[SirWart]

I visited an experimental octopus farm in Hawaii once, expecting to come away feeling guilty about eating octopus since I had heard so much about how smart they are. It ended up having the opposite effect, since I learned that they only live 2 years and aren't social creatures. This is opposite of every other intelligent creature that we know of, and so I'm extremely skeptical of claims of their intelligence. They might show sophisticated behavior, but so do a lot of insects like ants and we know they aren't intelligent.

EDIT: sorry, when I say intelligent, I mean as intelligent as animals that we generally do not eat. I believe they are less intelligent than livestock, but can learn behaviors like most animals.

[solardev]

Not all "intelligent" animals are very social. Adult ravens, for example, tend to prefer being solo or at most in mated pairs (not a hard rule). Hell, many humans prefer being alone much of the time. Some dolphin individuals prefer the company of humans to their own species: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6349760/

Animal sociality is a whole gradient, really, with differences both between species and between individuals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociality

[lp4vn]

>This is opposite of every other intelligent creature that we know of, and so I'm extremely skeptical of claims of their intelligence.

Octopuses can demonstrably learn: scientists put food inside a pot with a lid and gave the pot to an octopus. If my memory doesn't fail me, in the first attempt the octopus took 2 hours to open the lid and in the second one it took 5 minutes.

[SirWart]

Sorry, my use of "intelligent" here was imprecise. They can clearly learn, but seem much less intelligent than other animals that we commonly eat, and not anywhere close to the same level of intelligence of animals that we generally do not eat, such as great apes, elephants, and whales.

[burning_hamster]

Some octopus species use rudimentary tools, which would put them ahead of elephants and whales in at least that aspect.

[BenjiWiebe]

Elephants and whales apparently both use tools.

[joak]

"intelligence" is a quite imprecise term. What do you mean by intelligence, can you define?

Is chatGPT intelligent?

[PrimeMcFly]

> They can clearly learn, but seem much less intelligent than other animals that we commonly eat,They can clearly learn, but seem much less intelligent than other animals that we commonly eat,

What?

You think an octopus is less intelligent than a cow, chicken or fish? Really?

[mrguyorama]

At that level, SLIME MOLD can "demonstrably learn", are you about to give up eating mushrooms because they show the ability for cells to adapt?

[adrian_b]

The mushrooms are quite different from the slime molds, even if the humans, the mushrooms and the slime molds are much more closely related between themselves than any of them is related e.g. to the plants.

Like most animals, the slime molds have retained the primitive way of life of the eukaryotes, i.e. they have mobile cells that can hunt, catch and ingest other living beings.

The mushrooms, like the plants and a few other groups of eukaryotes, have reverted to a way of life similar with that of the bacteria, i.e. they have developed a rigid cellular wall, which protects their cells, but which prevents the movement of the cells, so they can no longer ingest anything else but small molecules, so in order to eat they must secrete into their environment enzymes that will digest their food outside their body, resulting in small molecules that can be absorbed.

Like most plants, most mushrooms cannot move, they achieve the equivalent of very slow movements by directed growth. The exceptions are the few carnivorous plants and the few carnivorous mushrooms, which have traps for their victims having a relatively fast action, caused by various kinds of springs.

The slime molds move around and catch and eat their prey, behaving like giant amoebae.

The eukaryotes with mobile cells, without cellular walls, have visible reactions to whatever they sense in their environment, e.g. by pursuing what they want or running away from whatever may be dangerous.

Those like the plants and the mushrooms are also likely to have various sensors, but any reactions are too slow to be perceptible at the human scale of time.

So the slime molds and various mobile unicellular eukaryotes, like the ciliates (some big ciliates are as big as some very small multicellular animals, like the rotifers, and there is little difference in behavior between them), can be considered as higher in a scale of sentience than the plants and the mushrooms.

[jkmcf]

If this was on the big island, it was recently shut down. We were there two years ago and it was really interesting...

https://weanimalsmedia.org/2023/09/08/octopus-farm-closes-fo...

[seunosewa]

So the people farming Octopuses are not a reliable source of information about whether it's ok to farm them.

[rangerelf]

Call it a conflict of interest, if you may.

[maxglute]

> since I learned that they only live 2 years and aren't social creatures.

It's funny, now that I think about it, I have less problems eating non mammal introverts. I'd gladly replace pork/beef for octopus.

[throw__away7391]

I am not sure how smart they are, but since they have arms and are able to manipulate their environment (in human-like ways) to a degree that basically no other sea creature is capable of, they can come across as being far more intelligent than is possible for a fish for example. Every time I see a discussion of their intelligence they are doing something like opening a jar with food in it. Even a dolphin can’t do that, but that has more to do with anatomy than brainpower.

[dogman144]

Give this a watch, friend, and tell me after if they’re still like insects. There’s a lot of intentional life in those 2 years. TLDR - director spent every day in the water with an Octopus in a nearby lagoon.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher

[jjtheblunt]

What? How do we know whatever is not intelligent?

[pvaldes]

If is dead and cooked is dumber than a stone at that moment, so we can eat it

[PrimeMcFly]

By studying behavior and neurology.

[PrimeMcFly]

They are absolutely intelligent, there is no question. I've owned several. The way they can earn to communicate and solve puzzles puts them in the same category as crows, apes, elephants dolphins, etc.