On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 11:08:07AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > On 14 Feb 2014, at 20:47, meekerdb wrote: > > >On 2/14/2014 7:12 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: > > > >I find cuttlefish fascinating. They are social, relatively > >intelligent, can communicate, able to grasp and manipulate things. > >It seems like they were all set to become the dominant large life > >form (instead of humans). > > A mystery: they don't live a long time. Usually "intelligence" go > with a rather long life, but cuttlefishes live one or two years.
Yes - I find that surprising also. > Hard for them to dominate, also, as they have few protections, no > shelter, and are edible for many predators, including humans. One could say the same about early home 2 millions years ago. The invention of the throwable spear changed all that. > They > survive by hiding and fooling. They can hunt with hypnosis (as you > can see in the video). > I feel privileged that these wonderful animals (giant cuttlefish) can be found less than 200 metres from my house. I have often observed them when snorkling or scuba diving. I had to laugh at the Texan prof's comment that they are as least as smart as fish. I do have a habit of underestimating fish intelligence, but IMHO their intelligence equals that of some mammals or birds, and clearly outclasses fish. I think I mentioned the anecdote which convinced me they exhibit a second order theory of the mind, which may well be sufficient for consciousness. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
