5 ms·

The thing that I keep wondering about is, why don't octopuses have higher aspirations? Like building octopus cities, and forming an octopus empire. Or figuring

The thing that I keep wondering about is, why don't octopuses have higher aspirations? Like building octopus cities, and forming an octopus empire. Or figuring out how to pass on information from generation to generation. Could an octopus be taught English?

arcticfox 7y ago
Anyone interested in thinking about this should read Children of Time and the sequel Children of Ruin. The first is about the (accidental) future uplift of spiders via genetic engineering and evolution, the sequel about octopuses. The author does an excellent job of imagining how this might come to pass.
derg 7y ago
I think about this Douglas Adams quote about Dolphins a lot: "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons." You could apply the same idea to octopuses.
- chibg10 7y ago
  While satirical, this doesn’t really make sense as an answer to question at hand. Natural selection dictates that intelligence, if possessed, will be put to use to further survival and reproduction. There are some limits to this — humans in many cases clearly have other goals — but it should be true to a large extent. The wheel, New York, and wars are pretty clearly aligned with this goal. If the octopus possessed sufficient intelligence, something along the lines of an octopus city would presumably be in the cards. Or if they do possess such intelligence, the question again is why not form civilizations (which would presumably boost survival and fertility rates)?
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Would they though? cities allow close contact often which allows disease to spread thus wiping them out. Eventually you create sanitation, medication and such. It is a long time from intelligence to designing sanitation and medical systems. If you skip all that by avoiding close contact...
  - thenewwazoo 7y ago
    If "intelligence, if possessed, will be put to use to further survival and reproduction" were axiomatic, human populations would never decline for any reason other than accidental death, disease, etc. That's not true, however. As standards of living increase, birth rates voluntarily decline until populations shrink. People aren't getting dumber and somehow failing to reproduce as often, but instead are using that intelligence to choose not to reproduce. Perhaps octopodes are making the same choice?
  - aleksei 7y ago
    Octopuses have been around for 300 million years, I think they've got survival and reproduction covered at this point. I would be careful of conflating shared culture with intelligence, especially in this context given octopuses are mainly solitary.
  - Timpy 7y ago
    > Natural selection dictates that intelligence, if possessed, will be put to use to further survival and reproduction. I disagree with this. Intelligence will only further survival and reproduction if it helps whatever selective pressures the population is under. Livestock are a good example, they were selected to be less intelligent. You're wrongly assuming that the goals of natural selection align with human goals. The only goal of natural selection is gene propagation. In this endeavor, chickens are much more successful. They outnumber humans, humans supply them with food, humans protect them from natural predators. Who are we to say "the only measure of success is a human-like civilization"?
    - dTal 7y ago
      Note that the parent did not say "survival and reproduction will select for intelligence". They said, intelligence if possessed will be put to that use. Livestock may be dumb, but males will still sneak out of their enclosure to mate with the herd, if they can figure out how. The implication is that if octopuses could make technology, pass on culture etc, they would.
- m463 7y ago
  I think of David Brin's fascinating article that touches on Dolphins: http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/dogmaofotherness.html http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/dogmaofotherness.html
avip 7y ago
Notably, Octopii never meet their offsprings.
windsurfer 7y ago
Most octopus live fewer than 3 years.
- GuB-42 7y ago
  That, I think is the most important reason. It takes almost 20 years for a modern human to become a productive member of society. In 3 years, we are barely able to communicate properly. Octopuses simply don't have time to learn and instead must rely on innate skills.
  - randomdata 7y ago
    > It takes almost 20 years for a modern human to become a productive member of society. The expectation of attending school for most of those years tends to greatly hinder the speed at which one can become a productive member of society though. Three years is certainly pushing it, but those in early adolescence have proven that they can be productive members of society, even modern society, if they focus on the right things. We allow people to delay becoming productive members of society well beyond the time they technically could be productive because: 1. Thanks to modern technology, we now can allow it. Go back into earlier human history and not being productive in early adolescence means you would not survive. That is no longer an issue we need to worry about. 2. Since the above is no longer an issue, we are able to see the human experience as being about more than just being productive. We want to give time to explore the world in ways that is not directly useful, but enlightening nonetheless.
