5 ms·

What happens when an octopus engages with art?

68 points by robinhouston 1y ago

ashoeafoot 1y ago
Hyper fascinating projects. How did the ambassador react/ behave after his visit? Did he try to "write" it down as cave scribbles for posterity.
joules77 1y ago
> “They have a curiosity,” he said. “For some other animals, it’s only about eating and making love. But I think octopuses have time to wander — time for hobbies.” Book reco - Raph Koster's Theory of Fun - how Play leads to knowledge formation. Octopuses love to play.
- aa-jv 1y ago
  I've seen them playing, and whenever I visit the coastal tidal pools of my youth back home in southwest Australia, I make it a habit of sparing a gold coin for the task of luring them out of their cubbies wherever I find them .. I once played 'fetch' with an octopus for an hour, over and over just throwing a gold coin into the area outside its lair, having it come out and chase the glinting disc as it sinks deeper, discover it is inedible, toss it aside for me to retrieve, and repeat over and over until I eventually got bored. I've often seen 'middens' containing dregs of the local fishermen, lures and hooks and sinkers and other shiny trash, collected in a pile, and in my youth I'd often catch an octopus tending to such treasures. They are truly beautiful creatures, and I hope to see more and more interaction between our species, and less harvesting for food (at least on our side of the diplomatic table...)
- gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
  Oof.. that hit me right in the bellyfeels.. Of all the intelligent genuses, these guys must realize they have the shortest time on earth
tdrgabi 1y ago
Imagine being taken from your environment, maybe on a spaceship and get to see, among other things, a human market, where parts of humans are sold. I'm sure that octopus has a UFO kidnaping story.
- aatd86 1y ago
  *hahaha* shudders
neom 1y ago
I recently watched a decent natgeo series on Octopus Ep. 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WepnzaNLLMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WepnzaNLLMI Ep. 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah8U0-fV6k8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah8U0-fV6k8 Ep. 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0RLERl3TmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0RLERl3TmU
tgbugs 1y ago
Minor factual correction. Octopuses are not color blind, they only have a single photo receptor opsin but likely reconstruct color using chromatic aberration in combination with diffraction caused by their pupil shape to infer spectral properties of light (i.e. color). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1524578113 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1524578113
- neom 1y ago
  Wild, thanks for sharing. My degree is in digital imaging and I spent years battling CA, interesting to imagine that something uses it to see colour, wonder what it would look like. Continuous spectral differentiation via CA vs "bins" of color from separate photoreceptor types, I'd guess they might be capable of seeing subtle spectral nuances differently or even more sensitively in certain conditions than traditional multichannel systems like ours...also from this paper it seems the SA is extremely well corrected, if the lens GRIN is perfectly tuned radially to correct SA at one wavelength (say green @ 550), the radial profile that minimizes SA at one wavelength likely misalign SA correction at another wavelength. It seems this SA/CA system would produce a very unique multidimensional preception of space + a super unique colour gamut?
v3ss0n 1y ago
If octopi could live up to 20 years of age and have several births,if they can teach their young , we would be seeing another intelligent civilization in earth. It lead me to wonder are there ancient ancestors of octopi that are more intelligent or lives longer than octopi? Are there deep ocean unknown species of octopi exist hundreds of millions years ago and if they have a civilization Will we ever know since octopi rarely leave fossil due to their soft,boneless bodies? What if octopi were just less intelligence species of something more intelligent - like difference between chimps vs human? Maybe octopi are Best candidate for Silurian hypothesis?
- aa-jv 1y ago
  I share your enthusiasm for all of these questions .. as a fellow octopus enthusiast, are you familiar with the recently discovered octopus civilization? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopolis_and_Octlantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopolis_and_Octlantis https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/octopus-city-observed-180964936/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/octopus-city-obser... We may just simply be overlooking the obvious examples of their civilized behaviour in our rush to add them to our dining table ..
  - v3ss0n 1y ago
    Yes I had seen that not too long ago. Very amazing. That's why I wonder , what if we have a civilization of ancestor or sub species of Octopuses living deep where we haven't explored. Also looks like octopi are more space faring capable than human due to their body adapted to zero gravity situations.
    - hermitcrab 1y ago
      Dumbo Octopus have been discovered 7km deep: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-a-dumbo-octopus.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-a-dumbo-octopus.html Building a technological civilization underwater would be quite a challenge though!
      - 1y ago
aa-jv 1y ago
I have spent many days entertaining myself by feeding octopus, showing them shiny things, luring them out of the tidal pools and reef shelves I find them in .. I've seen them use bait to lure stupid white fish closer for attack, I've seen them playfully boop snorkellers on the mask and run away, as if to try to initiate a tag, or perhaps take the piss out of the clumsy beings from another realm that seem so incompetent in their eyes. To me, they are among the most intelligent creatures on the planet, and I yearn for a day when we gain the ability to communicate with them. I think there will come a time that happens - they are just so darn smart.
- psd1 1y ago
  You might enjoy Children Of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's an imagination of what a spacefaring civilisation of octopuses might look like. I won't hype it to the moon. I enjoyed Children Of Ruin more, which centres on spiders. But it's a decent read if you like SF.
  - chiyc 1y ago
    Clearing up the mix-up here. Children of Time is the first book in the series that centers on a spider civilization while Children of Ruin is about octopus. I haven't read Children of Ruin yet, but I've consistently heard from people that they enjoyed Children of Time more.
    - psd1 1y ago
      ty
hermitcrab 1y ago
Octopus are fascinating creatures who developed their intelligence quite separately from us (our last common ancestor was a flatworm). They have a very different nervous system to us - much more distributed. And they are an outlier in that pretty much all other creatures exhibiting high intelligence are long-lived and social, whereas octopus are generally short-lived and solitary. If you want to learn more about them, I recommend: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Soul_of_an_Octopus/WVa6BQAAQBAJ https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Soul_of_an_Octopu... Also, the charming film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher Sadly, some people see them only as food. And there are proposals to intensively farm them in the EU. This seems particularly cruel for an intelligent, solitary animal. The intended method of killing them using cold water also seems cruel and inhumane. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64814781 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64814781
- v3ss0n 1y ago
  They would rise up and go to war against human if their life spans are just a bit longer to civilize and if their parents can live long enough to teach their young. But , for now , they eat hermitcrabs for lunch :P .
- amelius 1y ago
  Reminder that pigs are also intelligent creatures.
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    I don't eat them either.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  That they are not social is questioned more and more. Instead they seem to interact both within their species and with completely different species. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/watch-octopuses-team-up-with-fish-to-hunt-and-punch-those-that-dont-contribute-180985134/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/watch-octopuses-te... https://www.livescience.com/53514-octopuses-lead-social-lives.html https://www.livescience.com/53514-octopuses-lead-social-live...

