
The Octopus: An Alien Among Us - BerislavLopac
https://lithub.com/the-octopus-an-alien-among-us/
======
Scapeghost
So octopuses are very intelligent, and very alien. Anyone who has even
casually read or watched videos about them will know this.

But their potential is cut short by their incredibly short lives (like 5?
years at the higher end) which seem to be caused by a very bizarre self-
destructive behavior after mating (starving themselves, eating their own
arms), which in turn is caused by an "optic gland" and removing that gland
completely eliminates that self-destructiveness and increases their lifespan.

It makes you wonder if that gland was artificially engineered into them.

The sci-fi nerd in me likes to think there is a cosmic conflict between axial-
symmetry species and radial-symmetry species, which may be overall more common
in the universe given how life evolves at the microscopic scale, and Earth was
chosen to give apes a chance.

~~~
Terr_
In regards to sci-fi, it sounds like the inverse of A Mote In God's Eye. Where
[Spoiler Alert] the alien "Moties" had a biology that killed them if they went
too long without mating.

~~~
zzzzzzzza
there's also a short story "love is the plan, the plan is death" that deals
with similar themes (from an alien perspective)

------
jcims
Just saw this yesterday and feel it's apropos for this thread:

Octopus Dreaming -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vKCLJZbytU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vKCLJZbytU)

Some of the best imagery I've ever seen of chromatophores (and other *phores)
in action.

~~~
human20190310
Wow... if dreaming evolved twice, I don't know what to think.

~~~
soulofmischief
If you spend enough time in a sensory deprivation tank, you will usually start
experiencing abstract thoughts and sensory hallucinations. Dreaming is likely
similar in that it's just the natural result of a few moving parts:

1\. An eager sensory network with no inputs can introduce phantom inputs into
the network, which can evolve through feedback loops in networks not being
stimulated by real sensory phenomena

2\. The brain and body's tendency to actively "simulate" its internal
representation of the world, by creating mental scenarios and then playing
them out.

When you throw a baseball, your CNS & muscles run simulations which adjust
your motor neuron activation profile and the way your muscular cells function
based on feedback from the brain about the success of the action.

When you practice a speech, you visualize the place you will be delivering it,
visualize the audience and their potential reactions, so that you can plan
accordingly. This is another kind of mental simulation.

Dreams might be the same thing, generating sensory feedback loops from brain
activity resulting from memory organization and compression during the sleep
cycle, simulating a world and then running through the simulation.

This can greatly increase an organism's survival if the organism's entire life
revolves around finding food and avoiding predators / catching prey. While
they are hidden and safely sleeping, animals are still able to "train"
themselves completely unconsciously.

Seeing as how evolutionarily useful it is, I'm not surprised to see it crop up
in multiple kinds of brains and would be very surprised if advanced aliens do
not dream as well.

~~~
jcims
To me the question is if the octopus is subjectively experiencing the dream. I
guess there's no reason to think it doesn't. Dogs definitely seem to dream and
wake up scared shitless at times...cephalopods seem smarter than dogs.

~~~
soulofmischief
I think it does based on my theory for the strong evolutionary benefits of
dreaming. If consciousness is a result of total brain and body function, then
some level of that consciousness is needed in order to carry out survival-
based simulations while you sleep.

The level of consciousness can vary between organisms and dreams. As an active
lucid dreamer I frequently enjoy full "consciousness" in my dreams, able to
fully make decisions instead of subscribing to my brain's prestructured rules
for navigating the simulated construct. I can even often control the
parameters of the simulation itself.

Most people however never experience this kind of dream, and are completely
slave to the dream. The only thing which imparts their subjective experience
is the ability to recall the dream. Memory is definitely a key component to a
subjective experience.

~~~
eloff
Being able to make decisions in a dream is normal, right? I think
strategically in my dreams, mull over advantages and disadvantages and plan my
response the same way I would while awake - with less clarity though.
Sometimes I get so carried away that takes up the whole dream. I don't think
that's atypical.

I also get pissed off when I recognize something that's logically
contradictory or impossible and realize it's a dream - although I miss a lot
of obvious tells.

