Now that's alien intelligence:
The she-cephalopod was filmed by the Blue Planet II crew as they were exploring the inky depths in South Africa, focusing on the magical world of marine forests. As series producer Mark Brownlow explains, "We may think of our ocean's as blue but there is another surprising world of the Green Seas. From towering undersea forests of giant kelp to vast prairies of sea grass, this is an almost Brothers Grimm fairy tale of all the strange and magical creatures that live within these secret worlds. Here sea dragons lurk, bizarre giant cuttlefish breed, and an ingenious octopus outwits a forest full of sharks."
Our tale of clever derring-do begins when a hungry pyjama shark goes to attack the octopus, who quickly inserts its tentacles into the shark's gills in an effort to suffocate it. Shark lets go; octopus skedaddles.
But then she does something truly remarkable, and something never before seen (by humans, at least). As the show's narrator, Sir David Attenborough, says: "The octopus is far from finished."
Caught in the open, she scrambles to the seafloor, attaches shells to her body with her suckers, and rolls up into a beautiful mosaic ball. The shark is left confused and by the time it seems to figure out what is going on, the octopus darts away, leaving the shark looking for her in the scattered detritus of her ersatz armor.
Clever. Maybe we should try teaching octopi sign language, as as we have other species.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Frost on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:01PM (16 children)
Pluralizing "-us" to "-i" is from Latin; "octopus" is from Greek. The sensible English plural of "octopus" is "octopuses".
(If you want to go wild and free-form, why not pluralize it as "octopahweofgahivbaawotiawh4og"? Surely if the reader really cares, he will take the trouble to decipher whatever you write.)
(Score: 5, Informative) by xorsyst on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:44PM (15 children)
Well, if you want to get really picky, you should use octopodes:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/what-are-the-plurals-of-octopus-hippopotamus-syllabus/ [oxforddictionaries.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @07:04PM
I prefer octopussys, but then I'm a pervert
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:36PM (11 children)
ὀκτώποδ-ες; Sing. ὀκτάπους.
Then there is χταπόδι στη σχάρα, but it is a general rule of dietary ethics that one should never eat anything smarter than self.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:36PM (8 children)
So you're saying I should stop eating fortune cookies?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:50PM (6 children)
I have given up vegetables. jmorris has had to swear off of bags of hammers.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Thursday November 30 2017, @05:43AM (5 children)
Flamebait? jmorris is dumber than a bag of hammers. So he no longer eats bags of hammers. I fail to see the flamebaitiness of this post. Please, oh anonymous Soylentil who deemed this post to be flamebait, justify your decision. Expose your reasoning to the light of public opinion. Make your insight available to all and sundry! We want to know! Inform us, oh enlightened one! How is this Flamebait?
Actually, I expect no response. I expect it was jmorris himself, in his mother's basement, although no one has actually seen his mother in nigh these nine years, but the tax bill is still in her name, and she still claims jmorris as a dependant on her tax returns. OMG, are you thinking what I am thinking? Bates Motel, vacancy, you firken bucket flamebaiter, you!
Here, here is a flaming bag of hammers. Bite it. You know you want to. Just go ahead. Bite. Worry about the consequences later, it is like a Trump tax cut plan: you don't have to be stupid to buy it, but it certainly helps. Bag'o'Hammers, the very best Hammers. These Hammers will make America Grate Again, in the hands of Mexican construction workers, who actually know what they are doing. So flame on, anonymous Soylentil. You have just made this site less than what it could be. You are making it TMB territory, right-wing nut-jobs, with no jobs, and seriously, no wings! So let's just invoke Paul MacCartney, and say, "Imagine".
Sincere apologies to John Lennon.
And, I think we need more posts demanding justifications for modding. I, for one, always down-mod Runaway, because he is a hillbilly. Of course, lately, he appears to be a rational human being, so this just goes to show, you should never pre-emptively down-mod someone, unless, or course, you find them trying to scarf down a bag of hammers. Bad jmorris!!! Bad! No hammers for you, jmorris! Back to making big rocks into little rocks (OMG, did I just intimate that jmorris is actually a guest of the US Department of Justice? No such implication was intended, but of course, that does not mean it is not true!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @03:27PM (4 children)
Moderated troll, because troll. Partisan sniping is troll work, done by trolls, who live under troll bridges, and seldom come out in the light of day.
