What If Cephalopods Are the Closest Thing to Alien Intelligence?
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What If Cephalopods Are the Closest Thing to Alien Intelligence?
What if the most profound encounter with a truly alien intelligence isn’t light-years away, but lurking beneath the waves of our oceans and seas?
https://www.thecollector.com/cephalopods-closest-thing-alien-intelligence/
@gutenberg_org put her/him back in water
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What If Cephalopods Are the Closest Thing to Alien Intelligence?
What if the most profound encounter with a truly alien intelligence isn’t light-years away, but lurking beneath the waves of our oceans and seas?
https://www.thecollector.com/cephalopods-closest-thing-alien-intelligence/
@gutenberg_org cf. Adrian Tchaikovsky: Children of Ruin
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One of the stones in our garden says that's incorrect.
they just don't want to be made to pay taxes.
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@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.
@christianschwaegerl @gutenberg_org Alien in the sense of "very different", rather than in the sense of "extraterrestrial", I guess.
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@christianschwaegerl @gutenberg_org Alien in the sense of "very different", rather than in the sense of "extraterrestrial", I guess.
@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.https://www.waterstones.com/book/other-minds/peter-godfrey-smith/9780008226299
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@gutenberg_org cf. Adrian Tchaikovsky: Children of Ruin
@halbgarheiten @gutenberg_org Yep, that’s a brilliant portrayal of just how “alien” intelligent octopuses could be.
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they just don't want to be made to pay taxes.
Oh man, even *stones* have their libertarians!
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What If Cephalopods Are the Closest Thing to Alien Intelligence?
What if the most profound encounter with a truly alien intelligence isn’t light-years away, but lurking beneath the waves of our oceans and seas?
https://www.thecollector.com/cephalopods-closest-thing-alien-intelligence/
@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.
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What If Cephalopods Are the Closest Thing to Alien Intelligence?
What if the most profound encounter with a truly alien intelligence isn’t light-years away, but lurking beneath the waves of our oceans and seas?
https://www.thecollector.com/cephalopods-closest-thing-alien-intelligence/
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).
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@christianschwaegerl @gutenberg_org Alien in the sense of "very different", rather than in the sense of "extraterrestrial", I guess.
@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 -
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