Deep Intellect: Inside the mind of the octopus

The fact that relatively high intelligence has arisen from many architectures multiple times on this planet bodes well for the frequency of intelligent life on exoplanets.<p>Even today, there are still biologists who assert the formation of intelligent life is tightly coupled to our specific brand of brain and should hence be considered a huge accident. Yet we see the formation of minds in a lot of places, and they can be almost arbitrarily far removed from the human brain.<p>The octopus is a great example for a radically different neurological substrate. Given enough time and a little bit of luck, some funghi too might evolve a mind of their own as Fuligo Septica already shows some capacity for problem-solving behavior.<p>The argument that human-like intelligence is again another unlikely step discards the myriad of social animals with advanced problem solving capabilities, some of which are even tool users, and some of which have actual languages and cultures. A lot of these have come onto the stage very independently from us, having sprung from far removed genetics - and yet they have enough in common with us that should make us recognize the frequency of species with minds might indeed be high wherever life takes hold.

I once read about a lab that was doing research on various sea creatures, but primarily crabs. The experiment involved having 100s of a certain type of crab. Every day the crabs were counted, and each day there was quite a few completely missing. The head researcher suspected one of the lab assistants was stealing and selling the crabs, so they set up a camera to watch the lab overnight. It turned out that it wasn&#x27;t one of the assistants, but instead the lab&#x27;s octopus. Every night it was waiting until everyone went home, then taking the lid off it&#x27;s tank, crawling several meters across the floor, opening the lid of the crab tank, eating a few crabs and then crawling back, remembering to replace the lids of both tanks.

One day we will use computers to bridge the human mental and social worlds with those of even quite alien creatures like the pacific octopus.<p>That will be the dawning of an age of widespread empathy with our animals brethren, along with a wave of horror and shame at our previous treatment of them.<p>Long before that, though, we&#x27;ll enjoy immersive VR recordings from the viewpoint of other creatures. I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if Jim Cameron was involved in bringing such things to a wide audience.<p>But even with today&#x27;s technology this recording from an eagle&#x27;s PoV is a great example of how mesmerizing the alien worlds of our animal relatives can be: <a href="http://youtu.be/G3QrhdfLCO8" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;G3QrhdfLCO8</a>

I will be happy when people stop referring to intelligence as a binary state. My dog is intelligent, mice are intelligent, nematodes are intelligent. The ability to interact with and adapt to the environment is present in all of these creatures. The degree to which something is intelligent is something we need a much richer vocabulary for. I am sad to say it but this is most clearly put in comic form (<a href="http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2867#comic" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.smbc-comics.com&#x2F;index.php?id=2867#comic</a>)

Excellent article, I liked this part:<p>&gt; One octopus Mather was watching had just returned home and was cleaning the front of the den with its arms. Then, suddenly, it left the den, crawled a meter away, picked up one particular rock and placed the rock in front of the den. Two minutes later, the octopus ventured forth to select a second rock. Then it chose a third. Attaching suckers to all the rocks, the octopus carried the load home, slid through the den opening, and carefully arranged the three objects in front. Then it went to sleep. What the octopus was thinking seemed obvious: “Three rocks are enough. Good night!”

We are fortunate that octopuses do not live long (hence limiting how much knowledge an individual octopus can accumulate to personal experience) and that they do not raise their young (and hence do not get a chance to pass knowledge to the next generation).<p>If not for those factors, I suspect that Mankind would only have whatever access to the oceans that the octopuses decided to allow us.

&gt; “Only intelligent animals play—animals like crows and chimps, dogs and humans.”<p>Err, I&#x27;m barely knowledgeable in this field (so maybe someone can point out something that I&#x27;m missing), but I have to nitpick that this strikes me as poor reasoning. Off the top of my head, juvenile squirrels are known to play[1], along with many other species which we would consider less intelligent than cephalopods or even dogs. This just seems like an odd assertion to come from an expert biologist.<p>[1] <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2003.06.024" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.anbehav.2003.06.024</a><p>Really interesting article, though.

