dorking" is up to par.

~~~
shostack
The second book in the Children of Time series touches on this in the path of
how octopodes get hyper evolved.

------
agency
Something that totally blew my mind is that octopuses seem to react to MDMA in
ways similar to us - socially disinhibited, acting "cuddly":
[https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2018/09/20/6487881...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2018/09/20/648788149/octopuses-get-strangely-cuddly-on-the-mood-drug-
ecstasy)

------
pavanky
If anyone is else is interested in thought experiments on how other forms of
intelligence / sapience may evolve, try to read "Children of Time" and
"Children of Ruin" by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Also if anyone else has other books that follow similar themes, please
recommend!

~~~
onnodigcomplex
Two Greg Egan stories come to mind.

Wang's carpets is a short story about life evolving within a simulation of a
naturally occurring computer. (also part of the larger novel Diaspora)

Schild's Ladder is about physicists researching the fundamental 'geometry' of
the universe and accidentally create a quickly expanding geometry that is more
stable than a regular vaccuum, very unhealthy for all regular matter, but...

------
qwertygnu
This was a really awesome article! Very well written and utterly thought-
provoking.

Also this blurb from the author's website is amazing[1]:

> _To research her books, films, and articles, Sy Montgomery has been chased
> by a silverback gorilla, embrced by a Giant Pacific Octopus and undressed by
> an orangutan. But she is perhaps best known for her 14 year love affair with
> Christopher Hogwood, a runt piglet who grew to a 750-pound great Buddha
> master._

[1] [http://symontgomery.com/](http://symontgomery.com/)

------
dschuetz
The article is a good read. I was left with even more questions: How come that
most documentaries explain the vibrant and undulating colors as some sort of
communication, when in actuality there is no evidence that they can observe
colors? Even more interesting is the question where do the chromatophores get
their color "data" since there are no apparent color receptors in their eyes
or skin so that they can mimic their surroundings for camouflage?

~~~
Double_Cast
From what I've read elsewhere, an octopus's pupils isolate colors via
chromatic aberration. They can see a range of colors, but only one color at a
time.

------
pbk1
The opening of this article references Hokusai's "Great Wave" woodblock print.
There's an easter egg in this print I never noticed, which is that Mount Fuji
is nestled in the trough of the wave.

Learned this from a great NYT article on Hokusai focusing on another print
from the same series:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/07/arts/design/h...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/07/arts/design/hokusai-
fuji.html)

~~~
Hamuko
> _There 's an easter egg in this print I never noticed, which is that Mount
> Fuji is nestled in the trough of the wave._

It's literally part of the "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" series, so I don't
really know if it can be regarded as an easter egg.

------
cvaidya1986
The original 8X engineers.

~~~
allendoerfer
By the logic of your own joke, they would be a 4x engineers.

~~~
cvaidya1986
Well technically if two handed humans can be a 10X then 8 tentacled octopus
can be 40X!

Full stack octopus

------
alikim
I strongly recommend both of these books. The Soul of an Octopus is more
anecdotal and Other Minds is more academic; in sum they offer not just a
fascinating picture of octopuses, but a larger discussion on consciousness and
foreign intelligence.

------
40four
I've always been amazed and fascinated by octopuses. Their intelligence, the
way they can manipulate their bodies. Most of all the almost instantaneous
ability to change their skin color and camouflage with their environment. I
highly recommend this episode of PBS 'Nature' I recently watched.

"Octopus: Making Contact" [https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/octopus-making-
contact-y8dya...](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/octopus-making-
contact-y8dyan/20052/)

------
pengaru
Radiolab did a great "Octomom" episode that seems apropos here, definitely
worth a listen.

[https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/radi...](https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/radiolab_podcast/radiolab_podcast20octomom.mp3)

------
mindfulplay
One amazing snippet that is contradictory to human beings: octopuses are
color-blind across their entire body (with their physical eyes as well as
their "body" eyes) but they are excellent camouflage artists! How is that even
possible. Don't you need to perceive color to be able to take it??

~~~
john-aj
Hm, that is a good question. Evolutionarily, there is not necessarily any
benefit for the octopus to being _conscious_ of color, but there has to be
some way in which its body, if only mechanically, "perceives" color and
imitates it.

------
TheOtherHobbes
I don't think we'll be doing well with SETI until we have a better
understanding of the animals around us. This planet is teeming with non-
mammalian intelligence and mostly we either ignore it, are irritated by it, or
try to eat it.

------
cesarito
Reminds me that this youtuber still is profiting from these animals:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NcChbIdrdaA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NcChbIdrdaA)

~~~
wizzwizz4
Why would you _eat_ an octopus‽

------
codeisawesome
Being an octopus is intelligent and great until Korean people decide to pluck
you as a baby out of the ocean and boil you alive for fun (and laugh as you
struggle in unimaginable pain).

------
inopinatus
When asked if I have any dietary requirements, I’ll always respond, I don’t
eat octopus. Tales of Diogenes aside, this is why. I don’t eat my peers.

~~~
akimball
Et moi aussi: I try not to eat anyone smarter than me.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/UsRxB](https://archive.is/UsRxB)

------
TedDoesntTalk
> Octopuses are the closest we can come, on earth, to knowing what it might be
> like to encounter intelligent aliens.

Wow

------
gigatexal
If I could I’d come back as an octopus. What awesome, majestic creatures.

~~~
bserge
Just try not to get eaten alive for YouTube views, I guess...

~~~
gigatexal
I’d come back as a cross between an octopus and one punch man ;)

------
hinkley
I used to know someone whose favorite "are they kidding or serious" joke was
that octopi were aliens.

This often lead to a discussion about how we'd be an aquatic civilization of
octopi lived much longer than they do.

------
coldtea
It's handy.

------
mellosouls
I can't read the article at the moment to judge, but going by some of the
comments, the original famous essay of this ilk (exploring the idea of
consciousness by imagining experiencing life as an very different species)
might be of interest.

[https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3...](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F)

~~~
neonate
[https://archive.is/UsRxB](https://archive.is/UsRxB)

~~~
mellosouls
Thank you

------
mellosouls
Paywalled. Please will the OP or somebody provide a readable link.

Edit:

For anybody who had the same problem as me, try using a different device or
privacy mode.

I can't access it on my PC due to the paywall but can on my phone (same,
synced browser).

------
papito
Now do raccoons do raccoons!

