Octopus Intelligence

[David Morris]

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/06/ted2009-psychologist.html

Psychologist Jennifer Mather is on stage at TED2009. She has been
studying the minds of squids and octopuses. On a scuba expedition she
witnessed an octopus build a wall of stone around its home, and she
believes that cephalopod molluscs are much smarter than previously
thought.

Are we the only intelligent beings in the Universe? Look to the oceans
-- they are precious and we have to save them.

as intelligent animals is that they are different from us (different
branch on tree of live, different evolutionary paths). This makes it
interesting to compare how they are smart and how we are smart.

When cephalopod lost shell, they had to come up with some good tricks
(to survive) -- exquisite senses and very good brains being the main
two.

Shows an amazing photo of octopus camouflage -- they are the real chameleons.

Octopuses have eyes similar to mammalian eyes. They have 8 arms -- "We
call them arms, not tentacles, by the way."

What might indicate intelligence -- personalities, play, problem solving.

1. Personalities. Aquarium volunteers give names to different
octopuses, because they have different personalities. She read about
temperament and starting with observation. You turn your back on the
normal scientific procedure we think about, Instead expose animals to
common situations, then you run the through and record different
behaviors, determine which ones are common, use statistical tools. One
thing -- touching the octopuses with bottle brush. Some got mad and
fought, some fled. They found three separate dimensions -- active,
reactive, avoidant. So there's a background for developing
intelligence.

2. Play. What is play? Out of context, fragmentary or repetitious, not
immediately adaptive, simple. You won't play unless you are
comfortable, well fed, and bored. They gave octopuses a floating pill
bottle (neutrally buoyant). Initialy they grabbed it and brought it up
to their mouth. After a while, the octopus would squirt a jet of water
to the bottle to send it to the water intake, which would make it
drift back to the octopus. She did it 20 times. "She's bouncing the
ball!" Play is using inteligence, picking up info, storing it for the
future.

3. Problem solving. Clams are a problem. They are in an arms race with
their predators. Over the millennia, clams get stronger and octopus
get smarter at opening them. They have strong arms, parrot-like beak,
can secret acid with tooth covered organ to open clams. Scientist
wired shut an easy-to-pull-open species of clam, and the octopus
shifted its usual opening method (from pulling apart to chipping and
drilling).

Octopuses have big brain, but not a highly developed nervous system.
They are quick to learn, but equally quick to forget. Why? They have a
short life. Sexuality is relegated to end of life span, it doesn't get
in the way of their intelligence. They give us a chance to understand
intelligence from a different model.