This was a profoundly interesting book to read. I became intrigued after seeing a review of it and had never come across the author before. It was intriguing primarily for the subject matter which I had a minor level of curiosity about. It was however, the first book I have read about cephalopods. My other experiences have been by reading articles and lately watching YouTube videos.
It is not simply about octopuses and squids though. It is about using those life forms to explore bigger things like intelligence, consciousness and how animals including humans understand their environment. The author explores evolutionary possibilities about how animals come to relate to conspecifics, predators and prey. There are others which do not fit any of those categories.
As a book written for a popular audience it is not replete with scientific jargon and when new words or concepts are introduced, they are explained in understandable language with very good examples to provide perspective. Maybe the thing I appreciated the most was that it was written using a lot of questions and humble suggestions rather than offering grand new theories. It made for a far more thought provoking read than some others in the genre. Those questions and suggestions are too many for a book review but below a few will be presented.
It is nearly an aside here, but a philosopher who does field research by scuba diving off the coast of Australia with scientists and whose research reveals not raw data for laboratory testing but philosophical insight, makes the author himself a very interesting character. Some of his experiences can be viewed here.
Early in the book the reader is introduced to cephalopods by way of the scuba diving anecdotal stories of their engagement with the humans. In particular, he means the interactions with the author. Certainly the cephalopod does not recognize that object as we do but something like a dark animal with no face, four arms and many bubbles exuding from them. Nevertheless the author experienced them reaching a tentacle or arm out to tactilely probe the object of this encounter-to the point of attempting to pull them into the lair. This behavior suggests the importance of feel to the cephalopod’s repertoire of resources that help it survive and bring forth spawn.
He also observed their visual observance of everything around them. They watched the scuba divers but also their entire landscape for friend, foe and neutral bodies. Well maybe just for foe as the writer indicated often, these species are generally indifferent to their conspecifics. He did remark on variation from the rule here as he did whenever he was making a general statement about behaviors. Noting exceptions to the rule is critical to explanation and for the non-scientist reader, valuable.
He brought up the fact of the elaborate nervous systems of these animals and how that plays with the brilliant abilities for the animals to shape shift as if to conform to their surroundings which included immediate color changes. It is remarkable for many reasons but a couple include the fact that the colorations do not occur as if by one mechanism but instead by many yet it occurs so quickly it appears as if by simplicity. It is a three step process since they mechanisms occur at three different layers of skins. The details are in the book but not here. They are too fascinating for my own interpretation. He does provide an image however.
The other bizarre curiosity is that lab results strongly suggest that they are colorblind. Something within the nervous system that is not visual ignites the instantaneous processes that allow the color change and body morphing. He examines this through two different operations of the nervous systems one in which is the taking of sensory cues from the environment with the innate motor skills respond like autonomic reactions. The other is a simpler stimulus response action based on what occurs on the spot like the flight or fight response.
In this discussion he cited other philosophers of consciousness to remind us that interpretation involves a lot of questions. There is nothing certain and plenty that may be probable. In efforts to describe animal behavior from a non-anthropomorphic perspective, the observer may not always see the forest for the trees. Yet we are thrust into a situation where it is difficult to understand information and the processing of it from other than a human perspective. We also have to treat information as a physical thing-something to be measured. Is it? Or is it reducible to a binomial sort of impulse and response an immediate (and evolutionarily adaptive) reaction? This is a debated question amongst those examining what is meant by “consciousness”. In fact it remains sort of a Gordian knot and there are dualists who consider that consciousness is made up of a “functional” quality which is the 1s and 0s of binomial information. It also has a “phenomenal” essence that involves the interpretational or conscious experience. The former is said to control behavior and the latter simply is consciousness. It is these sort of issues that the author proposes not to find concrete answers but to ask additional questions.
Godfrey-Smith ponders hard on the notion of consciousness saying “It’s sometimes hard to work out how these theories relate to my own target here: subjective experience in a very broad sense. I treat subjective experience as a broad category and consciousness as a narrower category within it— not everything that an animal might feel has to be conscious.” More important than defining consciousness, the author provides much to consider and the reader can take advantage of that.
Back to the animals, the author discovered several things that also make the reader think. With the knowledge that cephalopods have a very intricate nervous system it would seem that it would take years to develop and yet he informs us that these species have a very short life span. In most cases four years would be very long. He asks about the evolutionary benefit of this intricate structure to only exist for so short a time. They hardly have time to use their wondrous skills when they are replaced by the next generation.
They are semelparous meaning that they only reproduce once in a lifetime and in their case, the female dies right after spawning. They also use a deimatic display which is one of complete submission and the author examined this many times and offers suggestions as to why. These beasts are so capable of camouflaging for protection as well as to predate, why would they need a passive and subordinate display? It is not used when flight would work or an attempt to startle something it would eat. There is no clear answer but he believes it is used when a more aggressive conspecific appears.
