What If Cephalopods Are the Closest Thing to Alien Intelligence?

[christianschwaegerl@mastodon.social]

@gutenberg_org Why alien? Octopus intelligence is thoroughly earthly and a few hundred million years older than any form of primate intelligence. If anything octopus show palaeo-intelligence while primates show neo-intelligence. Evolutionarily speaking we are the new arrivals on a planet of octopus intelligence.

[saltywizard@beige.party]

@gutenberg_org

i'm currently of the opinion that consciousness is a quantum field that all matter interacts with to some degree.

[figura@bark.wolp.chat]

@gutenberg_org@mastodon.social

i think they made a game about this

[walrus@toot.wales]

@saltywizard @gutenberg_org

One of the stones in our garden says that's incorrect.

[leonardom@mathstodon.xyz]

@gutenberg_org put her/him back in water

[halbgarheiten@sciences.social]

@gutenberg_org cf. Adrian Tchaikovsky: Children of Ruin

[saltywizard@beige.party]

@Walrus @gutenberg_org

they just don't want to be made to pay taxes.

[phl@mastodon.social]

@christianschwaegerl @gutenberg_org Alien in the sense of "very different", rather than in the sense of "extraterrestrial", I guess.

[tmcfarlane@toot.community]

@phl @christianschwaegerl @gutenberg_org this book is worth a read, though the author warns of the dangers of anthropomorphising the octopus, and then proceeds to spend the rest of hte book doing it.
Good read though.

Waterstones

(www.waterstones.com)

[michaelgemar@cosocial.ca]

@halbgarheiten @gutenberg_org Yep, that’s a brilliant portrayal of just how “alien” intelligent octopuses could be.

[klu9@ohai.social]

@saltywizard 

Oh man, even *stones* have their libertarians!

[disorderlyf@todon.eu]

@gutenberg_org Someone already said the headline has it backwards, so I'll just bring up that our definition of intelligence is very heavily biased in favour of humans. We're not even the only mammal with substantial intelligence. Boars and chimps are intelligent enough that I suspect there's a good chance that if we all died tomorrow, they'd take the reigns in a million or two years. And that's assuming corvids or aquatic mammals don't also evolve that last five percent to go from merely intelligent animals to creating civilisations with agriculture.

[contrasocial@mastodon.social]

@gutenberg_org

For how intelligent octopai are, their life cycle is completely cursed. After they mate and lay eggs they basically starve themselves and disintegrate while alive, even pulling parts of their body off in the process.

Could give some hints about why they haven't evolved towards any hints of "civilization". Plus they are basically defenseless aside from their ink (which they can accidentally sufficate themselves in in the wrong situation).

[christianschwaegerl@mastodon.social]

@phl @gutenberg_org
I don't drink coffee, I take sea, my dear
I like my fish done on one side
And you can hear it in my accent when I talk
I'm an octopus in New York
See me walking down Fifth Avenue Eight arms here at my side
I take them everywhere I walk
I'm an octopus in New York Oh, I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien
I'm an octopus in New York
Oh, I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien
I'm an cephalopod in New York