Intelligence, Consciousness and Soul, oh my; Sy Montgomery's "The Soul of an Octopus"
January 29, 2016 at 10:56 pm
(This post was last modified: January 29, 2016 at 11:00 pm by Whateverist.)
The empirical facts and theories concerning the most intelligent of non-vertibrates are spaced between an easily consumed book of one nature observer's observations and encounters with octopuses. (Apparently "octopi" is a mistaken plural form.) Surprising to learn how much stronger they are than we even without a skeletal frame to which muscles may attach. The main octopus species of interest is the giant Pacific species which is also one of the longest lived at 3 to 5 years, where some average just a year. Yet in that time they learn to identify predators and prey and many strategies to cope with both. Oh, and they are famously good problem solvers.
Physiologically they're so different than us. They have more neurons dispersed between their eight legs than they do in their centralized brain. Each leg is capable of operating on its own. If one is severed it can not only replace it, but the one that is lost can go on hunting and passing prey up the conveyor belt like arm to a mouth that is no longer there for some time. They have three hearts. Their capacity for color and texture camouflage is unequaled and seems to require learning. A giant Pacific octopus might grow to fifty pounds or more but can still squeeze through an opening only a couple of inches wide. The large parrot like beak is the limiting factor on that score.
But the question in the background here throughout is what is it like to be an octopus and how does their subjective experience differ from and converge with our own. This was the question that drew me to the book from an interview on Science Friday. Admittedly I found the efforts in that direction pretty thin. But the author does a good job of drawing us along through the experiences which trigger the questions and the associations which follow. In this she gives us a chance to grok what we can from her experiences to have our own questions and associations. So not a failure by any means.
The best quote is more descriptive that explanatory. It comes from a well respected researcher in octopus intelligence who, at one point, the author gets to dive with.
The author says of Mather's work:
Physiologically they're so different than us. They have more neurons dispersed between their eight legs than they do in their centralized brain. Each leg is capable of operating on its own. If one is severed it can not only replace it, but the one that is lost can go on hunting and passing prey up the conveyor belt like arm to a mouth that is no longer there for some time. They have three hearts. Their capacity for color and texture camouflage is unequaled and seems to require learning. A giant Pacific octopus might grow to fifty pounds or more but can still squeeze through an opening only a couple of inches wide. The large parrot like beak is the limiting factor on that score.
But the question in the background here throughout is what is it like to be an octopus and how does their subjective experience differ from and converge with our own. This was the question that drew me to the book from an interview on Science Friday. Admittedly I found the efforts in that direction pretty thin. But the author does a good job of drawing us along through the experiences which trigger the questions and the associations which follow. In this she gives us a chance to grok what we can from her experiences to have our own questions and associations. So not a failure by any means.
The best quote is more descriptive that explanatory. It comes from a well respected researcher in octopus intelligence who, at one point, the author gets to dive with.
Jennifer Mather Wrote:I am .. aware that in animals, as well as people, there is an inborn temperament, a way of seeing the world, that interacts with the environment, and that shapes the personality."
The author says of Mather's work:
Sy Montgomery Wrote:Once overlooked or dismissed outright, Jennifer's work is respected and cited by cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neuroanatomists, and computational neuroscientists - including a prominent international group of whom gathered at the University of Cambridge in England in 2012 to write a historic proclamation, the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. Signed by scientists including physicist Stephen Hawking in front of 60 minutes cameras, it asserts that "humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness" and that "nonhuman animals, including all birds and mammals, and many other creatures, including octopuses also possess these neurological substrates."