There is much to learn about cephalopods and there is scarce information of them historically. Being soft bodied they do not preserve well so the fossil record is nearly non-existent. His own efforts at first hand observation are in coordination with biologists and other scientists. There is much study of them going on today. It is clear that the bounty of possible research is hindered by decreasing habitat. That is a problem that the study of any animal behavior faces. With climate change comes both a loss of habitat, but a change in behavior as well. Various species adapt differently to changing environment environments such as warming waters.
This was an easy book to not put down. The pace was lively and informative yet never certain. The book makes the curious reader intent on learning more of the subject matter. He provided lots of philosophical questions for the reader to ponder.
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About the author
The Alien Intelligence of the Octopus 🐙
These two octopus books came out some months apart from each other, and I have been meaning to read them back-to-back. They cover similar material — even their subtitles highlight the lessons learned about consciousness. I wonder if the publishers knew of the coincidence.I found the philosophical approach of Other MInds more interesting than the "naturalist in an aquarium" approach of Soul of an Octopus. Perhaps it's the geek in me, but I wanted a good summary of the new research and new details about these crazy nervous systems. I find that fascinating and relevant to the future incorporeal AI's that we will build.“Evolution built minds twice over. The octopus is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.” — Peter Godfrey-Smith, philosopherSome fascinating book details about the octopus:• Three hearts, pumping blue-green blood because their oxygen carrying metal is copper (versus iron in the heme of our blood). They can spend 30 minutes out of the water, to scoot between tidepools.• Alien intelligence: from a distant branch in the tree of life, the octopus/cuttlefish are the only invertebrates to have developed a complex, clever brain:-Our common evolutionary ancestor is a tubule so ancient, neither brains nor eyes yet existed. They evolved independently, on land and by sea.-From the Cambrian explosion of sensing, body plans, and predation, minds evolved in response to other minds. It was an information revolution. It’s where experience begins.-The octopus brain rings around its throat. 500M neurons, similar to dog (vs.human: 86B, fly: 100K).-The octopus has over 50 different functional brain lobes (versus 4 in human)-And furthermore, 60% of its neurons are out in the arms, with a high degree of autonomy. A severed arm can carry on as if nothing has changed for several hours.-It is a distributed mesh of ganglia (knots of nerves) in a ladder-like nervous system. Recurrent neural loops serve as a local short-term memory latch.-“The octopus is suffused with nervousness; the body is not a separate thing that is controlled by the brain or nervous system.” Unconstrained by bone or shell, “the body itself is protean, all possibility. The octopus lives outside the usual body/brain divide.” (PGS)-Structurally, our eyes ended up strikingly similar to the octopus (camera-like with a focusing lens, through a transparent cornea and iris aperture to a retina backing the optic nerves). But octopus eyes have a wide-angle panoramic view, and they move independently like a chameleon.-Their horizontal slit pupil stays horizontal as the body moves, like a steady cam. This is made possible by special balance receptors called statocysts (a sac with internal sensory hairs and loose mineralized balls that roll around with movement and gravity).-They can see polarized light, but not color (making their color-matching camouflage skills all the more intriguing; they also see with their skin).-Their playful interactions with humans exhibit mischief and craft, a sign of mental surplus-Humans internalized language as a tool for complex thought (we can hear what we say and use language to arrange and manipulate ideas). Octopuses are on a different path.• Their entire skin is a layered screen, with about a megapixel directly controlled by the brain.-Skin color, pattern and fleshy texture can change in 0.7 seconds.-Three layers of skin cells control elastic sacks of pigments, internal iridescent reflections, even polarization (which the octopus can see), over a white underbody. They are regulated by acetylcholine, one of the earliest neurotransmitters in evolution.-The octopus can create a voluntary light show on its skin, e.g., a dark cloud passing over the local landscape, or a dramatic display to confuse a predator while fleeing.-Over thirty ritualized displays for mating and other signaling.-Some octopuses have regions of constant kaleidoscopic restlessness, like animated eye shadow.• 1,600 suckers. 35 lbs. of lift capacity per 2.5” sucker. 10,000 tasting chemoreceptors per sucker. Each is controlled individually.• Octopus muscles have radial + longitudinal fibers (agile like our tongues, not our biceps).-Opposing waves of activation can create temporary elbows at the region of constructive overlap, or pass food sucker-to-sucker like a conveyor belt.-The octopus’ arm muscles can pull 100x its own weight.• It can squeeze through a hole about the size of its eyeball.• Their ink squirts contain oxytocin (perhaps to soothe prey) and dopamine, the “reward hormone” (perhaps to trick predators that they had caught the octopus in the billowy cloud).
Top reviews from other countries
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- Susan StepneyReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 1, 2024
A fascinating look into a very different intelligence.
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