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The author didn’t seem to address how cephalopods would be able to develop civilization without demonstrating a similar aptitude for highly coordinated complex

by bumby 2y ago

The author didn’t seem to address how cephalopods would be able to develop civilization without demonstrating a similar aptitude for highly coordinated complex social behavior or the transference of ideas (complex language). These both seem necessary for development of a complex civilization as ideas can improve and spread much faster than biological information. It’s somewhat ironic, considering the opening salvo was related to an improbable language hypothesis.

Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
Memorized inherited tacit knowledge around campfires may had been our own specie's cultural medium, but other ways (with slower bitrate) can easily be entertained. Vocalizations and their evolution were banned from discussion in the Royal Society because they did not leave a fossil record, so even meta-science was harder back then.
inkcapmushroom 2y ago
There is discussion in the article about cephalopod communication, and how they use complex patterning and physical movement to communicate with each other. Is their level of communication and their information transfer speed as high as language? I don't think we can know very well without asking a cephalopod. Now, that whole section is talking about modern cuttlefish, so I would agree with you regarding the author's hypothetical nautilus civilization.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  > s their level of communication and their information transfer speed as high as language? First, spoken language isn't extraordinarily fast. Most of us here have experienced points in our lives where speech has seemed laboriously slow. Second, we have through much of recorded history, relied upon correspondence and the written word, where communicating a few sentences worth of ideas took weeks. It is not outlandish to think that complicated, colorful shapes on the cuttlefish's back (pictures in the link, if you need a reminder) could convey an entire sentence' worth of information. With a refresh rate of what, 5 seconds? More than enough for human-speech-level speed. Whatever other challenges they face, communication just isn't one of those.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- bumby 2y ago
  I guess the part that I could’ve been more explicit about is that I am thinking both complex language and complex language skills being necessary together to push civilization forward. The takeaway I had from the articles communication discussion was that their communication, while unique, is focused directly on mating, and predation (or avoiding predation). Those goals seem to be the norm in the animal kingdom. While I think the argument could be made that the human demonstrations can be to the same ends, they are many more layers of abstraction in between which is what ends up creating complex civilization. (Eg, status is a form of mating, but we humans have so many tangential levels of displaying status that technology like a Lamborghini can become a mating signal, rather than using pure dominance. The combination of complex social behaviors and communication are necessary before the technology develops)
  - inkcapmushroom 2y ago
    I think we can very easily tell when they are communicating about mating or predation. We can read those signals in virtually any animal, there seem to be near-universal signals which we can easily talk about in research. Maybe when they are just having a chat, it might not look like anything to us, and we can only really tell what they're saying when they're "shouting". Or maybe we are missing lots of nuanced details being conveyed in the message. We think the tiger stripe aggressive pattern just means "back off", but maybe he's really "reading off" a detailed list of his feats of bravery to intimidate his opponent or spitting the cephalopod equivalent of a diss track!
- yencabulator 2y ago
  Consider deaf/mute humans. Are you saying they can't communicate at speeds matching speech?
chubot 2y ago
I read somewhere that cephalopods are kind of like "individual flashes of genius". They develop large brains very rapidly, with lots of skills, BUT they don't pass on their skills, in part because they die quickly! This article mentions that: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/opinion/sunday/octopuses-and-the-puzzle-of-aging.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/opinion/sunday/octopuses-... Despite being mollusks, like clams and oysters, these animals have very large brains and exhibit a curious, enigmatic intelligence. I followed them through the sea, and also began reading about them, and one of the first things I learned came as a shock: They have extremely short lives — just one or two years. Other discussion - https://tonmo.com/threads/why-dont-octopus-and-other-cephlapods-live-very-long.14053/ https://tonmo.com/threads/why-dont-octopus-and-other-cephlap... --- Humans do seem to have some the longest life spans on the planet, and that's an important adaptation -- "grandmother hypothesis" and all that. I can see that generational knowledge is big deal, even in my own family, and in my coworkers' families. Or you can look at the family of (ironically) Charles Darwin, with Francis Galton, and so forth The outliers among primates move the civilization forward. So just having a few people with big brains, who absorb knowledge from their predecessors, is a big deal. Though of course there could be some cephalopod species that evolved to live 100 years ... and then for some reason they disappeared, or lost that adaptation
- ddalex 2y ago
  > for some reason they disappeared Octopodi be tasty.
- stevenwoo 2y ago
  Not only short lifespan (some live four years), but all species die after laying eggs or after the eggs hatch so there can only be genetic transfer of information like the social insects, ants and termites. There would need to be some evolutionary leap to have them survive longer than required now or extraordinary genetic engineering ala Children of Time.
  - andrewflnr 2y ago
    Not necessarily. You could, in principle, have the information transfer happen via octopuses in their community that aren't laying eggs yet.
sholladay 2y ago
Would you count group hunting as “highly complex social behavior”? It’s not just a numbers thing, they communicate and coordinate with the group. https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5120912/octopuses-and-fish-hunt-enforce https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5120912/octopuses-and-f... Octopuses also build colonies, using coconut shells and other tools. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18281-octopuses-use-coconut-shells-as-portable-shelters/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18281-octopuses-use-c... https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-discover-underwater-city-full-gloomy-octopuses https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-discover-... https://mashable.com/article/octopus-garden-colony-deep-sea-discovery https://mashable.com/article/octopus-garden-colony-deep-sea-... They can also solve human made puzzles. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0152048 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... As for knowledge transfer, we know that they can teach other how to perform certain tasks. But beyond that, there seems to be a lack of research. Do they have complex language and can they transfer abstract “ideas”? My guess would be yes, but they communicate through color changes in ways that we have a hard time understanding. It seems likely that birds and whales have complex language, but we haven’t cracked the code on that even though their communication is much more like ours. Hopefully we find out some day. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mind-of-an-octopus/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mind-of-an-oc... https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-evolution-of-stupidity-and-octopus https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-evolution-of-stupidity-and...
- bumby 2y ago
  My guess is that abstract ideas is an outgrowth of language and also necessary for the development of the complex societies the article is positing. I would also be careful not to conflate complex language (for example, dialects in whales) with the development of complex abstract ideas (for example, mathematics). It seems to me the latter is necessary for the complexity discussed, but unclear if the extent to which it exists in other species. But I agree, hopefully we can learn more someday on the way they are both similar and dissimilar to human cognition. (I should add that there are some like Stephen Meyer who think certain abstract cognition is more magical and unable to come from basic evolution, but this has a theistic bent)
joe_the_user 2y ago
One point to note is that humans evolved from apes at a quick pace. I've heard claims that longer life-span, the ability to engage in complex vocalizations, opposable thumbs, upright stance, binocular vision and so-forth are all pretty recent innovation over evolutionary short period, with large brain size turning out to be last addition. The human package might be not much more complex than "start with a rock-throwing mob and features providing benefits" So, on the surface, you could have a species that sprinted to all the features required for civilization - and then destroyed itself in a blaze of less-than-glory as we seem on a trajectory to do. Edit: Note, I should add that I'd actually doubt this scenario could happen only because the evolution of human seems part of the general acceleration of evolution that can be seen throughout geological history.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >One point to note is that humans evolved from apes at a quick pace. I've heard claims that longer life-span, the ability to engage in complex vocalizations, opposable thumbs, upright stance, binocular vision and so-forth are all pretty recent innovation over evolutionary short period, with large brain size turning out to be last addition. It is interesting how we evolved all these necessary things pretty quickly, though if we look at other apes, they generally also possess opposable thumbs and binocular vision. Sometimes I wonder if there was help, such as a large, black monolith...
jjk166 2y ago
The cephalopods we observe today would be many millions of years removed from the Silurian cephalopods. It would be like trying to gauge the language capabilities of humans from observing squirrels.

