8/24/2026 at 7:34:13 PM
I found the article very interesting. Not click bait at all.I didn't realize that an octopuses brain was spread out all over its body.
by BatFastard
8/24/2026 at 7:44:05 PM
Not only that, they have the highest ratio of brain-to-body-mass of any invertebrate.by ortusdux
8/24/2026 at 9:23:25 PM
Yes, so maybe think twice before eating one.by hermitcrab
8/25/2026 at 12:49:34 AM
eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat).octopus passing a intelligence test does not keep it above the fold, neither does cattle go below the fold because they don't clear the bar (surprise, cattle are equally emotional, smart, curious etc.).
sounds wrong when I type it out but that is just the truth. milk is actually more ethically wrong when you think about it (isolating a calf from its mom to steal its food.)
doing one or the other does not absolve us. because one is more commonly accepted than the other
by suriyaG
8/25/2026 at 1:55:33 AM
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28926931/> Compared with meat-eaters, vegetarians were more likely to have a higher educational level, whereas vegans had a lower education level
I think it’s good to question these things but the people who go full black/white on everything is where that whole movement died. Saying something strong like “eating any meat” will generally not win over hackers. But “we won’t bring cows to Mars” might work better.
by pitched
8/25/2026 at 2:40:14 AM
> Compared with meat-eaters, vegetarians were more likely to have a higher educational level, whereas vegans had a lower education levelthis is such a... wrong conclusion to make from the study. the study has found a correlation and by no means is it a causation. there are so many cultural, societal reasons for this to be the case. (eg. in india, upper caste people are usually vegetarians who generally have more access to education.)
by suriyaG
8/25/2026 at 3:06:27 AM
Except that the study is from France?by blacksmith_tb
8/25/2026 at 3:13:13 AM
it was an example of a correlation != causationthe parent comment was basically creating a causational logic for why vegetarians are more likely to be "smart"-er. which is not true.
by suriyaG
8/25/2026 at 2:25:28 AM
I wonder how many of these "self-reported" vegans were true ethical vegans vs instgram influencer, "I eat chicken once a week" vegans.Also, what's your point? Is there a proven direct correlation between ethics/morals and educational level? And even if there were, does that imply that this less educated group is as a whole completely wrong? And are you implying that ethics and morals were even objective and measureable? I mean, completely no idea what you are getting at here.
by colordrops
8/25/2026 at 2:46:15 AM
The linked study does show that correlation. But I personally believe it’s more of a second-order effect.Vegetarianism selects for openness and analytical/reflective thinking but the extra step to veganism selects for absolutism/purity and rigid category-based thinking. Reflective thinking and openness are definitely correlated to IQ so I believe the result in the article.
The point here is to know your audience. The people on this site are perfectly primed to respond well to a vegetarian/environmental point of view.
by pitched
8/25/2026 at 3:02:06 AM
> Vegetarianism selects for openness and analytical/reflective thinking but the extra step to veganism selects for absolutism/purityI don't follow how you conclude this at all. there is nothing to indicate this is the case.
by suriyaG
8/25/2026 at 2:29:22 AM
>eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat).I think this is very wrong. Doesn't account for when you don't have a choice, to be healthy. You need to eat more, you need to consider all possible situations, construction work people need to sustain all that physical labor somehow. It's a more serious chore to even attempt to build a non meat based diet, let alone sourcing everything.
If we could have a healthy alternative that accounts for everything (taste included) then maybe you can make that argument. Until then it's quite shortsighted and ignorant.
by 47635274172635
8/25/2026 at 3:46:14 AM
Verfiably false statement that you need meat to do physical labor.Lazy statement that “sourcing” a vegetarian meal is difficult.
Eating less meat is better for your health and better for the planet.
The few exceptions I think worth noting are if you were born into and continue to live in largely/culturally hunter culture (Inuit, bushmen) or where you live is not sustainable for agriculture (Tibet.)
