[HN Gopher] The mystery of social behavior in octopuses
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The mystery of social behavior in octopuses
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 54 points
Date : 2022-01-19 05:52 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (hakaimagazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hakaimagazine.com)
| uninstantiated wrote:
| When humans are social with humans, are they reaching out or
| simply reacting?
| dang wrote:
| I changed the title from "Can We Really Be Friends with an
| Octopus?" to "When octopuses are social with humans, are they
| reaching out or simply reacting?" (the subtitle, more or less)
| in the hope of avoiding shallow comments like this. (A comment
| reacting purely to information, or lack of information, in a
| title is pretty much shallow by definition.)
|
| Since that didn't work, I guess it's time to look for some more
| representative phrase from the article text.
|
| Edit: ok, I've combined two phrases from the article to try to
| that. Commenters: please discuss the actual material now.
| austinjp wrote:
| I agree with sibling comment; parent comment may be terse,
| but I didn't find it shallow.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| ... in the hope of avoiding shallow comments like this.
|
| Shallow? It's profound.
|
| Have you tried to respond to the question, in the human
| context?
| dang wrote:
| A shallow comment can contain a profound question. "What is
| the meaning of life?" would be an even shallower comment.
|
| Were a comment to contain new and interesting information
| about a profound, i.e. generic, question, that would be
| fine. But this is precisely what internet comments bringing
| up generic questions don't usually do. It's not a good fit
| for the genre. Someone who really has something original to
| say about a profound question would be better off writing
| an essay, or a book. Certainly not a one-liner to an
| internet forum.
|
| This is so much the case, in fact, that changing the
| subject from a concrete topic to a more generic one is a
| frequent form of trolling.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&qu
| e...
| wombatmobile wrote:
| In this case, the question is informative and stimulating
| because it challenges the assumption that human
| interaction has a different dynamic to animal
| interaction.
|
| Bringing this question to conscious awareness is a
| different category of social discourse to "What is the
| meaning of life", which is not really a social question
| at all.
| np1810 wrote:
| > When humans are social with humans, are they reaching out or
| simply reacting?
|
| Haha... I think it depends on the current situation of the
| human is in... Sometimes human just wants to have a meaningful
| conversation, sometimes just reacting aptly to prevent social
| awkwardness or being tagged rude...
| vanusa wrote:
| I'd say ask the Octopi first.
|
| Wait, can't do that? But you were about to do it _anyway_?
|
| That's why you can't be friends.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Seems like Kooistra asked in the obvious polite way -- sit down
| (i.e. render oneself less mobile) at a non-threatening range
| and let them choose to approach or not. Is that not consent?
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| willis936 wrote:
| Not all communication is verbal.
|
| You can't be [friends in the same way you are friends with
| humans] an octopus because they are not human. I'm friends with
| my cat. We have a mutual social relationship and he doesn't
| speak a lick of English.
| glxxyz wrote:
| I like to think I'm friends with my cat but in my heart I
| know I'm a combination of a roommate and staff.
| asxd wrote:
| It is pretty amazing the extent of understanding you can
| achieve with an animal. After a year or so raising my pup, it
| _feels_ like we have both picked up certain signals to
| communicate. He paws at me and then sits by the front door
| when he needs to go to the bathroom, for instance (although
| sometimes he cleverly abuses this because he just wants to go
| outside and play with me during worktime, but I can 't fault
| him for that). I'm sure this is mundane for most people who
| are dog owners, but being my first dog I couldn't help but be
| impressed at the level of communication the little guy seems
| to be capable of.
|
| I can't imagine they're the only animals capable of that. It
| certainly feels like we're friends with a mutual
| understanding.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Dogs are the champions of human communication. They are the
| first domesticated specie, not only they were predisposed
| to it, being pack animals. But they also had 15000 years of
| evolution to perfect it. Cats are not to the same level as
| dogs but they are still very competent domesticated
| animals.
|
| Octopuses, by comparison, are aliens. In fact, someone said
| that if we want to have an idea of what alien intelligence
| could look like, look at octopuses. They are intelligent in
| a very non-human way.
| V-2 wrote:
| Dogs have lived alongside humans for millennia. They're
| genetically engineered animals (in the oldschool way - by
| breeding and selection, not in a test tube). And we've bred
| them largely by rewarding their ability to interact with
| us. Dogs are obviously quite artificial species in that
| sense
| technothrasher wrote:
| Having grown up with a lot of domesticated animals, it's
| amazing how much dogs can communicate on our terms,
| compared to, say, a horse. Horses can communicate quite a
| bit, but you typically have to understand horses and meet
| them where they're at before you can effectivity
| communicate with them. Dogs do a much better job of
| trying different ways to get their point across to you
| until you get it.
| willis936 wrote:
| A recent popular example of a horse communicating in
| their own way.
|
| https://youtu.be/KCzwyFHSMdY
| asxd wrote:
| > to get their point across
|
| I love this phrasing, as I think it sums up the
| difference between dogs and other animals with regards to
| human communication. It's possible to communicate with
| other animals if you put in the effort, but dogs on the
| other hand are often willing to put in the effort to
| communicate with _you_!
| asxd wrote:
| That's a good point. They've definitely been bred for
| their ability to communicate with us. I know it's a bit
| tangential, but I do like the fact we have a kind of
| sister species in that way. I sometimes wonder what it
| would be like if our ancestors had instead domesticated
| another animal to that extent (besides the cat, I
| suppose). In an alternate universe, maybe we'd have
| smallish bears as trusted companions :-)
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "In an alternate universe, maybe we'd have smallish bears
| as trusted companions :-)"
|
| Some people have even in this universe, but not so many,
| because they are not easy to handle. And back then having
| pets, was not so much a hobby - but the dogs were useful
| for survival. (guarding and hunting)
| asxd wrote:
| I would imagine wolves weren't to easy domesticate either
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Not easy, but much more easy, because wolves are pack
| animals who accept a leader, which can be a human.