68 points by robinhouston 1y ago

Hyper fascinating projects. How did the ambassador react/ behave after his visit? Did he try to "write" it down as cave scribbles for posterity.

joules77 1y ago

> “They have a curiosity,” he said. “For some other animals, it’s only about eating and making love. But I think octopuses have time to wander — time for hobbies.” Book reco - Raph Koster's Theory of Fun - how Play leads to knowledge formation. Octopuses love to play.

aa-jv 1y ago
I've seen them playing, and whenever I visit the coastal tidal pools of my youth back home in southwest Australia, I make it a habit of sparing a gold coin for the task of luring them out of their cubbies wherever I find them .. I once played 'fetch' with an octopus for an hour, over and over just throwing a gold coin into the area outside its lair, having it come out and chase the glinting disc as it sinks deeper, discover it is inedible, toss it aside for me to retrieve, and repeat over and over until I eventually got bored. I've often seen 'middens' containing dregs of the local fishermen, lures and hooks and sinkers and other shiny trash, collected in a pile, and in my youth I'd often catch an octopus tending to such treasures. They are truly beautiful creatures, and I hope to see more and more interaction between our species, and less harvesting for food (at least on our side of the diplomatic table...)
gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
Oof.. that hit me right in the bellyfeels.. Of all the intelligent genuses, these guys must realize they have the shortest time on earth

tdrgabi 1y ago

Imagine being taken from your environment, maybe on a spaceship and get to see, among other things, a human market, where parts of humans are sold. I'm sure that octopus has a UFO kidnaping story.

aatd86 1y ago
*hahaha* shudders

neom 1y ago

I recently watched a decent natgeo series on Octopus Ep. 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WepnzaNLLMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WepnzaNLLMI Ep. 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah8U0-fV6k8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah8U0-fV6k8 Ep. 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0RLERl3TmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0RLERl3TmU

tgbugs 1y ago

Minor factual correction. Octopuses are not color blind, they only have a single photo receptor opsin but likely reconstruct color using chromatic aberration in combination with diffraction caused by their pupil shape to infer spectral properties of light (i.e. color). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1524578113 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1524578113

neom 1y ago
Wild, thanks for sharing. My degree is in digital imaging and I spent years battling CA, interesting to imagine that something uses it to see colour, wonder what it would look like. Continuous spectral differentiation via CA vs "bins" of color from separate photoreceptor types, I'd guess they might be capable of seeing subtle spectral nuances differently or even more sensitively in certain conditions than traditional multichannel systems like ours...also from this paper it seems the SA is extremely well corrected, if the lens GRIN is perfectly tuned radially to correct SA at one wavelength (say green @ 550), the radial profile that minimizes SA at one wavelength likely misalign SA correction at another wavelength. It seems this SA/CA system would produce a very unique multidimensional preception of space + a super unique colour gamut?