~~~
soulofmischief
It's actually very atypical. Most people do not lucid dream or at least recall
a lucid dream more than a handful of times in their lives, and certainly not
intentionally. More people can make their own decisions, to some capacity, but
the insight that your situation isn't real isn't common.

------
irwt
Anyone interested to read more about the octopus' brain, this article is worth
reading: [http://greymattersjournal.com/dive-into-the-mind-of-an-
octop...](http://greymattersjournal.com/dive-into-the-mind-of-an-octopus/)

In a nutshell:

1) Octopuses have a "vertical lobe", which is very similar in function and
organization to our hippocampus.

2) Mammalian hippocampuses have the ability for something known as "longterm
potentiation" (LTP), which is believed to play a crucial part in memory and
learning. Experiments found a similar longterm potentiation mechanism in the
vertical lobe of octopuses.

Quoting the article: "The discovery of LTP in octopuses provides evidence for
convergent evolution that has led to the selection of similar synaptic
activity. Though not yet agreed upon in the scientific community, the
existence of LTP in both mammals and octopuses strengthens the concept of LTP
as a cellular basis for learning and memory and may be a general mechanism for
associative learning".

------
pizzavore
Good read! Adrian Tchaikovsky explored octopus consciousness in the sci-fi
novel 'Children of Ruin'. They really do seem alien.

~~~
derg
I assume this is the sequel to 'Children of Time'? I enjoyed it, so I guess I
should check out the sequel sooner rather than later.

~~~
legohead
Just finished, would definitely recommend. The book has many interesting
ideas, not just the octopodes :)

~~~
bduerst
Yeah, it legit turned into horror at one point - it's been a while since a
book gave an adrenaline rush. Loved it.

~~~
derg
oh this sounds fun. Will add it to the front of the book queue for this
weekend.

~~~
bduerst
Make sure to read Children of Time first, otherwise some of the context will
be lost.

~~~
derg
Already have! I enjoyed it a lot.

------
youeseh
The thing that I keep wondering about is, why don't octopuses have higher
aspirations? Like building octopus cities, and forming an octopus empire. Or
figuring out how to pass on information from generation to generation. Could
an octopus be taught English?

~~~
windsurfer
Most octopus live fewer than 3 years.

~~~
GuB-42
That, I think is the most important reason.

It takes almost 20 years for a modern human to become a productive member of
society. In 3 years, we are barely able to communicate properly. Octopuses
simply don't have time to learn and instead must rely on innate skills.

~~~
randomdata
_> It takes almost 20 years for a modern human to become a productive member
of society._

The expectation of attending school for most of those years tends to greatly
hinder the speed at which one can become a productive member of society
though. Three years is certainly pushing it, but those in early adolescence
have proven that they can be productive members of society, even modern
society, if they focus on the right things.

We allow people to delay becoming productive members of society well beyond
the time they technically could be productive because:

1\. Thanks to modern technology, we now can allow it. Go back into earlier
human history and not being productive in early adolescence means you would
not survive. That is no longer an issue we need to worry about.

2\. Since the above is no longer an issue, we are able to see the human
experience as being about more than just being productive. We want to give
time to explore the world in ways that is not directly useful, but
enlightening nonetheless.

------
mirimir
> The octopus conundrum is an instructive example of how an animal can be
> complex and intelligent, and yet we are, so far, unable to answer the
> question of its subjective experience or even whether the question has any
> meaning for that creature.

I'm not sure, but I think that the author is arguing that we can't say for
sure whether any other creatures are conscious. There are the mirror
experiments, but ultimately, we know that humans are (in general) conscious
because we (personally) are conscious.

------
gautamcgoel
There's a bio professor at my university, Michael Dickinson, who is one of the
world's leading experts on flies, so much so that his email handle is
"flyman". His group is trying to understand the relationship between the fruit
fly's biological structure and it's behavior. They do all these zany
experiments with motion tracking where they observe a bunch of flies
interacting and try to figure out what's going on in their brains. Really cool
stuff. I've always felt that if we could understand the genes -> cells ->
systems -> behavior pathway much better then our understanding of the world
might be completely transformed... I think octopuses would be an especially
interesting model organism to study.

------
gbjw
Also related: Thomas Nagel's 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?'
([https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/hum...](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf)
) wherein he argues that subjective experience transcends objective
materialism.

------
bcaa7f3a8bbc
> _The octopus has a central brain and also an independent, smaller processor
> in each arm, giving it a unique mixture of centralized and distributed
> command._

This is the most interesting part. I read that an octopus's brain can give
their arms high-level commands, and the arms can execute some commands by
themselves.

------
hi41
I did not appreciate life as a young person. It is only in recent years that I
am absolutely enthralled by the beauty of life. Seeing how complex life is, it
is surprising that it even exists. I sometimes question my own motivations
about how I frivolously I have lived my life without paying much attention to
suffering in the lives of other living beings. I also feel powerless in front
of the huge economic forces that I have to come to depend on for my
sustenance. I wish we were better equipped to comprehend the suffering in
another life. I know it only when I am told explicitly. I see all the painful
ways we hunt and find it extremely painful. And much of civilization thinks of
hunting as a sport. Causing pain to another species is sport!

