> So it's a bit of a mystery how they evolved so high intelligence without having to outsmart other individuals of their own species constantly. It's not like

> So it's a bit of a mystery how they evolved so high intelligence without having to outsmart other individuals of their own species constantly. It's not like they don't have myriad other creatures to outsmart in their daily lives. > But the puzzle still remains why their intelligence is similar at all to the one that evolved through forced social interactions. Is it? Every time I see 'octopus' and 'intelligence' in the same sentence it's someone saying how weird and alien they are. Possibly they have some similarities when it comes to theory of mind because they're modeling generic other intelligences, but everything else about their minds seems totally alien unless presented with a large ladle of anthropomorphization poured over it.