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 was really charming and delightful.
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.
There’s a part of me that kind of wonders whether the Jewish Kashrut laws are meant to protect the most intelligent animals: the best-known laws (cloven feet, does not chew the cud, that which swims in the sea but does not have scales) end up protecting pigs, cetaceans and cephalapods (plus other stuff that’s not so bright, but put that aside).
There’s no rational reason to believe this, of course, but it’s still fun to imagine in a sort of Erik von Däniken way.
I’ve often wondered similarly about Islamic codes which prohibit the eating of sentient pigs and dogs; perhaps the ancients knew that calling them “dirty” was the only practical way to protect them from the mouths of the masses.
That man may not have the respect of any academic community but damn it if he isn't entertaining to watch.
On a more on-topic note, our growing understanding of animal intelligence has definitely made it harder for me to justify eating certain kinds of meat. My day-to-day is a bit too stressful to make the switch entirely to vegetarianism, but once my financial and personal situations have settled I'm looking forward to a less guilty lived experience. (This is of course not to say that you should feel guilty for eating meat - just my personal take)
I blame this on watching Babylon 5 when I was younger (spoiler: same souls), but when they started using animal organs and heart valves in human surgery, it made (religious) sense to me that it was going to be pig.
As you say, not a really rational belief, but I always like it when disperate ideologies point in similar directions.
I think rationally, it's far more likely that Kashrut laws were designed to protect humans from eating certain more risky animals, especially 3-4,000 years ago in a place with high heat and little refridgeration, but I'll never actually know.
I am just reading The Swarm by Frank Schätzing that kind of combines the First Contact and Earth's Oceans. I enjoyed Blindsight so maybe you'd like it too
> "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 sleep] -> [get distressed by exposure to open ocean].
It is like how humans feel cold and put on a jumper. It isn't a demonstration that we all understand heat flow equations and have modelled out that we need to consume less food if we put another layer between us and the outside world, increasing the long term economics of our survival, demonstrating an advanced knowledge of thermodynamics and economics. Our body has encoded "heat leaking through skin" -> "feel uncomfortable" into our senses and that is all we need to respond to without considering the consequences of the response.
Agreed. This is like building a little den out of nearby objects, which seems to be at sub-mammal levels? Even birds that didn’t get the best grades do this.
They picked an extremely mediocre example by octopus standards. Play is more interesting but this happens with primitive mammals as well, like squirrels and such. And fish, btw.
It feels like pop-sci journalism is always assuming animal behavior is orders of magnitude less sophisticated[1] than what is obvious from having pets, watching a basic nature doc, or just observing wildlife for a tiny bit.
[1]: I tend to avoid words like intelligence etc both because they’re ambiguous as hell, and because people jump to anthropomorphization, backwards-rationalizing etc, in exactly the fashion you mention.
There's a video about an octopus solving a maze: https://youtu.be/7__r4FVj-EI?si=FH2QsL7BxlJ4h7KF. You could call that reactionary too, but at some point we have to admit octopuses do have a higher level of intelligence than we'd assume from an animal their size.
It sounds like you would prefer evidence of something like Kahneman’s System II as evidence of high intelligence? That is, an abstract general purpose thinking system, even if it is slower and in many ways weaker than the instinctive/trained/evolved systems for solving specific problems?
This is actually a bad example. Although cold being uncomfortable is instinctual, the way how people deal with feeling cold is not instinctual at all. People use different methods of dealing with the cold depending on situation, culture, experience.
In this way your example actually speaks for the claimed forethought, because in this analogy the octopus knows (from experience or speculation) that he will be uncomfortable when trying to sleep if he's exposed and he decides to 'put on a jumper' by putting rocks in front of the entrance.
Also instinctual behavior is in general much less sophisticated. Like an infant animal starting sucking when encountering a nipple shaped object or a moth circling a light bulb because it always tries to keep the brightest source above it. It could be that pulling debris around him before sleeping could be instinctual, but it would be very unlikely for that to include the process of looking for suitable rocks beforehand.
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.
While I agree with your distinctions I think it is important to note that the boundary of this is not explicitly clear and it can be difficult to differentiate.
Certainly instinctual responses are a form of planning, but more automated. For example, people often forego reaching for a jacket (that is well within reach or even in their literal hands) if they are quickly going from one warm place to another. And idk about you, but I've done this without a moment's thought about how the other end will be warm. The action feels fairly automatic in the same way walking outside in winter has an automatic response of grabbing a jacket.
Of course, this could be because (and likely is) a more complex equation is formulated in my mind but just operated outside the conscious part. But I think that just illustrates how the lines blur. Especially since many conscious actions turn into unconscious ones. Think about when you first learned to drive a car and how involved you were compared to now many years later. In fact, you WANT to have automated responses as these are quicker, but they come through experience. Do we call this foresight and planning? I think you can argue either side. You can easily argue that some algorithm with explicit foresight and planning was encoded into the subconscious.
I guess I'm just trying to say that it is quite complicated and we should be ensuring this complexity is known (the existence of complexity, not necessarily all the details), or it will be difficult to interpret.
For what it’s worth, this is an excerpt from a book, not a piece by a journalist say, summarizing someone’s study.
The author (Toomey) is Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he teaches courses in writing and in the history of science.
I wish there was a video of this in that article. The reading was very descriptive, but would have loved to see the video of the octopus playing with the bottle.
