In fact, they're amazing creatures, for many reasons, just a few of which I touch on, now:
1. Their camouflage abilities are without equal anywhere in the living world. Not only can some of these guys change their colors in real-time to match their surroundings, but they can change their shape and texture - to look exactly like a rock, for example. Imagine the sensors and brain power required to do that? Which leads me to
2. They're wicked smart. Right at the top of the list of "Most Intelligent Earth Creatures!" For example, I watched a science experiment with two Octopii in two separate cages, yet each could see the other. One octopus was then prompted to navigate a puzzle in order to obtain the treat inside, while the other octopus could watch. It would take some time for the first octopus to figure the puzzle out, but the second one would always solve it much, much faster. Replace the octopii and try again, and then again, then again, and finally, you must conclude: Octopus can learn complex tasks by watching.
This is an amazingly powerful skill that might seem simple to you and I, but is really revolutionary.
And the list goes on. Cephalopod's as a group are one of the most intelligent lifeforms on the planet, and I will not be surprised when our AI loving human relations begin molding AI on cephalopod forms, rather than human. In many ways, they are more advanced on a variety of fronts.
Regardless, won't you take a moment today, step back, and think of the wonders of our cephalopod cousins?
You know the birds will be doing so - yumyum!
4 comments:
Cephalopods are given their due in Gravity's Rainbow, where if memory serves their intelligence is lauded. And Gregori the octopus is Pavlovianly conditioned.
That's some impressive memory. I've forgotten the entire plot to Gravity's Rainbow - something about a war, yeah?
It might be the horrors of my recent Pynchon readings that have forced me to blot out his past writings.
Why hast though forsaken us, "Pop Up"?!
How great would it be to have a website that provides one-sentence synopsises of everything? So if you forgot Gravity's Rainbow you could find "The erections of a Pavlovianly conditioned man synch with V2 bomb targets during WWII and its immediate aftermath." Like a summation of a sullen teen's European trip: "Bunch of churches and shit."
I would think Google could provide that right now. Scan the entire novel, use the "frequent word" search trick, then base a synopsis around those words, using a small script to make it logical.
A one word review of Henry Miller's entire opus: Fucking.
Post a Comment