[0] - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/11/gloomy-o...
Yes, people tend to over-anthropormphize in the sense they map to specific human concepts. But otoh, we tend to greatly underestimate the complexity of animal behavior. Sometimes people mix these up. So, just because an anthropomorphization isn't correct, doesn't mean that the behavior isn't complex.
Even animals like spiders and ants demonstratw incredible complex behavior, for social, hunting, sanitation purposes etc. So don't feel bad about anthropomorphizing, as long as you are aware it's just fun speculation. There are infinite mysteries in animal behavior and it's absolutely fascinating. There is so much left to explore.
Sure, there will be people that do anthropomorphise the octopus' actions, but this doesn't deny the possibility that an octopus can experience something analogous to feeling pissed off. (See: my table has four legs therefore it's a dog.)
To preempt those who might say "ah, but you can't prove that an octopus does have any form of consciousness" I'd point out that it's practically impossible to do that with humans too.
[0] It's certainly not one single ability. Perhaps some fuzzy superset of fuzzy sets.
[1] I include consciousness in "experiences", and I'd suggest that human-type consciousness is just one among very many.
Absolutely. Every trait previously thought unique to humans that I know of have been found in animals, such as deduction, tool making, intra-species warfare, delayed gratification, play, language, dialects, curiosity, mischieviousness, boredom, empathy, grieving rituals, etc etc. The only generic trait missing from my bingo card is humor (but monkeys seem close).
It may very well be that humans just got a constellation of traits that happened to fit really well together. If I was a betting man, I'd say:
- Very long brain development time. At birth, our skulls aren't even hard yet, and we're blind. This lets the brain develop at a slow pace towards general purpose problem solving.
- Hands are extremely helpful for tool making.
- Knowledge sharing. Yes, we're quite smart, but more importantly we can combine our findings through language and persist it over time through writing. This is an incredible change in the topology of knowledge. Even an animal with 3x intelligence would not stand a chance without language.
Do they really feel affection for their favored humans? I don't know. Discussions of this sort tend to devolve into debates about "qualia". What I do know is that octopuses appear to manifest signs of affection, and of contempt. And that I'd be honored to be nuzzled by an octopus, and I'd surely prefer that to being spit at by one.
It's equally ignorant to assume they don't have emotions as it is to assume they do. We literally don't know, but the harm in assuming they don't is people get a free pass to be cruel without guilt. If you assume they do then maybe you'll think twice about torturing animals or destroying their habitats.
The worst that can happen is you have empathy for them.
> “We weren’t able to try and assess what the reasons might be,”
What looks intentional to one observer may seem accidental to another. “A lot of animal-behavior analysts would look at the same sequence of behavior and give a different interpretation,”