|
| Bears not so much and therefore much harder to control.
| Same with cats, which is why they have been kept around
| to hunt the mice and rats - but only small cats.
|
| Also I believe the first dogs did not came from wolves,
| but other wild dog breeds.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > he doesn't speak a _lick_ of English
|
| Nicely done.
| endofreach wrote:
| You should read about experiments where they gave MDMA to
| octopus who are usually very unsocial... spoiler: it has an
| effect. They are fascinating animals.
|
| They are highly intelligent, but have one big problem: their
| max. life expectation is about 5 years. Usually the mother
| dies at birth and they grow up alone from an early age, hence
| no social development (even to a degree where they are very
| hostile to other octopus).
|
| So they have not a way of building culture like humans, like
| thr passing on knowledge to the younger generations. Though
| they kind of have 8 brains.
|
| If they didn't have these problems, we might be talking
| differently about them.
|
| One day I will open a training area with octopus & invest
| millions in trying to extend life expectancy & social
| behaviour of octopuses and train them to take over the world.
| Fezzik wrote:
| So you can't be friends with mute people or people you do not
| share a language with? There are far more telling ways to
| determine friendship than someone saying 'yes, let's be
| friends'. Even between those who do speak the same language.
| gebruikersnaam wrote:
| A nice book about octopuses: Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28116739
| james-redwood wrote:
| Octopi are remarkably intelligent creatures, as any good aquarium
| owner will tell you.
| datameta wrote:
| An even better aquarium owner wouldn't have them at all.
|
| My Octopus Teacher is a fantastic look into the life of an
| octopus, their intellectual capacity, and their propensity to
| interact with humans.
| suifbwish wrote:
| Why would that be better to not have them? It sounds a bit
| presumptive of a universal morality rather than a logical
| statement.
| gorgabal wrote:
| It sounds like a moral statement because it is a moral
| statement. Nothing wrong with that IMHO .
| procinct wrote:
| Octopuses are known to not live very long in captivity.
| girvo wrote:
| Though they also don't live long in the wild either.
| Fascinating creatures.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's not an insane idea that octopuses might not enjoy
| being stuffed into what amounts to a studio apartment for
| their entire life.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| They are also notorious for finding increasingly cleverer
| ways of escaping aquariums. Which again adds to the case
| that an aquarium is not a suitable environment.
| girvo wrote:
| For my purposes, because their short lifespan and
| particular needs make them pretty bad pets IMO. Never mind
| the moral arguments for keeping such intelligent animals in
| captivity.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _It sounds a bit presumptive of a universal morality
| rather than a logical statement._
|
| Logical statements just by themselves are for Logicians
| and/or theorem provers.
|
| But they're also useless by themselves (just an axiomatic
| rule sustitution game).
|
| To have any value in human life they are combined with
| utility functions, morality, and other such things.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| (waiting for the recurring comments, that 2 x octopus ->
| octopodes or octopuses but not octopi since it's not latin 2nd
| declension, but rather misspelled greek)
| amelius wrote:
| Octopus is already wrong in itself.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Let's not encourage the unnecessary language pedantry.
| totalZero wrote:
| Pedantry is no felony when discussing an eight-armed
| genius.
|
| I personally settle for nothing less than "octopodes," with
| the accent on the second of its four syllables.
| OJFord wrote:
| I think 'octopodes' should be considered incorrect on the
| basis that the vast majority of even the people using it are
| probably not pronouncing it correctly.
| mc32 wrote:
| Eh, as long as it rhymes with 'tetrapods', it's accepted
| and current pronunciation.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Doesn't it actually come into English from Latin (in its
| later academic/international use, rather than the classical
| language)?
|
| But in any case, it's _English_ , not Latin or misspelled
| Greek, and octopi seems to at least be the oldest evident
| English plural of octopus, AFAIK, though octopuses seems to
| be experiencing current popularity, and octopodes is
| just...no, though the suggestion once made that English ought
| to adopt _octopods_ , wasn't bad, but never caught on.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Does "When octopuses are social with humans, are they reaching
| out or simply reacting?" really have a meaning? Or is the
| distinction meaningful to make?
|
| The octopus regarded the research as "safe" and "interesting". It
| didn't integrate the researcher into octopus society because such
| a thing doesn't exist. But octopuses had a society, would it have
| to be more than a mutual regarding of a group as safe and
| interesting? Especially, since many other complex behaviors can
| be created from this start (just as the octopus created all sort
| of interesting things in the world).
|
| _" Maybe octopuses don't regard us so much as friends or
| associates as giant, elaborate levers they can manipulate for
| their own benefit"_
|
| Maybe the difference between these kinds of relationships is less
| than we think.
| zzzeek wrote:
| this seems to be about the Netflix movie "My Octopus Teacher".
| It's a great watch and certainly interesting whether or not you
| think the octopus is bonding with the filmmaker.
| neonate wrote:
| The article is about much more than that movie.
| gattr wrote:
| There is a subplot about intelligence-enhanced cephalopods in
| Stephen Baxter's SF novel "Manifold: Time".
| troyvit wrote:
| Gonna check it out! I'm almost done with the Children of Time
| series, the second book of which also features intelligence-
| enhanced cephalopods.
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