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Friday December 01 2017, @04:19PM (3 children)
Partisan? I said nothing about Macron!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday December 02 2017, @06:21AM (2 children)
Partisan? But I said nothing about Merkel! (As, you less than intellectually gifted AC can tell, we can keep this up for quite some world leaders.) Give up, do you my young Paduwan?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 02 2017, @06:23AM (1 child)
Fucking Americans, they can never ever sort anything out except in relation to their own interests, or if Roy Moore is picking up on the "barely illegal?" pountang in the Malls of Alabama.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday December 02 2017, @06:40AM
And where are our "cuckservatives" on these topics? jmorris says nothing. khallow was busy beaning off on the Vienna Circle. And frojack, where was forjack? Is this even a question? So here we are, turns out octopodes are smarter than Republicans, which was no great surprise to anyone with half a brain. And yet the developmentally disabled Soylentils go all down modding? Think, before you mod! It is kind of an allegory to "think, before you grab pussy", although, I have to say, as someone who has actually grabbed jmorris's pussy: just, don't. Not worth it. Does not even validate him as a trans, and certainly not as just regular gay. Eight tentacles, and jmorris has nothing to attach is suckers to. Sad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @03:09AM
> So you're saying I should stop eating fortune cookies?
Marvin Minsky had a good reason for swearing off fortune cookies, story here:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=11837&cid=295081#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
While I doubt there is any connection to the story above, special fortune cookies were served at a Minsky memorial,
https://twitter.com/sannabh/status/712015667164270592?lang=en [twitter.com]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:58PM (1 child)
In that case, you're in danger of starvation as your average potato has more brain power.
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 29 2017, @11:11PM
Meddle not in the ways of Octopodia or Philosophers, for their ways are subtle, and they are quick to skewer you.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:58PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:46PM
It's a LOCAL language, for LOCAL people!! [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:01PM (6 children)
Think of the poor hungry shark swimming in poverty. Donate a tentacle today to help end deep sea hunger. Vote socialist and every fish will receive a basic income of shells.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:23PM (2 children)
Is that how Hank became a septapus?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:38PM
Ladies, meet Henry the Hexapus. That's not virtue signalling; Henry gave an arm and a leg to help the poor. Henry is a quality mate and you know you want his hectocotylus inside you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:55PM
Apparently some species of octopus, the 8th arm of males is also the penis and it is located in the head - 7 armed dickheads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:10PM (1 child)
Donate a tentacle
Sounds like cross-species altruism to me.
Here's Socialism: The collective ownership of the means of production by The Workers.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:01PM
Why even try anymore? People just want their private ownership so they can Lord It Up.
Finally their brilliant vision can be realized, and they can retire knowing they can live off the work of others cause they DESERVE it! /s
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday November 29 2017, @11:09PM
Yes, it's environmental conditions and social upbringing that make that shark violent and aggressive, genetics have absolutely nothing to do with it! He only turned to violence to feed himself!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:28PM (12 children)
I have no doubt that an octopus is clever enough to learn sign language, if it wanted to. The trick is in finding a common ground that would encourage the octopus to try.
Scoop one up and put it in a tank, great, now you've totally terrorized the creature - think how cooperative you would be if somebody plucked you out of your life, transported you to a remote high-mountain location with thin air and stuck you in a glass box that smelled bad and had all kinds of constant alien noises. Now, creatures that look something like giant cockroaches come up and peer through the glass at you with their relatively tiny eyes and weird bony appendages.
I can imagine people screaming in terror in their own language, but it might be quite a while before they even thought about trying to learn to speak cockroach.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:49PM (4 children)
Send a robotic octopus avatar to chat with the octopus in its native environment.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday November 29 2017, @05:20PM (1 child)
Wouldn't that be almost as terrifying? A strange alien machine whose intentions are unknown.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:42PM
Same point could be made for the Avatars in James Cameron's movie - demons in false bodies.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 29 2017, @05:27PM (1 child)
How about a virtual octopus on a flat screen?
Question: how would an octopus react to a mirror?
What about a flat screen virtual octopus with an adjacent mirror for the real octopus to see itself?
What if you provided a superior weapon of some type for the octopus to use against sharks, and the virtual octopus demonstrated its use. Would learning occur? Or instead of weapon some superior type of shielding protection from sharks, with video demonstration of its use.
Sign language teaching the octopus to agree to the EULA first.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:25PM
Interesting tidbit (that I think I'm remembering correctly) - Optopuses were long thought to be uninterested in others because such video tests utterly failed to engage them. Turns out that the problem was actually that their visual systems are faster than ours, so they perceived traditional video as a series of still images. Show them the same video filmed at 120Hz instead though, and they'll react as though seeing other animals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @07:07PM (2 children)
Sure but how do you think the first cat felt when it was picked up and we loved them and squeezed them .. and that turned out ok
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:32PM (1 child)
Wild adult cats generally fear humans and would not want to be picked up and "loved" by one. Trying this probably will not turn out "ok" for the human.