by bumby 2y ago

Jerrrrrrry 2y ago

Memorized inherited tacit knowledge around campfires may had been our own specie's cultural medium, but other ways (with slower bitrate) can easily be entertained. Vocalizations and their evolution were banned from discussion in the Royal Society because they did not leave a fossil record, so even meta-science was harder back then.

inkcapmushroom 2y ago

There is discussion in the article about cephalopod communication, and how they use complex patterning and physical movement to communicate with each other. Is their level of communication and their information transfer speed as high as language? I don't think we can know very well without asking a cephalopod. Now, that whole section is talking about modern cuttlefish, so I would agree with you regarding the author's hypothetical nautilus civilization.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
> s their level of communication and their information transfer speed as high as language? First, spoken language isn't extraordinarily fast. Most of us here have experienced points in our lives where speech has seemed laboriously slow. Second, we have through much of recorded history, relied upon correspondence and the written word, where communicating a few sentences worth of ideas took weeks. It is not outlandish to think that complicated, colorful shapes on the cuttlefish's back (pictures in the link, if you need a reminder) could convey an entire sentence' worth of information. With a refresh rate of what, 5 seconds? More than enough for human-speech-level speed. Whatever other challenges they face, communication just isn't one of those.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
bumby 2y ago
I guess the part that I could’ve been more explicit about is that I am thinking both complex language and complex language skills being necessary together to push civilization forward. The takeaway I had from the articles communication discussion was that their communication, while unique, is focused directly on mating, and predation (or avoiding predation). Those goals seem to be the norm in the animal kingdom. While I think the argument could be made that the human demonstrations can be to the same ends, they are many more layers of abstraction in between which is what ends up creating complex civilization. (Eg, status is a form of mating, but we humans have so many tangential levels of displaying status that technology like a Lamborghini can become a mating signal, rather than using pure dominance. The combination of complex social behaviors and communication are necessary before the technology develops)
- inkcapmushroom 2y ago
  I think we can very easily tell when they are communicating about mating or predation. We can read those signals in virtually any animal, there seem to be near-universal signals which we can easily talk about in research. Maybe when they are just having a chat, it might not look like anything to us, and we can only really tell what they're saying when they're "shouting". Or maybe we are missing lots of nuanced details being conveyed in the message. We think the tiger stripe aggressive pattern just means "back off", but maybe he's really "reading off" a detailed list of his feats of bravery to intimidate his opponent or spitting the cephalopod equivalent of a diss track!
yencabulator 2y ago
Consider deaf/mute humans. Are you saying they can't communicate at speeds matching speech?

