Summarizing it won’t really be useful, or I’d try.
But, assuming everything they’re talking about proves out to be true, this is way cooler than the title makes it seem, on multiple levels. It gives hints at evolutionary pathways for intelligence in more than just what’s found in mammals and birds.
It gives a glimpse at how our intelligence functions at a fundamental level, maybe eventually leading to a reasonable degree of evidence about our selfness, our ability to exist as something other than our animal instincts as well as the things that make us individuals.
But, most importantly to me, it implies that intelligence isn’t a rare and difficult to produce thing evolutionarily. The article also mentions the potential for studies into octopus intelligence using the same methodology. If there’s three independently evolved intelligence structures on one planet, extrapolate the possibilities. Even if it’s just two, that’s still astounding in relation to the question of intelligence as a probability with the presence of any life, given enough time. But three? That’s mind bogglingly indicative that life and intelligence are very likely to go together anywhere life might exist.
Being real, read the article.
Summarizing it won’t really be useful, or I’d try.
But, assuming everything they’re talking about proves out to be true, this is way cooler than the title makes it seem, on multiple levels. It gives hints at evolutionary pathways for intelligence in more than just what’s found in mammals and birds.
It gives a glimpse at how our intelligence functions at a fundamental level, maybe eventually leading to a reasonable degree of evidence about our selfness, our ability to exist as something other than our animal instincts as well as the things that make us individuals.
But, most importantly to me, it implies that intelligence isn’t a rare and difficult to produce thing evolutionarily. The article also mentions the potential for studies into octopus intelligence using the same methodology. If there’s three independently evolved intelligence structures on one planet, extrapolate the possibilities. Even if it’s just two, that’s still astounding in relation to the question of intelligence as a probability with the presence of any life, given enough time. But three? That’s mind bogglingly indicative that life and intelligence are very likely to go together anywhere life might exist.
Imagine if octopuses lived for 60 years and they figure out we’re eating them. Nobody would ever be safe in a body of salt water.