~~~
i_haz_rabies
I think you'd be surprised how many hunters appreciate the beauty and
fragility of nature to a much higher degree than the average person. Who else
sits in the woods for hours and hours and studies the patterns of animals and
weather? There are some dumbasses who just like shooting guns, but a lot of
hunters are also conservationists.

~~~
Falling3
Sure hunters can be conservationists; losing nature means losing their source
of entertainment. But that doesn't mean they appreciate nature and it
certainly doesn't mean they respect individuals, which they obviously do not.

~~~
LeanderK
I think conservationsist is meant in a sense that they respect and appreciate
nature. Every hunter I've come across was conversationist (in a sense that
they appreciate nature), but I am biased because a lot I've come across were
through national parks. But there are certainly a lot of conservationist
hunters.

I think your second sentence is not well formulated because if one does not
follow you line of thought it does not make sense (X does not do Y because it
obviously does not do Y). It's probalbly a risky subject, it might be that you
just want to avoid too intense internet-arguments with that phrasing.

~~~
Falling3
>I think conservationsist is meant in a sense that they respect and appreciate
nature.

These kinds of conversations inevitably involve either special pleading or
completely distorted definitions of words like "respect" that we would not
accept in any other context.

>I think your second sentence is not well formulated because if one does not
follow you line of thought it does not make sense [...]

I honestly have no idea what you're trying to communicate here. Do you want to
try again?

~~~
LeanderK
> These kinds of conversations inevitably involve either special pleading or
> completely distorted definitions of words like "respect" that we would not
> accept in any other context.

And I think this is a bit condescending. You're essentially denying me to have
a different opinion because it's just invalid in your point of view. To give
you perspective: I am not a hunter, I am a vegetarian and have been very
active in environmental protection. I am certainly not advocating for myself
or feel the need to defend my actions by special pleading or completely
distorted definitions. But I see that hunters fullfill an important role
because we don't really have much wild nature here in germany anymore and for
most parts it's not possible because there's not enough space and the
developed nature is not robust enough. Enviromentalist organisations here
often work quite closely with hunters. And I also see that hunters exist that
respect and appreciate nature (not because they want to hunt), which you seem
to deny.

> I honestly have no idea what you're trying to communicate here. Do you want
> to try again?

"But that doesn't mean they appreciate nature and it certainly doesn't mean
they respect individuals, which they obviously do not." Does not make sense to
me because "certainly doesn't mean they respect individuals, which they
obviously do not." does not. You say "X does not do Y because it obviously
does not do Y." where X is the hunter and Y is respecting individuals. You
treat it as given but for me it's not. What I wanted to say is that your
sentence only makes sense when one shares your line of thought (it's obvious
then), but when one does not then it's a not an argument (it is so because it
is so). You treat it as a fact. In spirit it's similiar to my reply above.

~~~
Falling3
We're not talking about differences in opinion here. We're talking about abuse
of language. You cannot respect an individual and kill them for entertainment.
If you think otherwise, you're using a completely different definition of the
word 'respect' and it's certainly not the definition that would be used in any
other context. Hunters can be conservationists. They can even be a net
positive for nature overall. But they kill other individuals. For enjoyment.
Unnecessarily. They don't respect them. And I say this is obvious because it's
a simple syllogism.

Pretending that there is some sort of subjectivity to this discussion is
disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. You keep trying to shift this back
to opinions and points of view, which I find is a common tactic when
discussing animals, but we're not talking about anything subjective.

