4 ms·

It's such a tragedy that they're also extremely solitary animals and die shortly after reproducing the first (and only) time. Almost all other particularly int

by Sharlin 3mo ago

It's such a tragedy that they're also extremely solitary animals and die shortly after reproducing the first (and only) time. Almost all other particularly intelligent animals seem to be gregarious, and it's easy to conclude that a social lifestyle tends to select for more intelligence, a sophisticated theory of mind, and so on (I like to think that that's exactly what was responsible for a runaway intelligence explosion in humans). But in the case of cephalopods, there's something else that has been applying selection pressure towards exceptional intelligence.

rob74 3mo ago
It's also a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: if they were raised by their parents like all other more intelligent animals, they wouldn't need to be as intelligent as they are in order to be able to relearn "octopus behaviour" without help from other members of the species.
andrewflnr 3mo ago
I agree, which is why I think this species might be the start of something amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larger_Pacific_striped_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larger_Pacific_striped_octopus
- Folcon 3mo ago
  I've never heard of these before, that's fascinating, thank you!
- scotty79 3mo ago
  Is it a new species though? Or just a living fossil that exhibits behaviors that were bread out of all other octopi species? It's hard to imagine how high intelligence could be selected for without social component that provides the individuals a lot of pressure to outsmart each other.
  - andrewflnr 3mo ago
    Intelligence is plenty adaptive when you're just trying to outsmart the environment. The notion that this is a "living fossil" is... pretty wild. It's genus octopus. Unless it's wildly misclassified (doubtful), it has a recent-ish common ancestor with most other common octopuses, which all have normal octopus behavior. You find yourself in need of extraordinary evidence.
    - scotty79 3mo ago
      > Intelligence is plenty adaptive when you're just trying to outsmart the environment. I think there's very little evidence for that. Environment is just very slow when compared to outsmarting members of your own species that you tightly share the living space with. I don't think you appreciate how abnormal is high intelligence. How pathological conditions must have been to trigger development of something that bizarre and costly. This must have been run-away self-reinforcing feedback loop. We know of many such loops between predators and prey and none of them look strong and fast enough. Where we find intelligence, it's almost always tightly connected with social behaviors. It would be exceedingly strange if there was a true exception. > The notion that this is a "living fossil" is... pretty wild. It's genus octopus. I didn't mean that literally. What I meant was that the common ancestor of this octopus species and others might have been more like it, social, not like the rest. Maybe this species preserved of what normal octopus behavior used to be. If the solitary life became more evolutionarily favorable after the development of intelligence most descendant species could have switched. > You find yourself in need of extraordinary evidence. Yeah, maybe at some point we'll discover a huge collection of beaks in some under-ocean sediment and it will become obvious. Ocean floor is not really that explored.
      - andrewflnr 3mo ago
        > I think there's very little evidence for that. The evidence is literally every other evolved form of intelligence. Including, despite your speculation, octopuses. Do recall "the environment" also includes other intelligent agents an animal needs to compete with. Does that help you understand? A runaway process might be required for human level intelligence but clearly not in general. Basically all octopuses are solitary and die after breeding. LPSOs are nested in one group of octopuses. You're proposing that one group of octopuses developed social behavior and multiple breeding, then had a bunch of descendants who went back to exactly the normal octopus behavior. Hopefully it's obvious why this fails Occam's razor.
wazoox 3mo ago
In Stefan Wul's SF novel "Nyourk", octopi evolve to become the Earth's dominant species, which was quite prescient back in 1957, when almost nobody knew octopi to be intelligent. :)

by Sharlin 3mo ago

rob74 3mo ago

It's also a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: if they were raised by their parents like all other more intelligent animals, they wouldn't need to be as intelligent as they are in order to be able to relearn "octopus behaviour" without help from other members of the species.

andrewflnr 3mo ago

I agree, which is why I think this species might be the start of something amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larger_Pacific_striped_octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larger_Pacific_striped_octopus

Folcon 3mo ago
I've never heard of these before, that's fascinating, thank you!
scotty79 3mo ago
Is it a new species though? Or just a living fossil that exhibits behaviors that were bread out of all other octopi species? It's hard to imagine how high intelligence could be selected for without social component that provides the individuals a lot of pressure to outsmart each other.
- andrewflnr 3mo ago
  Intelligence is plenty adaptive when you're just trying to outsmart the environment. The notion that this is a "living fossil" is... pretty wild. It's genus octopus. Unless it's wildly misclassified (doubtful), it has a recent-ish common ancestor with most other common octopuses, which all have normal octopus behavior. You find yourself in need of extraordinary evidence.
  - scotty79 3mo ago
    > Intelligence is plenty adaptive when you're just trying to outsmart the environment. I think there's very little evidence for that. Environment is just very slow when compared to outsmarting members of your own species that you tightly share the living space with. I don't think you appreciate how abnormal is high intelligence. How pathological conditions must have been to trigger development of something that bizarre and costly. This must have been run-away self-reinforcing feedback loop. We know of many such loops between predators and prey and none of them look strong and fast enough. Where we find intelligence, it's almost always tightly connected with social behaviors. It would be exceedingly strange if there was a true exception. > The notion that this is a "living fossil" is... pretty wild. It's genus octopus. I didn't mean that literally. What I meant was that the common ancestor of this octopus species and others might have been more like it, social, not like the rest. Maybe this species preserved of what normal octopus behavior used to be. If the solitary life became more evolutionarily favorable after the development of intelligence most descendant species could have switched. > You find yourself in need of extraordinary evidence. Yeah, maybe at some point we'll discover a huge collection of beaks in some under-ocean sediment and it will become obvious. Ocean floor is not really that explored.
    - andrewflnr 3mo ago
      > I think there's very little evidence for that. The evidence is literally every other evolved form of intelligence. Including, despite your speculation, octopuses. Do recall "the environment" also includes other intelligent agents an animal needs to compete with. Does that help you understand? A runaway process might be required for human level intelligence but clearly not in general. Basically all octopuses are solitary and die after breeding. LPSOs are nested in one group of octopuses. You're proposing that one group of octopuses developed social behavior and multiple breeding, then had a bunch of descendants who went back to exactly the normal octopus behavior. Hopefully it's obvious why this fails Occam's razor.

wazoox 3mo ago

In Stefan Wul's SF novel "Nyourk", octopi evolve to become the Earth's dominant species, which was quite prescient back in 1957, when almost nobody knew octopi to be intelligent. :)