- esalman 7y ago
  This. It is not long enough to gain wisdom and pass it to the next generation.
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  I wonder whether it would be possible to breed a longer-lived species of octopus without reducing their innate intelligence.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Well they have always been considered solitary. We don't even have a collective noun. So they may consider such things their idea of nightmare. That said, we have discovered some areas where they gather[1], so it really comes down to us not knowing nearly enough. Much of life in the oceans remains a mystery. [1] https://ourblueplanet.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=are-octopus-solitary-or-do-they-live-in-groups https://ourblueplanet.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=are-octopus...
pdobsan 7y ago
Actually, they do "build cities" as it was recently discovered: https://qz.com/1077632/octlantis-is-a-just-discovered-underwater-city-engineered-by-octopuses/?mc_cid=4b3027a1f8&mc_eid=c8f5807ff1 https://qz.com/1077632/octlantis-is-a-just-discovered-underw...
the_af 7y ago
> why don't octopuses have higher aspirations? Very short lifespans. A tragedy, when you think about it...
- XorNot 7y ago
  Also the plot to Sid Mier's Alpha Centauri, in a way...
oh_sigh 7y ago
Maybe because they are solitary creatures. Without society, where would humans be?
tastyfreeze 7y ago
There is that slight impediment of short lifespans. The giant pacific octopus has a lifespan 3-5 years. They grow rapidly but do no live long.
bamurphymac1 7y ago
As I understand it they have very short lifespans (3-5 years) and octopus mothers only lay eggs once. They die of starvation after guarding & tending the eggs right up to hatching. I think they just don’t have the opportunity to produce culture. Maybe they could be taught but it seems like generational learning would be extremely unlikely. Edit: their situation has always struck me as very poetic and sad. If they are conscious their existence seems so lonely. But maybe that’s just my mammalian bias!
- agency 7y ago
  FWIW I think that behavior may be specific to the Giant Pacific octopus[1]. I'm not sure if other octopuses (octopi? octopodes?) behave the same way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Pacific_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Pacific_octopus
  - therein 7y ago
    As far as my understanding goes, the octopuses that don't exhibit that behavior are the exception to the rule instead.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Maybe they would be a better candidate for uplift than dolphins then? We could start out by fixing their lifespans (apparently it's a surgically resolvable problem, see [0]), and seeing what happens. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21086642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21086642
z3phyr 7y ago
They are solitary creatures, and they do not live very long. The social aspect is missing, but maybe this could eventually evolve.
ppseafield 7y ago
It also takes cooperation to build cities, and octopuses aren't terribly social.
Ultimatt 7y ago
Historically humans have asked this of other humans which typically are the darkest parts of our history where we devalued one another. Perhaps the Octopus is just happy with its lot. They also don't live very long only a handful of years, which is also testament to just how smart they actually are.
xtracto 7y ago
This remind me of a great quote from the film "Man From Earth": * I mean, assuming normal intelligence. Well, we think men of the upper Paleolithic were as intelligent as we are. They just didn't know as much. John's man would have learned as the race learned. In fact, if he had an inquiring mind, his knowledge might be...astonishing.* Octopodes may very well suffer from this, they may be very intelligent but just don't have the means to gain sufficient knowledge. If you think about it, take the average human, and private him from all of our current body of knowledge, and it will have a hard time achieving anything in earth's environment.
- harel 7y ago
  This is such a great underrated film.
megaremote 7y ago
Maybe they do, but they are smart enough to hide it from us.
kalado 7y ago
"Or figuring out how to pass on information from generation to generation." The marine biologist at a aquarium told us (semi-jokingly) that this is the reason they haven't taken over the world yet. They just leave their children to their own and don't teach them anything at all. So every octopus born has to relearn everything and once done, they die.