~~~
LeanderK
> Pretending that there is some sort of subjectivity to this discussion is
> disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. You keep trying to shift this
> back to opinions and points of view, which I find is a common tactic when
> discussing animals, but we're not talking about anything subjective.

Well, I think this answer is even more condescending. A discussion from here
is not possible since you entirely deny every other opinion on the topic and
assert yourself the objective truth. You ignore the various aspects of the
problem, for example professional hunters. A quick search reveals philosophers
discussion the question and coming to different or complex answers that depend
on various factors (most importantly: why does the hunter hunt?), so I can't
be the only one not buying into your line of thought. I originally was
honestly interested in you opinion, but it seems there's no depth to it. You
can't even defend it, you're just reinforcing that you're right.

EDIT: since there's another answer in a similiar spirit there's at least one
other opinion that rejects or doubts your statement.

EDIT2: An interesting example to reinforce my arguments is that the statement
"women, who have abortions, don't respect human live, because they obviously
do not" is seen as trivial by some but rejected by others. These things do not
live in a mathmatical world where axioms are stated, agreed and theorems
derived using proofs and pure logic. So one talking about those topics can
never assert the obvious truth to his statements. There are no right or wrongs
in philosophy and ethics (in a mathmatical sense), just statements the people
agree on.

~~~
Falling3
You can keep calling me condescending, but that's not an argument. If you have
a definition of "respect" that includes unnecessary killing, great. Provide
that definition and then tell me that you use the same definition for ones
treatment of humans. If not, you're guilty of special pleading. If you have
citations of philosophers who make an argument that you can hunt an individual
for sport while respecting them, I'd love to see them.

If you want to express a difference in opinion, do so. You keep repeating that
you don't like my statements and there are other opinions, but you have not
yet been able to articulate what that different opinion is and how it applies
to the conversation.

------
gigatexal
I’ve said this before here on HN when the octopus came up but I’ll say it
again: these creatures are so damn smart I stopped eating them when I consume
sushi. Many animals possess advanced intellect so I’ve limited my consumption
of animals but it’s the octopus that has a special place in my eyes. What
majestic creatures. The females find a rock to give birth to the next
generation and slowly starve to death while doing so. As soon I learned that I
thought of my own single mom while she didn’t give her life raising me or my
sister she did sacrifice a lot.

~~~
mmmatriarchy
I wonder, though. Here is a thought experiment. What if eating another
creature was seen as an act of respect and tribute? I for one enjoy eating
highly intelligent animals. I see it as a priviledge to do so. For that
reason, if octopus is on the menu you can bet I'm going to eat some.

~~~
suby
Imagine an alien civilization applying that logic to human beings. I for one
wouldn't feel privileged to be used as cattle for the consumption of another
advanced species.

------
biztos
Whenever I read an Octopus article I come back to the conviction that if it
weren’t for the early death thing, these are the creatures that would be
failing to fight the climate crisis, and we would be — if not the creatures on
the plate in the tapas joint, at least some scared and scurrying thing in the
underbrush.

~~~
hnarn
It's comforting for us as humans, of course, to think that any life form would
end up in the same inevitable energy race which destroys the planet.
Unfortunately there is no basis for this assumption beyond our own failure.

------
mindfulplay
Maybe this is the highest form of intelligence?

Octupuses also have a very short lifespan which seems apt: you don't need
societies, buildings, relationships etc if you have truly mastered the sole
purpose of your existence really well - the nature of procreation and
empowering the next generation to survive.

