| It's not shallow at all, it's rather the human shallowness being exposed, of which the article has lots. For example, the article correctly claims that we don't really know how an octopus perceives these interactions with humans, as they're of an entirely different non-mammalian intelligence and social behavior. Next, the article strongly affirms they're about as intelligent as a racoon. These two things directly contradict each other and show shallowness on our behalf. The real answer is that we have no idea at all. The article continues to state that things like deceit and learning ability are rarely found in invertebrates. Which is plain wrong. They are found in creatures a thousand times smaller than an octopus. Weak scorpionfly males pretend to be a female so that they get a food gift from a strong male, which they can carry to the actual female. Deceit. Some butterflies strategically place their eggs near ants after which the ants take the pupa (which is evolved to look like an ant pupa) and nourish it to an adult. After which the young adult butterfly goes: thanks for everything, bye now. Deceit. Camouflage. Deceit. Traps. Deceit. Mimicry. Deceit. Beewolfs (which are wasps) navigate by beacons. Move the beacons and they re-learn the path. Learning ability. The absolute "dumbest" creature showing learning ability: earth worms. We're talking a handful of neurons. They drag leaves into their dens to feed on. By giving them lots of different leafs, they learn which types they want. They also learn to drag them in the right direction, as the other way blocks the den. It actually remembers this and gets better at it over time. We are incredibly shallow in misunderstanding but above all underestimating the capabilities of animals and overestimating the value of our own definitions. So the challenge is warranted. Perhaps another species is studying us and concluding that we're not a social species, because we all seem to sit by ourselves looking at some weird bar of bright light all day. Even in mass gatherings (cities) of millions, this weird species does not show actual social behavior. Nobody knows each other and actively ignores others. |