What it's like to be an octopus? This review of Peter Godfrey Smith's book, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, captures perfectly why I've been fascinated by them -- they're the closest thing to aliens we've got.
Unlike cetaceans – whose sentience it is possible to imagine, partly because they demonstrate our mammalian connections so vividly and physically – cephalopods are entirely unlike us. “If we can make contact with cephalopods as sentient beings, it is not because of a shared history, not because of kinship, but because evolution built minds twice over,” says Godfrey-Smith. “This is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.” The fact that they have eight legs, three hearts, and blue-green blood allies them more with The Simpsons’ gloopy extra-terrestrials than anything earthly.
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Thanks for the link to the book! Im going to put it on my reading list. The idea of an octopus's intelligence is an alien concept to many people, it is a shame humans treat them with such disrespect. Our brains naturally connect intelligence to mammals, the more we can educate people about octopuses, the more they will respect them. www.ctsciencenut.com
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Thank you! It is very interesting
hank you! It is very interesting
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