4 ms·

Just to give you a blow of reality check, an octopus is considered as least as smart (including sociability and all) as a cat. If not even more, considering its

Just to give you a blow of reality check, an octopus is considered as least as smart (including sociability and all) as a cat. If not even more, considering its capacity for problem-solving. I see intelligence/consciousness as orthogonal to lifespan. Sure it's cruel that such a smart species would die after mating (by the way if they don't mate they live several decades), but that does not remove their capacity of planning, self-reflection, empathy, etc etc. But if you really want an other example that would escape your argument, take the crow. (no cortex, but a wurst)

slothtrop 4y ago
> an octopus is considered as least as smart (including sociability and all) as a cat You're misconstruing your source, if you have one.
- henearkr 4y ago
  There are tons of sources if you just type anything in Google, but here is just a snack as an example: octopuses recognize individual people: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20563906/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20563906/ There are also articles about how they use tools, estimate intent, etc. Here is one about how they use deception: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3440998/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3440998/ This entails that they have a mental model of what others think of them, which ranks very high on the evaluation of animal consciousness.
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    > octopuses recognize individual people Insufficient. > This entails that they have a mental model of what others think of them No, not necessarily true. Tons of insects use deception tactics and you would not suggest they're as "intelligent as a cat", let alone have a mental model. Hell, there are deceptive plants. See this about European lady's slipper orchids - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-009-0611-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-009-0611-0 It's tempting to explain away all behavior with consciousness, but it's not necessarily accurate.
    - henearkr 4y ago
      > Tons of insects use deception tactics No, read better: "[...] in a specific social context amenable to cheating 39 per cent of the time, while it was never employed in other social contexts" It's completely different from what simple insects do, here it entails that they understand the specific social context. Now you could reply to me that eusocial insects do that a lot, basing their behavior on cues like pheromones etc. To which I'd say: yes exactly, and that's why eusocial insects have the largest brains among insects. Cephalopod can solve amazingly difficult puzzles (unlike social insects) AND also have social skills. Which gives a big boost to how they score on intelligence evaluation. Moreover, one can argue that using pheromones is much easier than deducing the social context solely upon visual cues, because in insects pheromones already encode very specific meanings and are linked to hard-coded behaviors. Octupuses' social skills also a reason to how well they bond and interact with their human caregivers.
      - slothtrop 4y ago
        > what simple insects do It should be clearly inferred if I'm invoking deception tactics that I'm not talking about "simple insects". But that is still a large number, out of 925,000 species. > To which I'd say: yes exactly, and that's why eusocial insects have the largest brains among insects. The connection you're supposed to make here is they still don't exhibit the level of consciousness and intelligence you had been purporting. I don't see why octopi should be any different.
        henearkr 4y ago
        > they still don't exhibit the level of consciousness and intelligence you had been purporting But they do, on social tasks, only the insects use much simpler cues, whereas octopuses, humans, etc, use social cues that they have to painstakingly extract from raw data, like visual or auditory data.

slothtrop 4y ago

> an octopus is considered as least as smart (including sociability and all) as a cat You're misconstruing your source, if you have one.

henearkr 4y ago
There are tons of sources if you just type anything in Google, but here is just a snack as an example: octopuses recognize individual people: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20563906/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20563906/ There are also articles about how they use tools, estimate intent, etc. Here is one about how they use deception: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3440998/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3440998/ This entails that they have a mental model of what others think of them, which ranks very high on the evaluation of animal consciousness.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  > octopuses recognize individual people Insufficient. > This entails that they have a mental model of what others think of them No, not necessarily true. Tons of insects use deception tactics and you would not suggest they're as "intelligent as a cat", let alone have a mental model. Hell, there are deceptive plants. See this about European lady's slipper orchids - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-009-0611-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-009-0611-0 It's tempting to explain away all behavior with consciousness, but it's not necessarily accurate.
  - henearkr 4y ago
    > Tons of insects use deception tactics No, read better: "[...] in a specific social context amenable to cheating 39 per cent of the time, while it was never employed in other social contexts" It's completely different from what simple insects do, here it entails that they understand the specific social context. Now you could reply to me that eusocial insects do that a lot, basing their behavior on cues like pheromones etc. To which I'd say: yes exactly, and that's why eusocial insects have the largest brains among insects. Cephalopod can solve amazingly difficult puzzles (unlike social insects) AND also have social skills. Which gives a big boost to how they score on intelligence evaluation. Moreover, one can argue that using pheromones is much easier than deducing the social context solely upon visual cues, because in insects pheromones already encode very specific meanings and are linked to hard-coded behaviors. Octupuses' social skills also a reason to how well they bond and interact with their human caregivers.
    - slothtrop 4y ago
      > what simple insects do It should be clearly inferred if I'm invoking deception tactics that I'm not talking about "simple insects". But that is still a large number, out of 925,000 species. > To which I'd say: yes exactly, and that's why eusocial insects have the largest brains among insects. The connection you're supposed to make here is they still don't exhibit the level of consciousness and intelligence you had been purporting. I don't see why octopi should be any different.
      - henearkr 4y ago
        > they still don't exhibit the level of consciousness and intelligence you had been purporting But they do, on social tasks, only the insects use much simpler cues, whereas octopuses, humans, etc, use social cues that they have to painstakingly extract from raw data, like visual or auditory data.