Do octopus brains work like humans'–or is there another way to be smart?

No doubt.

What you think of as human intelligence can be an ironic deception. Linguistic inference (the kind that comes by the monologue in your mind talking you in to your decisions) is a safe zone that only works because civilization as we know it is too big to fail.

The savage intelligence is something different. Something more “pure.”

Those times you have reacted without thinking, or when driven by intuition that your linguistic mind has no time to rationalize, or even how your body reacts without your permission. Are all other forms of intelligence. We also have yet “other forms” of intelligence within us. We merely override it or leave it undeveloped out of complicity to how a “sure thing” prevails. That sure thing being the observed averaging of other’s success.

Human “rational” intelligence is not our best parts. That’s why really smart people know to be playful and curious, “like a child” (only not naive.)

We are animals before we are “Man”, for better or worse. Both can learn from the other.