v3ss0n 1y ago

If octopi could live up to 20 years of age and have several births,if they can teach their young , we would be seeing another intelligent civilization in earth. It lead me to wonder are there ancient ancestors of octopi that are more intelligent or lives longer than octopi? Are there deep ocean unknown species of octopi exist hundreds of millions years ago and if they have a civilization Will we ever know since octopi rarely leave fossil due to their soft,boneless bodies? What if octopi were just less intelligence species of something more intelligent - like difference between chimps vs human? Maybe octopi are Best candidate for Silurian hypothesis?

aa-jv 1y ago
I share your enthusiasm for all of these questions .. as a fellow octopus enthusiast, are you familiar with the recently discovered octopus civilization? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopolis_and_Octlantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopolis_and_Octlantis https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/octopus-city-observed-180964936/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/octopus-city-obser... We may just simply be overlooking the obvious examples of their civilized behaviour in our rush to add them to our dining table ..
- v3ss0n 1y ago
  Yes I had seen that not too long ago. Very amazing. That's why I wonder , what if we have a civilization of ancestor or sub species of Octopuses living deep where we haven't explored. Also looks like octopi are more space faring capable than human due to their body adapted to zero gravity situations.
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    Dumbo Octopus have been discovered 7km deep: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-a-dumbo-octopus.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-a-dumbo-octopus.html Building a technological civilization underwater would be quite a challenge though!
    - 1y ago

aa-jv 1y ago

I have spent many days entertaining myself by feeding octopus, showing them shiny things, luring them out of the tidal pools and reef shelves I find them in .. I've seen them use bait to lure stupid white fish closer for attack, I've seen them playfully boop snorkellers on the mask and run away, as if to try to initiate a tag, or perhaps take the piss out of the clumsy beings from another realm that seem so incompetent in their eyes. To me, they are among the most intelligent creatures on the planet, and I yearn for a day when we gain the ability to communicate with them. I think there will come a time that happens - they are just so darn smart.

psd1 1y ago
You might enjoy Children Of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's an imagination of what a spacefaring civilisation of octopuses might look like. I won't hype it to the moon. I enjoyed Children Of Ruin more, which centres on spiders. But it's a decent read if you like SF.
- chiyc 1y ago
  Clearing up the mix-up here. Children of Time is the first book in the series that centers on a spider civilization while Children of Ruin is about octopus. I haven't read Children of Ruin yet, but I've consistently heard from people that they enjoyed Children of Time more.
  - psd1 1y ago
    ty

hermitcrab 1y ago

Octopus are fascinating creatures who developed their intelligence quite separately from us (our last common ancestor was a flatworm). They have a very different nervous system to us - much more distributed. And they are an outlier in that pretty much all other creatures exhibiting high intelligence are long-lived and social, whereas octopus are generally short-lived and solitary. If you want to learn more about them, I recommend: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Soul_of_an_Octopus/WVa6BQAAQBAJ https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Soul_of_an_Octopu... Also, the charming film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher Sadly, some people see them only as food. And there are proposals to intensively farm them in the EU. This seems particularly cruel for an intelligent, solitary animal. The intended method of killing them using cold water also seems cruel and inhumane. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64814781 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64814781

v3ss0n 1y ago
They would rise up and go to war against human if their life spans are just a bit longer to civilize and if their parents can live long enough to teach their young. But , for now , they eat hermitcrabs for lunch :P .
amelius 1y ago
Reminder that pigs are also intelligent creatures.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  I don't eat them either.
actionfromafar 1y ago
That they are not social is questioned more and more. Instead they seem to interact both within their species and with completely different species. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/watch-octopuses-team-up-with-fish-to-hunt-and-punch-those-that-dont-contribute-180985134/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/watch-octopuses-te... https://www.livescience.com/53514-octopuses-lead-social-lives.html https://www.livescience.com/53514-octopuses-lead-social-live...