arcticfox 7y ago

Anyone interested in thinking about this should read Children of Time and the sequel Children of Ruin. The first is about the (accidental) future uplift of spiders via genetic engineering and evolution, the sequel about octopuses. The author does an excellent job of imagining how this might come to pass.

derg 7y ago

I think about this Douglas Adams quote about Dolphins a lot: "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons." You could apply the same idea to octopuses.

chibg10 7y ago
While satirical, this doesn’t really make sense as an answer to question at hand. Natural selection dictates that intelligence, if possessed, will be put to use to further survival and reproduction. There are some limits to this — humans in many cases clearly have other goals — but it should be true to a large extent. The wheel, New York, and wars are pretty clearly aligned with this goal. If the octopus possessed sufficient intelligence, something along the lines of an octopus city would presumably be in the cards. Or if they do possess such intelligence, the question again is why not form civilizations (which would presumably boost survival and fertility rates)?
- bluGill 7y ago
  Would they though? cities allow close contact often which allows disease to spread thus wiping them out. Eventually you create sanitation, medication and such. It is a long time from intelligence to designing sanitation and medical systems. If you skip all that by avoiding close contact...
- thenewwazoo 7y ago
  If "intelligence, if possessed, will be put to use to further survival and reproduction" were axiomatic, human populations would never decline for any reason other than accidental death, disease, etc. That's not true, however. As standards of living increase, birth rates voluntarily decline until populations shrink. People aren't getting dumber and somehow failing to reproduce as often, but instead are using that intelligence to choose not to reproduce. Perhaps octopodes are making the same choice?
- aleksei 7y ago
  Octopuses have been around for 300 million years, I think they've got survival and reproduction covered at this point. I would be careful of conflating shared culture with intelligence, especially in this context given octopuses are mainly solitary.
- Timpy 7y ago
  > Natural selection dictates that intelligence, if possessed, will be put to use to further survival and reproduction. I disagree with this. Intelligence will only further survival and reproduction if it helps whatever selective pressures the population is under. Livestock are a good example, they were selected to be less intelligent. You're wrongly assuming that the goals of natural selection align with human goals. The only goal of natural selection is gene propagation. In this endeavor, chickens are much more successful. They outnumber humans, humans supply them with food, humans protect them from natural predators. Who are we to say "the only measure of success is a human-like civilization"?
  - dTal 7y ago
    Note that the parent did not say "survival and reproduction will select for intelligence". They said, intelligence if possessed will be put to that use. Livestock may be dumb, but males will still sneak out of their enclosure to mate with the herd, if they can figure out how. The implication is that if octopuses could make technology, pass on culture etc, they would.
m463 7y ago
I think of David Brin's fascinating article that touches on Dolphins: http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/dogmaofotherness.html http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/dogmaofotherness.html

avip 7y ago

Notably, Octopii never meet their offsprings.

windsurfer 7y ago

Most octopus live fewer than 3 years.

GuB-42 7y ago
That, I think is the most important reason. It takes almost 20 years for a modern human to become a productive member of society. In 3 years, we are barely able to communicate properly. Octopuses simply don't have time to learn and instead must rely on innate skills.
- randomdata 7y ago
  > It takes almost 20 years for a modern human to become a productive member of society. The expectation of attending school for most of those years tends to greatly hinder the speed at which one can become a productive member of society though. Three years is certainly pushing it, but those in early adolescence have proven that they can be productive members of society, even modern society, if they focus on the right things. We allow people to delay becoming productive members of society well beyond the time they technically could be productive because: 1. Thanks to modern technology, we now can allow it. Go back into earlier human history and not being productive in early adolescence means you would not survive. That is no longer an issue we need to worry about. 2. Since the above is no longer an issue, we are able to see the human experience as being about more than just being productive. We want to give time to explore the world in ways that is not directly useful, but enlightening nonetheless.
esalman 7y ago
This. It is not long enough to gain wisdom and pass it to the next generation.
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
I wonder whether it would be possible to breed a longer-lived species of octopus without reducing their innate intelligence.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Well they have always been considered solitary. We don't even have a collective noun. So they may consider such things their idea of nightmare. That said, we have discovered some areas where they gather[1], so it really comes down to us not knowing nearly enough. Much of life in the oceans remains a mystery. [1] https://ourblueplanet.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=are-octopus-solitary-or-do-they-live-in-groups https://ourblueplanet.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=are-octopus...

