On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 11:23 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> > On 15 Feb 2014, at 23:17, Russell Standish wrote: > > 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. >> > > Yes. > > > > > >> 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'm just jealous, really. I've seen them alone, confirming the solitary status but also in groups, and have wondered whether there is some group cooperation thing happening outside of mating, as they seemed often to be moving in one direction, which could be of course just getting away from huge yours truly. > > You are privileged indeed. > > > > > >> I had to laugh at the Texan prof's comment that they are as least as >> smart as fish. >> > > That is weird indeed. fish are not known to be particularly clever. What's funny is that he seemed scared of peer consensus, maybe from the rival funding dolphin learning research camp or something, to finally aim quite low, leaving everything else to "what we still have to learn". But they have nothing to hide in this regard: they live two years, go through that one mating cycle in which the males are capable of cross dressing to fool the huge machos, and the females acknowledge this through some control over sperm selection. Some humans of both genders do not display that level of intelligence, lol! > > > > > I do have a habit of underestimating fish intelligence, >> > > Me too ... ... and overestimating the human one ;-) > > > > but IMHO their intelligence equals that of some mammals or birds, and >> clearly outclasses fish. >> > > I agree. > > > > > 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. >> > > Which I call self-consciousness, and I think this is already Löbianitty. > I do think that all animals have the "first order" consciousness, they can > feel pain, and find it unpleasant, but can't reflect on it, nor assess "I > feel pain". they still can react appropriately. I m not sure, but it fits > better with the whole picture. > Also the survival of the little flamboyant one, that just gave up on swimming, mostly marching the sea floor, totally exposed to all predators, not bluffing poison because it actually is poisonous; when the rest of its kind is a delicacy for anything larger. Strange that the predators believe the display of colors; "OK, we believe you little guy" without having gone to the lab... and that this one survived, not by speed, or camouflage but by disco sign that reads: "remember, I'm not fooling around, these colors are for real. I really am not like the rest of my kind, you like to eat. We get that, and we have an update. That's why I'm not swimming away. Simple really: you eat me, you're in trouble or you die. You better swim on and let me do my things here, k? Good." PGC > > Bruno > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