What aspect of it is anthropomorphizing? Do you mean the phrase "bouncing the ball" because it is not literally bouncing a ball? Nothing else in the article jumped out at me as ascribing human-specific behavior to octopuses.
Also, I don't follow what lifespan has to do with anything. Rats live about 2 years, yet they are dramatically more human-like (exhibiting higher intelligence, more play behavior, etc.) than most other animals, including animals with very long lifespans, such as turtles.
Not to mention that the article was specifically regarding an octopus species that lives longer than that; I take it you did not actually read it?
There is a difference between anthropomorphizing it and demonstrating that humans are a subset of Animalia and some characteristics of Animalia are not human-specific, even if they're very different from humans.
[+] [-] brookst|1 year ago|reply
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 was really charming and delightful.
[+] [-] colechristensen|1 year ago|reply
In other words, it was probably fun for the octopus too.
[+] [-] telesilla|1 year ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] dhosek|1 year ago|reply
There’s no rational reason to believe this, of course, but it’s still fun to imagine in a sort of Erik von Däniken way.
[+] [-] yvan-eht-nioj|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] the-chitmonger|1 year ago|reply
On a more on-topic note, our growing understanding of animal intelligence has definitely made it harder for me to justify eating certain kinds of meat. My day-to-day is a bit too stressful to make the switch entirely to vegetarianism, but once my financial and personal situations have settled I'm looking forward to a less guilty lived experience. (This is of course not to say that you should feel guilty for eating meat - just my personal take)
[+] [-] p3rls|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] BuildTheRobots|1 year ago|reply
As you say, not a really rational belief, but I always like it when disperate ideologies point in similar directions.
I think rationally, it's far more likely that Kashrut laws were designed to protect humans from eating certain more risky animals, especially 3-4,000 years ago in a place with high heat and little refridgeration, but I'll never actually know.
[+] [-] psd1|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rgavuliak|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] braymundo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] roenxi|1 year ago|reply
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 sleep] -> [get distressed by exposure to open ocean].
It is like how humans feel cold and put on a jumper. It isn't a demonstration that we all understand heat flow equations and have modelled out that we need to consume less food if we put another layer between us and the outside world, increasing the long term economics of our survival, demonstrating an advanced knowledge of thermodynamics and economics. Our body has encoded "heat leaking through skin" -> "feel uncomfortable" into our senses and that is all we need to respond to without considering the consequences of the response.
[+] [-] klabb3|1 year ago|reply
They picked an extremely mediocre example by octopus standards. Play is more interesting but this happens with primitive mammals as well, like squirrels and such. And fish, btw.
It feels like pop-sci journalism is always assuming animal behavior is orders of magnitude less sophisticated[1] than what is obvious from having pets, watching a basic nature doc, or just observing wildlife for a tiny bit.
[1]: I tend to avoid words like intelligence etc both because they’re ambiguous as hell, and because people jump to anthropomorphization, backwards-rationalizing etc, in exactly the fashion you mention.
[+] [-] capex|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] brians|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] legacynl|1 year ago|reply
This is actually a bad example. Although cold being uncomfortable is instinctual, the way how people deal with feeling cold is not instinctual at all. People use different methods of dealing with the cold depending on situation, culture, experience.
In this way your example actually speaks for the claimed forethought, because in this analogy the octopus knows (from experience or speculation) that he will be uncomfortable when trying to sleep if he's exposed and he decides to 'put on a jumper' by putting rocks in front of the entrance.
Also instinctual behavior is in general much less sophisticated. Like an infant animal starting sucking when encountering a nipple shaped object or a moth circling a light bulb because it always tries to keep the brightest source above it. It could be that pulling debris around him before sleeping could be instinctual, but it would be very unlikely for that to include the process of looking for suitable rocks beforehand.
[+] [-] inglor_cz|1 year ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] godelski|1 year ago|reply
Certainly instinctual responses are a form of planning, but more automated. For example, people often forego reaching for a jacket (that is well within reach or even in their literal hands) if they are quickly going from one warm place to another. And idk about you, but I've done this without a moment's thought about how the other end will be warm. The action feels fairly automatic in the same way walking outside in winter has an automatic response of grabbing a jacket.
Of course, this could be because (and likely is) a more complex equation is formulated in my mind but just operated outside the conscious part. But I think that just illustrates how the lines blur. Especially since many conscious actions turn into unconscious ones. Think about when you first learned to drive a car and how involved you were compared to now many years later. In fact, you WANT to have automated responses as these are quicker, but they come through experience. Do we call this foresight and planning? I think you can argue either side. You can easily argue that some algorithm with explicit foresight and planning was encoded into the subconscious.
I guess I'm just trying to say that it is quite complicated and we should be ensuring this complexity is known (the existence of complexity, not necessarily all the details), or it will be difficult to interpret.
[+] [-] pugworthy|1 year ago|reply
The author (Toomey) is Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he teaches courses in writing and in the history of science.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] sagaro|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mihaitodor|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] slothtrop|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] RoyalHenOil|1 year ago|reply
Also, I don't follow what lifespan has to do with anything. Rats live about 2 years, yet they are dramatically more human-like (exhibiting higher intelligence, more play behavior, etc.) than most other animals, including animals with very long lifespans, such as turtles.
Not to mention that the article was specifically regarding an octopus species that lives longer than that; I take it you did not actually read it?
[+] [-] BriggyDwiggs42|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kaycebasques|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ebiester|1 year ago|reply