Human beings are actually awful at this it: makes me wonder if all social,
cultural aspects are truly "too complicated" ways to achieve what octupuses
have mastered through a much simpler process and potentially without needing
arbitrary things like consciousness.

~~~
countryqt30
I agree with that 100%. Human procreation has massively slowed down as wealth
increased. I'd love to see some startups/governments tackle this REAL
challenge.

~~~
greenonions
I'm not an anti-natalist or anything of the sort, but it would appear to me
that if anything, the evolutionary challenge facing humans is that we have had
too many babies. Across the globe we've consistently created more humans than
our ecosystem can reliably support, or that we can manage to support with our
technology.

This has resulted in climate change and ecological destruction.

A future earth with the highest carrying capacity for life might look like the
entire globe as rich in life as the Amazon rain forest, with humans benefiting
from the enormous diversity. Our ecological niche would be in the microbiome,
where the human species eliminates diseases, causes maximally high survival
rates in other species, and uses this surplus for our energy supply, along
with genetic engineering species to suit our needs.

FWIW, I think many are concerned about conservation already, which I think is
the key to our long-term survival as a species.

------
air7
> An octopus, with its richly complex behavior and its large eyes filled with
> focused attention, is a far more compelling inkblot test, so to speak,
> triggering a strong social perception in us. Not only do we know,
> intellectually, that it gathers objective information about its world, but
> we can’t help feeling that it must have a subjective awareness as well
> emanating out of those soulful eyes.

But the truth is, we don’t know, and the sense we get of its conscious mind
says more about us than about the octopus. The experts who study octopuses
risk becoming the least reliable observers on this point, because they are the
ones most likely to be entranced by these wonderful creatures.

Conciousness debates are so fundamental yet so moot: One can only attribute
conciousness based on observing behavior. There really isn't a good "line on
the sand" to distinguish who/what is conscious and who isn't for anything from
humans to octopuses to microwaves to computer programs.

~~~
plutonorm
I believe it's fundamentally impossible to test for consciousness. You can't
know if it _feels_ like something to be any other thing but yourself. The
domain of scientific knowledge is completely cut off from subjective
experience. Even if the octopus could speak and told us in English "I feel
therefore I am" we could not know for certain that it produced those words
having a conscious understanding of what something feels like. Feeling is
fundamentally in a different class of thing from those things which the
scientific world can explore. And that to me, is absolutely bizarre. What does
that mean? How can that possibly be true? Is it definitely true? What on earth
is "feeling"?! What is qualia. It's the deepest question and I think probably
holds the key to really understanding why the univers exists.

~~~
nessus42
_> I believe it's fundamentally impossible to test for consciousness._

You are talking about "phenomenal consciousness", which is sometimes also
referred to as "the hard problem of consciousness". (Though not all
philosophers would equate these two terms.) There are quite a few other useful
definitions of consciousness, and consequently, all of the different notions
of consciousness should not all be lumped together.

I actually have a Philosophy degree from MIT, and I spent almost all my
philosophical time worrying about and studying this issue. It still keeps me
up at night sometimes to this day.

I agree with you that the hard problem of consciousness is not amenable to
scientific study, and consequently, I don't think that we can ever understand
it, unfortunately.

I also agree that it is the deepest and most important question about the
nature of reality that we could ever have, and it is quite frustrating that we
will never know the answer.

Back to other notions of consciousness, though: Many of them are interesting,
and I think amenable to scientific inquiry. So we shouldn't let the hard
problem of consciousness deter us from studying easier problems of
consciousness.

~~~
the8472
> I agree with you that the hard problem of consciousness is not amenable to
> scientific study

What if we assume a brain simulator with good debugging tools?

~~~
NickM
A perfect brain simulator could answer many questions, but it could not answer
the hard problem of consciousness. Science is all about objectivity, but
there's an element of consciousness that is inherently subjective, and that
part - the part the hard problem deals with - is not objectively measurable.

~~~
nessus42
_> Science is all about objectivity, but there's an element of consciousness
that is inherently subjective_

Yes, that is exactly right. Science is all about that which can be studied
objectively and the "hard problem of consciousness" is specifically about the
component of consciousness that is _purely subjective_.

How can you study something that is purely subjective using objective methods?

A. You can't!

Here's another question that science can't answer:

The Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and the Bohm
interpretation of quantum mechanics posit vastly different things about the
nature of reality. Unfortunately, they are experimentally indistinguishable
from each other.

So, if somehow we could narrow QM down to either MW or Bohm, at this point we
are stuck. We can never know which interpretation is the right one, even
though the answer to this question is up there in importance with the hard
problem of consciousness!

