Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation(www.smithsonianmag.com)
19 pointsby bookofjoe3 hours ago4 comments
  • BatFastard2 hours ago
    I found the article very interesting. Not click bait at all.

    I didn't realize that an octopuses brain was spread out all over its body.

    • ortusduxan hour ago
      Not only that, they have the highest ratio of brain-to-body-mass of any invertebrate.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence

    • goatlover36 minutes ago
      It's like 9 brains, one central one in the head and 8 semi-autonomous ones in the arms. Makes one wonder what an octopus consciousness is like. Is it distributed among the nine brains, or focused on the central one? If the latter then the arm-brains would be zombie minds. It's also possible the 8 arms have their own separate experiences.

      We also have a nervous system distributed throughout our bodies, so we do experience the full body, but the neural signals are sent to one location, not nine. We experience ourselves as a unified hole, allowing exceptions for certain conditions.

  • fmjreyan hour ago
    I would imagine their intelligence is directly proportional to the so many degrees of freedom the arms have for grasping, but don't ask which one came first, chicken or egg?
  • throw3108222 hours ago
    Pure, shameless clickbait as usual from Smithsonian magazine.

    > Although there is no direct evidence that the adaptation is linked to expanded octopus brainpower,

    I.e. the entire connection between this mutation and octopus intelligence is made up. Not even a shred of justification.

  • jjk1662 hours ago
    Correlation does not imply causation and it's not even clear this qualifies as correlation.