The reason pet cats like it is because they've been conditioned from birth to be around humans.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday November 29 2017, @11:11PM
Exactly. Several people I know have adopted feral animals, and while they can adapt to the indoor environment, they are very scratchy and will fuck you up if you try to grab or hold them. The half-wolf dog is also pretty terrifying.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:30PM
Definitely falls afoul of animal experimentation ethics, but search in this page [rifters.com] for "This is how you break down the wall" for one idea.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday November 29 2017, @11:14PM (1 child)
In the 2016 movie Arrival, humans tried to communicate with giant seven-limbed, octopus like aliens. Only they used a kind of ink to write their complicated language in water.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 30 2017, @02:25AM
In Arrival, all in all, the aliens were quite inviting to the humans, and mostly vice-versa - also: Hollywood fantasy movie, remarkable parallels to Close Encounters and any other number of alien encounter Hollywood stories.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @04:56AM
I found an injured octopus washed up on a beach in San Diego. I brought it home, and kept it in a spare tank (I used to breed tropical fish, so had many tanks). It recovered quickly, and displayed no fear of me, but was very curious. It would position itself to be able to watch whatever was going on in the room. Looked like a giant nose sitting on top of a rock (rarely hid-- usually only while eating. I thought it would be more shy and provided plenty of places for it to hide).
A few weeks later, I released it in a protected cove with lots of eel grass and rocks and such to hide in that was adjacent to the beach it had washed up on.
All that said, I would not recommend bothering one that you may find. I'm pretty sure it was much happier back in the ocean. And, it was a bit of a pita keeping it-- it shoved stuff into the filter tube breaking the filter/pump, escaped a couple times to go exploring, etc.
(Score: 5, Informative) by LVDOVICVS on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:32PM (1 child)
For those who might like to see the video, but live in an area the BBC considers unfit for said viewing, here's another site that works at least for me here in the orange-stained U.S.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/video/tv/octopus-uses-remarkable-shell-suit-to-protect-itself-from-predators-on-blue-planet-ii/ [thesun.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @07:57PM
Thanks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:43PM
"Maybe we should try teaching octopi sign language"
but it would talk too fast for anyone to be able to converse with it.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday November 29 2017, @05:18PM (8 children)
Octopus Researcher: should we try to teach humans our sign language?
Octopus Student: do you really believe they are intelligent enough to have language skills?
Octopus Researcher: Oh yes, definitely. Signs of intelligence have been observed in humans.
Octopus Student: there is one problem then.
Octopus Researcher: Oh really, what's that?
Octopus Student: While the humans might be able to read our sign language communications, they don't have enough appendages to communicate back to us.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @06:16PM (5 children)
Even the Septopods cannot communicate in the complex language of Octopuses.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 29 2017, @06:46PM (4 children)
Octopus experts have come to agreement that eight highly versatile limbs is a prerequisite for the development of intelligence. Thus they make no effort to communicate with lower limbed life forms such as humans. Because they reason there is no possibility of intelligence. And their observations might even back up that supposition.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:33PM
And in some cases [telegraph.co.uk], even the purportedly eight-limbed specimens are not considered their brightest examples.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:36PM (2 children)
Humans most certainly are intelligent, just like almost all animals. If an animal can learn, it's intelligent. Mice, rats, cats, horses, etc., are all intelligent to some degree.
The question is whether something is intelligent enough to bother trying to communicate cross-species, which is another level of intelligence beyond just learning from stimuli and adapting.
There's little evidence that humans have this level of advanced intelligence.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:43PM (1 child)
Humans communicate with pet species like dogs and cats. Even that just barely qualifies1 as communication. The semantic meaning is little more than "time to eat", "time to go outside", "bad doggie", "good doggie", "those chewy shoes are not for eating", etc. I'm not sure how high level human to other primate communication might be with sign language. Is it still at the level of "food", "outside", etc?
1like orange clown tweets
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:46PM
How about "where would you like me to put your food dish", etc.? I talk with my cat all the time, and we understand each other well enough to often get frustrated when we can't get our point across.
The biggest stumbling blocks to communicating is developing a shared vocabulary: most pets have spoken language comprehension potential at least comparable to a two year old or so - enough to understand a fairly large amount, but only if you limit yourself to simple sentences and a limited and well-chosen vocabulary. Similarly, they can't speak, so you have to learn enough of their communication language to understand their responses. In that regard "Show me" is probably one of the single most useful phrases I've taught her, since at least a large fraction of what she wants to communicate can be communicated, at least in broad strokes, by leading me somewhere and looking/pawing pointedly at something.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @07:10PM (1 child)
CRISPR can fix this problem
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:54PM
http://lolthulhu.com/2007/12/08/i-can-has-your-soul/ [lolthulhu.com] Careful what your technology can achieve!