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The Growing Evidence for Octopus Intelligence
Annalee Newitz
io9
Posted: Jan 26, 2012
Humans want to believe that they’re the smartest creatures on the planet. But the more we understand octopuses, the more it seems that we may not be alone in our ability to solve problems, make complex connections between ideas, and survive by wits alone. A growing body of evidence — a lot of it still anecdotal — suggests that octopuses show elements of human-like intelligence.
Their intelligence has evolved for very different reasons than ours did, which makes them particularly difficult to understand.
Over at Orion magazine, Sy Montgomery has an incredible, in-depth article about what it’s like to know octopuses (io9 linked to it) — and perhaps, what it’s like to be one. He interviews scientists who work with these invertebrates, and eventually befriends an octopus named Athena.
To read the rest of io9’s article, click here.
Annalee Newitz is an American journalist who covers the cultural impact of science and technology. She is the editor-in-chief of io9, which named in 2010 as one of the top 30 science blogs by The Times. Her work has been published in Popular Science, Wired, Salon.com, New Scientist, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and AlterNet, and she is a regular lecturer at colleges and conferences.
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COMMENTS
I have long believed that we are alone in our “intelligence”. I would think that we will need to learn to get along with each other, then with other intelligences before we can truly hope to understand what intelligence IS sufficiently to create an true artificial intelligence or know how to relate to one if we accidentally create one.
WOW, the io9 Queen! Great to see you here Annalee.
I consider my beloved doggy as a person, and I have never believed in human exceptionalism. This article about octopuses is very interesting.
Coming to Alex’ remark, I consider all my friends as persons and I have never believed in the “exceptionalism” of any group. Perhaps this is what we should do to get along with each other, to see others as persons and not as members of The Others’ group.
So basically they keep octopuses in some aquatic concentration camp, imprison them against their will in small watery cells, and give them cute, human names individually - so that biologists can write in their scientific papers how smart these weird, boneless prisoners are.
Actually all the measurements reported in the article, like the neurons count or the brain size, have nothing to do with intelligence, and particularly tell nothing about the mental world of octopuses. Anyway they are a good indicator of the lack of intelligence from the researchers, which should first bother to identify all the necessary and sufficient element of intelligence before caging clueless beings.
We should first spend time, respectfully and quietly, like octopuses, in their own environment, trying to understand how the communicate and how they vehicle messages (if they do it at all). At that point, it would make sense to participate in their life, little by little, like foreigners, in some intelligent way. Caging them, preventing them to mate, observing how they strive for freedom and, finally suicide - is something ethically repugnant to me. For what? To say that, after all, they seemed smart before giving up?
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