~~~
BlueTemplar
It's interesting how "subjectivity" has been reintroduced into physics and
mathematics in the 20th century: Relativity and its frames of reference,
Quantum Mechanics and its necessity of entangling yourself with what you want
to observe, Statistical Physics showing that entropy was the lack of
information that you have about the system, Mathematics - that you were forced
to choose a set of postulates that you then wouldn't be able to prove...

~~~
nessus42
So that's interesting. Behaviorism, for instance, was actually an oppressive
"science" of the 20th century because it was ideologically opposed to even
acknowledging the existence of subjective mental states. The proponents of
Behaviorism felt that subjective mental states were inherently unscientific
and they wanted to turn Psychology into a respectable science.

Behaviorists were operating under the misconception that something can't be
both subjective and objective at the same time. It took Cognitive Psychology
to rescue us from this sorry state of affairs. But for years, those who wanted
to do Cognitive Psychology academically were blocked from publishing and
getting tenure, etc., by the entrenched Behaviorist establishment.

These days we know that via using FMRI, for instance, psychologists and
neuroscientists can often determine objectively more about some of your own
thoughts than you yourself might know. Or they can sometimes know what you
will come to decide before you believe yourself to have decided. Etc.

But certain mental states (i.e., phenomenal ones) seem to have an inherently
subjective component that cannot be studied objectively at all. Or at least
that's what someone who believes in the "hard problem of consciousness" will
say. Others will say, "Pshaw!"

~~~
BlueTemplar
I'd say that too many people still seem to equate "objective" with
"real"/"physical"...

(P.S.: Assuming that a "God's view" of the problem _has_ to exist?)

I'm suspecting that physics might end up in a similar situation than
mathematics, where we find out that we can't objectively prove everything -
and either we'll have an epistemological breakthrough allowing us to deal with
subjectivity in a framework that has still some resemblance to a scientific
method, or... we won't.

(Personally, I'm hopeful that the Hard Problem can be "dissolved" \- and this
"philosophical zombie" concept just seems to me to be misguided, just like the
concept of aether was.)

------
irrational
Are they the aliens, or are we the aliens? If octopus are conscious, do they
look at us the same way we would look at aliens that came to earth with such
incomprehensible technology that it looks like magic?

~~~
andrei_says_
Something I’ve found weird but interesting ...

Castaneda’s books which involve shamanic seeing of energy fields mention the
observation that our minds (not brains, minds) are a foreign implant. Like, an
energetic-pattern-parasite capable of interfering with brain function.

So, we’ve been colonized for a long time. Or, if you identify with the mind in
“cogito ergo sum” fashion, we’ve invaded and colonized.

Just a thought ;)

~~~
ColanR
On what basis could he make that claim? A sense of dissociation?

~~~
andrei_says_
Multi-generational lineage of sorcerers including himself being able to
observe the energetic structure of the mind and the entities attached to it.

This specific observation is in one of his books, the active side of infinity.
It’s very disconcerting and very uncomfortable to read.

I have not observed these myself and I don’t think there’s instrumentation to
confirm or rebutt these observations.

~~~
chachachoney
Downright Ellisonian.

Given what we know know about the manipulative practices Castaneda used within
his small cult, I have no problem seeing those observations as reflections of
his inner psyche through the lens of shamanic ritual and intoxicants, possibly
amplified for artistic purposes.

>> I have not observed these myself and I don’t think there’s instrumentation
to confirm or rebutt these observations.

The only instrumentation one has to confirm or rebut the experience of
shamanic mystics is the practice of shamanic mysticism.