Sometimes &#x27;text only&#x27; trumps an article that has pictures and moving video. It is good to have one&#x27;s imagination work overtime rather than have everything &#x27;spelt out&#x27; with imagery.<p>At one moment I was imagining an octopus bigger than myself, able to drag me into a tank and maybe eat me whole. The next moment I was learning of an octopus able to fit inside a beer bottle (note to self: be careful what one picks up when scuba diving!).<p>I feel I might actually remember more about the life of the octopus from having read this article and having to engage my imagination than what I might have learned had I sat through some nature programme on TV. Plus it takes less time to read than it does to endure a programme. I also now know things I don&#x27;t know, such as what it is to make eye contact with an octopus, something that a TV programme could go some way to describe.<p>Aside from the &#x27;wow, intelligence&#x27;, why is it that those of us with spines lack any &#x27;computing power&#x27; in things like our arms? Are there any common sense reasons?

For any pedants who cringed reading &quot;octopuses&quot; instead of &quot;octopi&quot;, here&#x27;s the wiki section to reassure that this is actually correct:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Etymology_and_pluralization" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Octopus#Etymology_and_pluraliza...</a><p>Other sources through Google also confirm this.

&gt; <i>Biologist have long noted the similarities between the eyes of an octopus and the eyes of a human.</i><p>&gt; <i>Scientists are currently debating whether we and octopuses evolved eyes separately, or whether a common ancestor had the makings of the eye.</i><p>This is not under debate. This is one of the classical examples of convergent evolution. From: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution#Eyes" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Convergent_evolution#Eyes</a><p>&gt; <i>One of the most well-known examples of convergent evolution is the camera eye of cephalopods (e.g., squid), vertebrates (e.g., mammals) and cnidaria (e.g., box jellies).[22] Their last common ancestor had at most a very simple photoreceptive spot, but a range of processes led to the progressive refinement of this structure to the advanced camera eye — with one subtle difference: The cephalopod eye is &quot;wired&quot; in the opposite direction, with blood and nerve vessels entering from the back of the retina, rather than the front as in vertebrates.[8] The similarity of the structures in other respects, despite the complex nature of the organ, illustrates how there are some biological challenges (e.g. vision) that have an optimal solution.</i><p>More info: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_eye" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cephalopod_eye</a>

I took a scuba diving course with an instructor who formerly worked as a diver with a local aquarium, and he related to us that the aquarium had to replace their octopus population every few weeks because they would keep dying of boredom, so to speak. They would put the food in hard-to-open enclosures, but it just wasn&#x27;t enough. Octopuses need to be challenged and engaged. It gave us food for thought about whether we should be keeping creatures with such a powerful intellect in captivity.

Fascinating. I am particularly intrigued by the separate evolution of their intelligence and neurons in their arms. A different type of consciousness indeed, I wonder if it is even possible to comprehend what their experience of the world might be like.

I&#x27;ve read a ton of Arthur C. Clarke so I&#x27;m really interested in intelligence uplift of other species.<p>How much smarter could octopi be if they didn&#x27;t die when they mated? Or if they had lifespans 10 times longer than they do now?<p>What if we could train octopi to hunt with humans? Similar to how thousands of years of hunting with wolves has produced the dog, could we breed octopi that help human marine hunters?

My girlfriend was delighted to learn about how intelligent octopuses are today. She was reading an article about whether they can get concussions -- I&#x27;ll see if I can get it from her.<p>What a strange coincidence to find this on the front page of HN a few hours later.

I have always loved octopuses from hearing stories about their intelligence.<p>Reading about the antics of some of these octopuses in this article was surprisingly hilarious.

In the great 1957 scifi novel &quot;Niourk&quot; [1], men have (mostly) abandoned Earth, the oceans dried away and octopi became larger, cleverer and are becoming the dominant species. Spoiler alert: don&#x27;t look at the wikipedia page in case you plan to read the book :)<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niourk" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Niourk</a>

I love the comparison of the octopus with a smart alien. We might not completely understand them, but something about them tells us they are intelligent beings.

We should give octopi the gift of technology and let them overtake the underwater world. Just like in 2001.