Fantastic article. Superb writing and makes me ponder about our species in general.
I do have a general take on how humans perceive or judge other organisms through a very human lens. We characterize organisms based on their social structure, longevity, 'cleverness' etc. While looking at how humans compare with octopuses at a meta level, octopuses seem to be not waging wars, more peaceful, seem to have survived for more than 600 millions years. I wonder if human beings would have a similar track record: looks like humans are well into destroying their own kind and the environment faster than most other creatures.
At the same time human beings seem ill equipped to judge or characterize 'alien' lives: we often want to 'make contact' or have a communication or social channel with aliens. As if a show of our mental power and social structure is the most important aspect..
Just looking at how octopuses are being measured by humans, it feels rather silly the kind of approaches humans use to evaluate other species let alone aliens.
Thanks for the interesting article. I didn’t know their mechanism of mating really besides the specialized arm.
However, it is my understanding from previous reading that male octopuses die within months of mating and that female octopuses die after laying its eggs. I am surprised this article doesn’t mention it because it puts the cannibalism into perspective. It seems the biologically triggered death after mating and laying eggs is an evolutionary strategy, so it makes the female eating the already dying male less cannibalistic and more strategic.
> looks like humans are well into destroying their own kind and the environment faster than most other creatures.
To be fair - we really only focus on war against our own kind so much since we've basically won against every other one. Sure, there are still problems in small, but in general no other species is a threat to a large part of us in general.
Also, destroying the environment really is a side effect of industrialization, so I don't think that's a fair comparison either. No other species needs any kind of stable power grid, but that's surely not because we're less advanced.
> At the same time human beings seem ill equipped to judge or characterize 'alien' lives: we often want to 'make contact' or have a communication or social channel with aliens. As if a show of our mental power and social structure is the most important aspect..
Honest question: What is?
> Just looking at how octopuses are being measured by humans, it feels rather silly the kind of approaches humans use to evaluate other species let alone aliens.
In some way, yes. But it's hard to do it any other way; most possible partners are seriously limited in their communication abilities and (at least probably) in their intelligence.
I do have a general take on how humans perceive or judge other organisms through a very human lens. We characterize organisms based on their social structure, longevity, 'cleverness' etc. While looking at how humans compare with octopuses at a meta level, octopuses seem to be not waging wars, more peaceful, seem to have survived for more than 600 millions years. I wonder if human beings would have a similar track record: looks like humans are well into destroying their own kind and the environment faster than most other creatures.
At the same time human beings seem ill equipped to judge or characterize 'alien' lives: we often want to 'make contact' or have a communication or social channel with aliens. As if a show of our mental power and social structure is the most important aspect..
Just looking at how octopuses are being measured by humans, it feels rather silly the kind of approaches humans use to evaluate other species let alone aliens.