Exploring the octopus mind
[Music]
do you ever get that feeling
like you’re being watched
i’m working in my marine lab one night
it’s dark
but i can tell that every time i move
the subject i’m studying
moves too like i’m being followed
its eight limbs explore the darkness
around it
slithering hypnotically to the rhythm of
a silent orchestra
it fixes its unblinking eyes on me
and i wonder who is studying whom
i’m currently graduate student and i
study octopus intelligence
in the four years that i’ve been
studying the octopus i’ve experienced
this encounter
again and again i’m interested
in the biological origins of the mind
there’s something truly humbling knowing
that human intelligence
and all of its potential to create and
innovate
is a product of evolution like all life
on earth
along my academic path i began studying
invertebrates
the average human doesn’t know very much
about invertebrates
animals that don’t have a spine or
internal skeleton as we have
yet the invertebrates make up over 95
of animal life
so it turns out we vertebrates
we are the weird ones i spent the summer
in the san juan islands at friday harper
labs
where i had an opportunity to study an
incredible diversity of invertebrates
there were tanks of urchins sea
cucumbers
sea slugs crustaceans anemones
shellfish and lots of worms
most of these animals didn’t seem to
mind or notice my presence
only one animal was observing me back
the octopus was uniquely aware of its
surroundings
i was fascinated by the way it moved by
its ability to coordinate
its multiple jointless limbs so fluidly
and so elegantly and by its ability to
change its color and texture to match
its surroundings
when this animal died i looked at its
skin under a microscope
so i can see the elements of its
camouflage abilities
it was like looking at a landscape of
another planet or another dimension
then the skin
woke up the octopus had died hours ago
but its skin was moving
changing in waves of color before my
eyes
the skin was alive
the octopuses body and mind seemed
worlds apart from our own
and that of our vertebrate can
the octopus became a unique lens through
which i could study the mind
this path has reframed my understanding
of human intelligence
and how we perceive and think about the
world
i had wandered into the rabbit hole
but this animal is not a rabbit
far from it the octopus is like nothing
else i’ve ever encountered
octopuses don’t have a skeleton their
movement is therefore not bound by any
kind of rigidity
their arms can bend anywhere in any
direction
the octopus can’t rely on its arms being
shaped the same way twice
this means unlike other animals the
octopus lacks
rhythmic pattern to its locomotion
on each of its arms it has hundreds of
suckers where the eight arms meet is
where its beak
is the octopus has a beak by the way
the bag behind its eyes is its body
where you’ll find its
organs like its kidneys its three hearts
and its stomach the octopus has three
hearts by the way
they’re full of fun facts
before i talk about their brain let’s
talk about aries
our brain sits in our skulls and is
highly centralized
the human brain is an immense
concentration of neurons
it’s a complex circuit capable of
complex thought
it gives us incredible abilities to
process and understand the world around
us
the octopus’s cognition is quite
different
it’s distributed most of its brain
exists within its arms
the octopus relies on this distributed
nervous system to be able to control its
body
there are so many different ways for the
arms to move that the brain would be
overloaded if it was solely responsible
for controlling them
instead the octopus relies on local
control centers within its arms
the arms are therefore very independent
the arms and suckers can
interact with the world around them with
minimal feedback from the brain
you can think of the relationship
between the octopus and its arms like
our relationship with our technology
like our phones or our computers or our
cars
which are all growing smarter by the day
they think about things so we don’t have
to
but this also means that there’s a lot
that they are thinking about
that we are unaware of
i study how the arms and suckers work
together to gather information from
their environment
how they cooperate to explore and to
solve problems
as a diver i also spend a fair bit of
time underwater trying to find them
but the octopus is an animal that
evolved to not be found
with their incredible camouflage
abilities
an octopus might appear as no more than
a piece of kelp lined with suckers
or a rock with eyes i have likely been
observed by many animals on dives when i
did not see a single one
it is a humbling ritual visiting their
remote world
the cold dark green water of the pacific
northwest
and my limited air supply seemed to
compound this feeling
my years of studying the octopus have
felt like
the study of an alien life form
but strangely over time
i began to feel an uncanny sense of
kinship with them
the unnerving feeling like i was always
being watched
eventually turned into a feeling of
comfort
like we are two other worldly creatures
mirroring each other’s behavior
as i studied and observed them they
always seem to be doing the same thing
back to me they are marvelously curious
animals
when they are awake and active they
constantly wander
and watch me and reach their arms
into unseen corners of their tank
if they’re not given something to do
something to enrich them to stimulate
them
they become very unhappy and unhealthy
they explore mostly with their arms and
suckers where they keep most of their
brain
a single sucker has tens of thousands
of mechanical and chemical receptors
that it uses to
feel and taste its surroundings and the
world around it
a single sucker is a hundred times
more sensitive than a human fingertip
each sucker can coordinate with its
neighbors to crawl to explore
and manipulate objects to study the
octopus
i give them problem-solving tasks then
analyze how they solve them
it’s an opportunity for them to satisfy
their curiosity
while i have a chance to satisfy mine
it’s an
opportunity to meet them halfway
but i’ll also give them toys pray to
find and hunt
and objects with unique textures like
rocks or shells or
even legos a healthy and confident
animal
will investigate pretty much anything we
add to their tanks
when they reach out for me when we make
contact
their quasi-intelligent limbs explore my
skin
with hundreds of coordinated sensitive
suckers
i’m making contact with their body but
it feels like
i’m making contact with their mind
there is still so much to learn about
these animals
and with each new discovery we learn
more of what it would be like to meet
and understand
a completely different form of
intelligence and who knows
that might be a future for us one day
my goal is to not just understand their
mind as a machine or a computer
but to be able to read them to empathize
with them
and to comprehend their experience of
the world as an entirely different form
of thought
i didn’t expect to form such a bond with
animals that seemed so alien
to be invested in an animal that is so
different
and so difficult to understand is an
incredible emotional challenge
to finally build trust with such an
animal
is a very rewarding experience
this has become more than just an
academic path for me
studying the octopus has radically
changed my perspective on the human mind
these mysterious and complex creatures
have shown me
that the human mind is just one of many
possible forms of intelligence
at the end of the day their curiosity
and their drive to explore always remind
me of why i do this work
how incredible that this feeling of
curiosity
is shared across the ancient
evolutionary divide between us
this feeling was so important for us and
our progress as a species
it led the way for human discovery and
innovation
it has led us across the world and will
one day lead us beyond
it was fundamental to technology and
civilization
and has led the way to pursuing
the greatest mysteries of the universe
when we turn our gaze to the stars into
worlds beyond
our own when we wonder what alien forms
of life are evolving in the universe
around us
i would guess that someone somewhere
is wondering the same thing despite our
differences
what will bring us together will be our
shared pursuit
of the unknown
thank you