Octopus snatches coconut and runs

[Richard Digard]

If anyone missed this, it makes you wonder whether we should still be making tapas out of something this smart.

My sister-in-law says they taste too good not to, which is rough if you're an Amphioctopus marginatus, I imagine...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8408233.stm

[Jamie Hooper]

Ah, the recently discovered Hermit Octopus.

 

If high intelligence means we can't eat certain animals, dolphins and whales would be safe from the Japanese - and countries closer to home, most livestock would still be on the menu, possibly with the exception of pigs...

 

...and some members of the human race might have to watch their back.

 

 

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[Richard Lord]

Species that survive to pass on their genes are intelligent enough and lucky.  Species are intelligent for what they need to do - the intelligence of some invertebrates we recognise.  Some scientists would argue that the whole universe has an intelligence - every atom, every molecule.....  Our species should not dismiss intelligence we do not understand.  But fortunately, and in some cases perhaps unfortunately, our intelligence doesn't cause us to empathise with the species we eat.  If we were aware perhaps we wouldn't allow the way some of our food is produced.

Best wishes,

Richard

Richard Lord

fish...@guernsey.net

Tel: +44 (0)1481 700688

http://www.sealordphotography.net

Channel Islands Environment email list: http://groups.google.com/group/cienviron

SlowFoodGuernsey email list http://groups.google.lk/group/slowfoodguernsey/

[Richard Digard]

Richard

That's the point, isn't it?

As omnivores, the vegetarian argument always seems a bit specious to me.

What's important is the way what we eat is reared, transported and slaughtered.

I am much taken with the notion implicit in what you say that a Warry's white sliced possesses intelligence, which is another good reason for actively avoiding it, I suppose.

2009/12/16 Richard Lord <fish...@guernsey.net>

[Jamie Hooper]

I think the Senner's bread is smarter than the average loaf...

[Richard Lord]

I liked Jamie's response although in some Senner's bakery products palm oil may be involved.

The universe is more mysterious than we can know.

About 25 years ago the USA's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) hosted a panel of eminent biologists and philosophers to discuss life.  The panel included Rupert Sheldrake, Daniel Dennett, Stephen Gould and Richard Dawkins as well as some experts on religion.

Rupert Sheldrake was the most controversial panelist because of his theory of morphic resonance. He obtained his PhD in biochemistry from Cambridge University.  While studying biochemistry he was puzzled by why partially unravelled (denatured) proteins would always return to a previous state when from a chemist's point-of-view they could return to a variety of states.  He suggested that the mechanistic theory of life is just a paradigm.  Simon Conway-Morris, also of Cambridge University, wrote a book called "Life's Solutions" which shows that nature has produced certain solutions to living in many different species - for example the eye of cephalopods and mammals.  

Rupert Sheldrake suggests that the universe has a memory.  From Wikipedia:

"In his first book, A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance, Sheldrake proposed that phenomena – particularly biological ones – become more probable the more often they occur, and therefore biological growth and behaviour become guided into patterns laid down by previous similar events. As a result, newly acquired behaviours are subject to inheritance by subsequent generations – a form of Lamarckism. He suggested that this underlies many aspects of science, from evolution to laws of nature. Indeed, he suggested that the laws of nature are mutable habits that have evolved since the Big Bang."

The universality of memory does not apply just to biological systems.  Some scientists write of the ocean having a 'memory'.  An ocean current can become chaotic and then resume a previous state as if it has a memory of a previous form.

From: http://www.mercator-ocean.fr/html/produits/buoc/buoc_n08/buoc_n08_en.html

"The ocean's 'memory' determines the scale of this phenomenon. After intense convection takes place, it leaves the stratification relatively weak."

Clim Old C,Haines K (2006) North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Waters and Ocean Memory in HadCM3. Journal of Climate 19(7): 1126

On the web there is a large volume of information on Rupert Sheldrake's ideas.  

See http://www.ntskeptics.org/1998/1998january/january1998.htm

You may think I am confusing memory with intelligence but we are all a part of the whole so I believe that intelligence is universal.

Best wishes,

Richard

Richard Lord

fish...@guernsey.net
Tel: +44 (0)1481 700688

"Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush"  Daniel Dennett

“The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it!” Daniel Dennett

[Andrew Barham]

Goddamnit!  Reading this almost forces me to elaborate my own personal interpretation of what is going on in this weird universe in which we've found ourselves.  (Normally, being a Scientist and a Mathematician, I keep such thoughts to myself, since, alas, they are not Scientific.)  However, having always had an interest in trying to figure out the really big questions to do with existence, I eventually (in the mid 1980s) came up with the notion that perhaps the Universe isn't as misguided as we Scientists like to believe.  Instead, it has somehow or another allowed itself to evolve an intelligent species that is capable of asking these big questions and looking for answers to them, because the Universe itself wants to know the answers to such questions as "How did I get here?"  "Why am I here?" and "WTF is going on?"  How else explain the evolution of something as nebulous and, from the point of view of pure biological fitness, useless, as our constantly questioning, probing intellect?  No other species, even those with potentially greater intellectual capacities than ours wastes so much energy trying to figure out why it's here in the first place.  All the others, so far as we know, spend their time getting on with surviving and passing on their genetic heritage.  Go figure … --- On Thu, 17/12/09, Richard Lord <fish...@guernsey.net> wrote:

From: Richard Lord <fish...@guernsey.net> Subject: Re: [CIEnviron] species intelligence

[Andrew Barham]

Ahhh I do miss Senner's breads …  Normally, I loathe bread with raisons in it, but their gache is utterly delectable.  :( --- On Thu, 17/12/09, Jamie Hooper <jamie....@cwgsy.net> wrote:

From: Jamie Hooper <jamie....@cwgsy.net> Subject: Re: [CIEnviron] species intelligence

[Andrew Barham]

Hmmm, suspect with this line of reasoning, almost everyone in Alberta would have to watch their back.  Have to say, the idea of seeing Prime Minister Stephen harper on the menu is rather unappealing.  Perhaps we could grind him up and feed him to the pigs …

--- On Wed, 16/12/09, Richard Lord <fish...@guernsey.net> wrote:

From: Richard Lord <fish...@guernsey.net> Subject: Re: [CIEnviron] species intelligence To: cien...@googlegroups.com

[Andrew Barham]

Have you watched the crow stuff as well?  I remember reading in some obscure journal when I was in uni about someone studying crows  in the far east or somewhere like that who had observed them actually shaping tools for a specific purpose.  At the time, it was believed no other animal (other than humans) could do this.  Anyone who has ever spent time watching crows and their relatives the magpies can't fail to be impressed by their cleverness.

--- On Wed, 16/12/09, Jamie Hooper <jamie....@cwgsy.net> wrote:

From: Jamie Hooper <jamie....@cwgsy.net> Subject: Re: [CIEnviron] Octopus snatches coconut and runs To: cien...@googlegroups.com