
The Mind of an Octopus - ghosh
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mind-of-an-octopus/?WT.mc_id=SA_TW_MB_NEWS
======
zeroer
> They are probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.

I've often thought that while we say we would want peaceful relationships with
any aliens we might find, our history of interactions with "alien" life forms
on Earth paints a different picture. I'm pretty sure if we meet alien life and
it's not stronger than us, somebody's going to try to eat it.

~~~
cema
True, at first. But then things may change.

On the other hand, they might want to eat us too, so be careful.

~~~
fellellor
If I were some kind of intergalactic alien consultant, I'd definitely advise
the aliens to eat us or at least bomb us from orbit.

~~~
throwanem
It's just a shame all the probes we've sent extrasolar have been roughly in
the ecliptic. Otherwise we might've seen some sign of the warning beacons that
girdle the system, advising travelers to stay well clear of the inner planets
and on no account approach the third, lest its natives attempt to eat and/or
copulate with all aboard, and possibly also steal your FTL drive. As the
universe has learned from the experience of one itinerant journalist in
particular, of all the places in any galaxy where you might find yourself
marooned, among the very last you'd choose is the kind of planet where the
locals named it "dirt".

~~~
Asooka
> where the locals named it "dirt"

Well, I mean. It _IS_ mostly dirt. At least the parts where humans lived the
most when it was being named. It also had a god or demigod status for many
early cultures (and some current ones, I'm sure). It's not like we never
realised the importance of dirt.

------
carrja99
You know, the Hawaiian creation myth posits that the universe is destroyed and
recreated many times over. The octopus is the sole survivor of the previous,
alien universe.

~~~
kriro
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

------
amelius
But humans are said to have a second brain that controls their gut. See e.g.
[1]. Excerpt:

> The enteric nervous system has been described as a "second brain" for
> several reasons. The enteric nervous system can operate autonomously. It
> normally communicates with the central nervous system (CNS) through the
> parasympathetic (e.g., via the vagus nerve) and sympathetic (e.g., via the
> prevertebral ganglia) nervous systems. However, vertebrate studies show that
> when the vagus nerve is severed, the enteric nervous system continues to
> function.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system)

------
Nexxxeh
There was some great discussion last week on cephalopods on this HN thread:

Just how smart is an octopus? (washingtonpost.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13354852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13354852)

If you'll forgive me copy and pasting from my comment there:

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/](https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/)

And the follow-up:

[https://orionmagazine.org/2011/11/interviews-with-an-
octopus...](https://orionmagazine.org/2011/11/interviews-with-an-octopus/)

------
coldcode
I like how Octopuses are essentially a distributed system with most of the
processing power in the arms. I wonder if anyone has attempted to model an
octopus "brain"?

~~~
eganist
The work of the late Dr. Otto Octavius may prove an interesting study for you.

------
tudorw
Our 'mind' is distributed across our organs too :)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system)

------
hyperpallium
Octopii offer a tantalizing glimpse into how similar, and how different,
aliens might be.

e.g. seems likely they'll have camera eyes.

~~~
clouddrover
> _e.g. seems likely they 'll have camera eyes._

Why is that likely? Mantis shrimp, for example, have compound eyes and one of
the most sophisticated visual systems found in nature:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp#Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp#Eyes)

~~~
hyperpallium
Eyes have evolved on Earth about 20 different times. But octopii have large
brains and camera eyes (and aren't mammals). It's only one extra data point,
but it is a data point.

~~~
pierrec
If anyone else is surprised by that claim, turns out it's not quite true (in a
blurry way):

 _[The variety between eye types] has led to the dogma that eyes have evolved
in all animal phyla 40 to 60 times independently (Salvini-Plawen and Mayr
1961). However, recent genetic experiments cast serious doubts on this notion
and argue strongly in favor of a monophyletic origin of the various eye types
followed by divergent, parallel, and convergent evolution._

[https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article/96/3/171/2187545/New...](https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article/96/3/171/2187545/New-
Perspectives-on-Eye-Development-and-the)

Even at a wider structural level, there is enough common ancestry to put a
serious damper on the idea that it evolved independently 20 times. It's more
like a single origin for major photosensitive proteins, and one origin per
major eye type.

That's not to say it never happens, notably, there's a behavioral trait in
ants (seed dispersal) that appears to have evolved independently at least 100
times. Sometimes everything is set up to favor convergent evolution with
dozens or more independent occurrences, but that probably wasn't the case with
the eye.

~~~
hyperpallium
Fascinating article! though much terminology. I think the gist is:

> the mouse Pax6 gene ... is capable of inducing ... eyes in Drosophila.
> [Pax6] can initiate eye development both in insects and mammals.

> transcription factors can control ... any target gene ..., [therefore] there
> are no functional constraints linking Pax6 to eye development. ...
> Therefore, the link between Pax6 and so to eye development must simply be a
> consequence of a common evolutionary history.

i.e. not parallel evolution of Pax6

> _It 's more like a single origin for major photosensitive proteins, and one
> origin per major eye type._

Since our latest common ancestor with octopii lacks camera eyes, doesn't this
indicate more than one origin for this major eye type?

------
rowanseymour
I find it fascinating that we have very little idea how any other animal
experiences the world - it's not something we can even imagine - and that
seems especially true for these creatures with more of a "distributed" nervous
system.

Also makes me wonder if I should avoid eating calamari...

~~~
ekianjo
eating is one thing, but eating them alive is something else altogether. In
korea its a thing apparently. I dont really like the idea.

~~~
david-given
I was once invited out by business partners to a meal in Soeul where the
highlight was an octopus, cooked alive at the table. They had to put a lid on
the pan to stop it escaping. It was delicious, but I had to tell myself that
it had been debeaked and was dying anyway and then stare fixedly at the wall
until they told me that it had stopped moving and had been chopped up;
luckily, they found this funny rather than insulting.

 _shrug_ Weirdly, I've found myself getting _more_ squeamish as I get older,
rather than less...

~~~
username223
That's seriously messed up, but entirely believable. A number of years ago, a
Korean restaurant in LA was busted for boiling cats alive (it may have been
"BYOC"). I asked a Korean co-worker about it, and he said that while it was
going out of style, there is a traditional belief that an animal's suffering
is beneficial to the person eating it.

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er0l
Just finished the book this past weekend, highly recommend. The science is
great but the philosophy behind it all was what was really interesting to me.

------
jawarner
> Further, in an octopus, it is not clear where the brain itself begins and
> ends.

This to me is the central fallacy of the embodied versus central cognition
argument. Why is there a need to define such a separation? Just view the
neural network in its entirety and the "problem" is solved.

------
nommm-nommm
There was an octopus, Inky, who escaped from an aquarium by jumping out of his
tank and sliding down a small diameter drainpipe to the sea at night.

I always wondered if he knew (or at least had an idea) where the drainpipe
went and if he did how.

------
phyushin
Fascinating read