chubot 2y ago

I read somewhere that cephalopods are kind of like "individual flashes of genius". They develop large brains very rapidly, with lots of skills, BUT they don't pass on their skills, in part because they die quickly! This article mentions that: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/opinion/sunday/octopuses-and-the-puzzle-of-aging.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/opinion/sunday/octopuses-... Despite being mollusks, like clams and oysters, these animals have very large brains and exhibit a curious, enigmatic intelligence. I followed them through the sea, and also began reading about them, and one of the first things I learned came as a shock: They have extremely short lives — just one or two years. Other discussion - https://tonmo.com/threads/why-dont-octopus-and-other-cephlapods-live-very-long.14053/ https://tonmo.com/threads/why-dont-octopus-and-other-cephlap... --- Humans do seem to have some the longest life spans on the planet, and that's an important adaptation -- "grandmother hypothesis" and all that. I can see that generational knowledge is big deal, even in my own family, and in my coworkers' families. Or you can look at the family of (ironically) Charles Darwin, with Francis Galton, and so forth The outliers among primates move the civilization forward. So just having a few people with big brains, who absorb knowledge from their predecessors, is a big deal. Though of course there could be some cephalopod species that evolved to live 100 years ... and then for some reason they disappeared, or lost that adaptation

ddalex 2y ago
> for some reason they disappeared Octopodi be tasty.
stevenwoo 2y ago
Not only short lifespan (some live four years), but all species die after laying eggs or after the eggs hatch so there can only be genetic transfer of information like the social insects, ants and termites. There would need to be some evolutionary leap to have them survive longer than required now or extraordinary genetic engineering ala Children of Time.
- andrewflnr 2y ago
  Not necessarily. You could, in principle, have the information transfer happen via octopuses in their community that aren't laying eggs yet.

sholladay 2y ago

Would you count group hunting as “highly complex social behavior”? It’s not just a numbers thing, they communicate and coordinate with the group. https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5120912/octopuses-and-fish-hunt-enforce https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5120912/octopuses-and-f... Octopuses also build colonies, using coconut shells and other tools. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18281-octopuses-use-coconut-shells-as-portable-shelters/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18281-octopuses-use-c... https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-discover-underwater-city-full-gloomy-octopuses https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-discover-... https://mashable.com/article/octopus-garden-colony-deep-sea-discovery https://mashable.com/article/octopus-garden-colony-deep-sea-... They can also solve human made puzzles. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0152048 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... As for knowledge transfer, we know that they can teach other how to perform certain tasks. But beyond that, there seems to be a lack of research. Do they have complex language and can they transfer abstract “ideas”? My guess would be yes, but they communicate through color changes in ways that we have a hard time understanding. It seems likely that birds and whales have complex language, but we haven’t cracked the code on that even though their communication is much more like ours. Hopefully we find out some day. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mind-of-an-octopus/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mind-of-an-oc... https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-evolution-of-stupidity-and-octopus https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-evolution-of-stupidity-and...

bumby 2y ago
My guess is that abstract ideas is an outgrowth of language and also necessary for the development of the complex societies the article is positing. I would also be careful not to conflate complex language (for example, dialects in whales) with the development of complex abstract ideas (for example, mathematics). It seems to me the latter is necessary for the complexity discussed, but unclear if the extent to which it exists in other species. But I agree, hopefully we can learn more someday on the way they are both similar and dissimilar to human cognition. (I should add that there are some like Stephen Meyer who think certain abstract cognition is more magical and unable to come from basic evolution, but this has a theistic bent)

joe_the_user 2y ago

One point to note is that humans evolved from apes at a quick pace. I've heard claims that longer life-span, the ability to engage in complex vocalizations, opposable thumbs, upright stance, binocular vision and so-forth are all pretty recent innovation over evolutionary short period, with large brain size turning out to be last addition. The human package might be not much more complex than "start with a rock-throwing mob and features providing benefits" So, on the surface, you could have a species that sprinted to all the features required for civilization - and then destroyed itself in a blaze of less-than-glory as we seem on a trajectory to do. Edit: Note, I should add that I'd actually doubt this scenario could happen only because the evolution of human seems part of the general acceleration of evolution that can be seen throughout geological history.

shiroiushi 2y ago
>One point to note is that humans evolved from apes at a quick pace. I've heard claims that longer life-span, the ability to engage in complex vocalizations, opposable thumbs, upright stance, binocular vision and so-forth are all pretty recent innovation over evolutionary short period, with large brain size turning out to be last addition. It is interesting how we evolved all these necessary things pretty quickly, though if we look at other apes, they generally also possess opposable thumbs and binocular vision. Sometimes I wonder if there was help, such as a large, black monolith...

jjk166 2y ago

The cephalopods we observe today would be many millions of years removed from the Silurian cephalopods. It would be like trying to gauge the language capabilities of humans from observing squirrels.