pdobsan 7y ago

Actually, they do "build cities" as it was recently discovered: https://qz.com/1077632/octlantis-is-a-just-discovered-underwater-city-engineered-by-octopuses/?mc_cid=4b3027a1f8&mc_eid=c8f5807ff1 https://qz.com/1077632/octlantis-is-a-just-discovered-underw...

the_af 7y ago

> why don't octopuses have higher aspirations? Very short lifespans. A tragedy, when you think about it...

XorNot 7y ago
Also the plot to Sid Mier's Alpha Centauri, in a way...

oh_sigh 7y ago

Maybe because they are solitary creatures. Without society, where would humans be?

tastyfreeze 7y ago

There is that slight impediment of short lifespans. The giant pacific octopus has a lifespan 3-5 years. They grow rapidly but do no live long.

bamurphymac1 7y ago

As I understand it they have very short lifespans (3-5 years) and octopus mothers only lay eggs once. They die of starvation after guarding & tending the eggs right up to hatching. I think they just don’t have the opportunity to produce culture. Maybe they could be taught but it seems like generational learning would be extremely unlikely. Edit: their situation has always struck me as very poetic and sad. If they are conscious their existence seems so lonely. But maybe that’s just my mammalian bias!

agency 7y ago
FWIW I think that behavior may be specific to the Giant Pacific octopus[1]. I'm not sure if other octopuses (octopi? octopodes?) behave the same way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Pacific_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Pacific_octopus
- therein 7y ago
  As far as my understanding goes, the octopuses that don't exhibit that behavior are the exception to the rule instead.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Maybe they would be a better candidate for uplift than dolphins then? We could start out by fixing their lifespans (apparently it's a surgically resolvable problem, see [0]), and seeing what happens. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21086642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21086642

z3phyr 7y ago

They are solitary creatures, and they do not live very long. The social aspect is missing, but maybe this could eventually evolve.

ppseafield 7y ago

It also takes cooperation to build cities, and octopuses aren't terribly social.

Ultimatt 7y ago

Historically humans have asked this of other humans which typically are the darkest parts of our history where we devalued one another. Perhaps the Octopus is just happy with its lot. They also don't live very long only a handful of years, which is also testament to just how smart they actually are.

xtracto 7y ago

This remind me of a great quote from the film "Man From Earth": * I mean, assuming normal intelligence. Well, we think men of the upper Paleolithic were as intelligent as we are. They just didn't know as much. John's man would have learned as the race learned. In fact, if he had an inquiring mind, his knowledge might be...astonishing.* Octopodes may very well suffer from this, they may be very intelligent but just don't have the means to gain sufficient knowledge. If you think about it, take the average human, and private him from all of our current body of knowledge, and it will have a hard time achieving anything in earth's environment.

harel 7y ago
This is such a great underrated film.

megaremote 7y ago

Maybe they do, but they are smart enough to hide it from us.

kalado 7y ago

"Or figuring out how to pass on information from generation to generation." The marine biologist at a aquarium told us (semi-jokingly) that this is the reason they haven't taken over the world yet. They just leave their children to their own and don't teach them anything at all. So every octopus born has to relearn everything and once done, they die.