------
xrd
This article is a reminder that science based articles can be engaging and
incredibly illuminating. There is a sharp contrast between this article and
other science writing that seems primarily occupied with impressing the reader
with facts, to detriment of any kind of connection with the human (or perhaps
octopus?) reading it.

------
ajharrison
I'd say this to my friends (literally "I believe octopi are aliens") and get
laughed at.

I believe that for a lot of underwater life. Basically our oceans are a
cesspool of ancient alien life that's been collecting in there for millennia

~~~
tasty_freeze
Perhaps they laugh because they think by "alien" you mean from outer space and
unrelated to our earthly evolutionary history.

And to be pedantic, humans and octopuses (and bacteria for that matter) are
all equally evolved, just for different niches.

------
cpt1138
Is the question just whether invertebrates have consciousness? It may be a
forcing function of our desire to impose consciousness on things but it really
seems like my cat and my dog both have a level of consciousness.

------
conjectures
Sounds like this guy got pipped to publication by Peter Godfrey Smith's _Other
Minds_.

Can anyone who has read both comment on whether Graziano's book contains much
different?

------
teddyh
I thought that cuttlefish were the established kings of this particular hill?

[https://www.xkcd.com/520/](https://www.xkcd.com/520/)

[http://tailsteak.com/archive.php?num=400](http://tailsteak.com/archive.php?num=400)

~~~
z3phyr
The cuttlefish are the orangutans to the octopus's chimps

------
ufmace
I wonder if anyone has managed to create some sort of sign language or writing
or something to communicate with an Octopus.

~~~
sandworm101
Lots of people communicate with octopuses. Just as my dog and i can converse
(ie "do you want food or to go out?") similar interaction can be done with an
octopus.

~~~
throwaway_law
Do you have any link to confirm a domesticated octopus that responds to verbal
commands? I always understood they barely have any capacity for sound.

~~~
sandworm101
Communication does not require the animal to answer commands. If I am sitting
on the couch and my dog brings me her leash, that is her telling me that she
wants to go for a walk.

Octopus trained to use camera: [https://petapixel.com/2015/04/10/this-octopus-
was-trained-by...](https://petapixel.com/2015/04/10/this-octopus-was-trained-
by-sony-to-take-pictures-of-aquarium-visitors/)

Wild pacific octopuses are known to have distinct personalities. Some like to
interact with divers, a tactile form of communication.

[https://themarinedetective.com/2015/02/23/gentle-giants-
what...](https://themarinedetective.com/2015/02/23/gentle-giants-what-to-do-
when-you-find-your-dive-buddy-with-a-giant-pacific-octopus-on-her-head/)

~~~
throwaway_law
That's fair enough I guess, I took your comment to mean respond to verbal
commands

>Lots of people communicate with octapuses. Just as my dog and i can converse
(ie "do you want food or to go out?")

No point in arguing but not sure how teaching a Octopus to push a button (that
happens to take a picture) to be communication. And sure I dive and have
interacted with Octopi, but I don't go around saying I communicate with
Octopi, the same way I wouldn't say I communicate with monkeys if they
interact with me by throwing their shit at me...but I get your gist.

------
anotheryou
"The Hawaiʻian creation myth relates that the present cosmos is only the last
of a series, having arisen in stages from the wreck of the previous universe.
In this account, the octopus is the lone survivor of the previous, alien
universe."

[http://rustyidols.blogspot.de/2008/08/research-octopus-
god.h...](http://rustyidols.blogspot.de/2008/08/research-octopus-god.html)

------
nmca
"Other Minds" is an excellent book on this topic.

------
ab8
How is the author sure that humans are conscious? If he is going by his own
personal experience, then he can be sure only of his own consciousness.

------
pts_
Relevant book Crichton's Sphere.

------
smrz
Nice rip off of [https://www.amazon.com/Other-Minds-Octopus-Origins-
Conscious...](https://www.amazon.com/Other-Minds-Octopus-Origins-
Consciousness/dp/0374227764)

~~~
Shebanator
rip off seems a little strong. this is an excerpt from a book on a different
but related topic, and he is using the octupus as a way to make a larger
point. The author probably has read the book in question and others to help
them make their point, but that is not the same as ripping them off, its
research.