Most folks could just cook more rice, beans, greens and be fine.
by samudrijan
8/25/2026 at 2:43:40 AM
I didn't suggest sourcing a non-meat diet.I'm suggesting the opposite.
by design eating meat is morally questionable. (as do so many things with our modern society.) all meat is fair game, because all animal dependent diet is questionable anyway.
by suriyaG
8/25/2026 at 2:41:12 AM
Interesting that you think having any drawbacks whatsoever to not eating meat is sufficient to justify eating it, I would've thought the drawbacks had to at least outweigh the suffering involved.by dumberquestions
8/25/2026 at 2:57:38 AM
The flip side is that they have very short lives. But I can see space aliens saying the same thing about humans.by bahmboo
8/25/2026 at 2:58:15 AM
Octopi essentially consent. They are avid cannibals. In the octopi universe eating an octopi is clearly ok.by blamestross
8/25/2026 at 3:12:34 AM
is there a case for a long lived animal being a cannibal? I would imagine that prion risk will select for aversion.by teravor
8/25/2026 at 2:25:47 AM
I hope people say the same about all animals, but especially mammals.by colordrops
8/24/2026 at 9:59:04 PM
I find it interesting how people justify (or not) whether to eat another animal.by bayganyo
8/25/2026 at 2:43:29 AM
Farm animals wouldn't even have existed in the first place if it wasn't for farming them. They wouldn't have experienced their life at all. I personally think hunting is horrible, that's going after something that is alive without you having a say in it.But say for farmed cows, living in a field for a while, that's better than not existing at all. You cannot judge if it's worth it from the cow's perspective, it got to live, enjoy the sun, eating in the field, doing cow stuff, same as us. Even with the hardships in my life I'd rather have existed, for however long I can, than not existing at all.
So you see it's not as simple to look at and judge farming. If it was for you those animals wouldn't even have experienced this reality. It some cases you may be right, depending on their conditions obviously.
by 47635274172635
8/24/2026 at 11:46:44 PM
First time talking to humans? We distinguish murder from killing because the latter is sometimes justified (e.g., in war or self-defense).We justify everything we do.
by GMoromisato
8/25/2026 at 1:55:54 AM
Personally that justification is based heavily on the taste.by King-Aaron
8/25/2026 at 2:36:11 AM
Based on not having a realistic choice. The only person I personally know to successfully pull it off is an acquaintance that's rich by local standards, doesn't work, spends a lot of time sourcing and cooking it, and also eating it. He needs to eat more for same energy. It's so involved that most of his life revolves around it. It takes a good bit out of his time. The rest of the people from that friend group couldn't afford it, couldn't afford spending the money, couldn't afford spending the extra time on it.I personally wouldn't eat meat if I had a good alternative. I rarely do, I eat it for health related reasons, considering my setup.
by 47635274172635
8/25/2026 at 12:03:54 AM
you mean you don't think it's right to make a creature take an IQ test before deciding to eat them or not? "Yes, right, well, you seem sufficiently stupid enough to ingest."by jerrysneede
8/25/2026 at 12:15:54 AM
There are hazards to doing it on an individual level, but on a species level sure why not? Between a talking plant and a brainless bovine I know which one I'd say is the obvious right answer to eat (assume both species occurred naturally for this thought experiment).by Dylan16807
8/24/2026 at 10:25:05 PM
Can you explain?by sinsterizme
8/25/2026 at 1:29:44 AM
I find it interesting how people vaguepost without managing to make any semblance of contribution to the discussionby idiotsecant
8/24/2026 at 10:16:41 PM
I like to see where they are farmed before I decide... and having seen much of that in the US I've landed on "maybe some bugs are ok to eat."by micromacrofoot
8/24/2026 at 11:40:16 PM
My wife stopped eating octopus after seeing the giant Pacific octopus in the Monterey aquarium. The way it stares at you hints at a real intelligence. Maybe the smaller species aren't that smart, but why take the chance?by GMoromisato
8/25/2026 at 12:23:01 AM
I'm pretty convinced we could discuss philosophy with octopus friends if they didn't all die immediately after reproducing.by colechristensen
8/25/2026 at 1:57:06 AM
Don't kid yourself Jimmy, if an octopus ever got the chance he'd eat you and everyone you cared about!by King-Aaron
8/25/2026 at 2:23:32 AM
So would a primitive human.by colechristensen
8/25/2026 at 2:37:58 AM
That's why cannibalism was so popular back in the day.by mrheosuper
8/25/2026 at 2:38:46 AM
So would a cowby King-Aaron
8/24/2026 at 9:32:32 PM
They're too delicious to consider how smart they are.by PowerElectronix
8/25/2026 at 2:46:30 AM
I don't eat octopus or veal. Delicious or not, there are some lines that perhaps should not be crossed.by Xorakios
8/24/2026 at 10:15:43 PM
I cannot judge too harshly, since I still eat many kinds of animal. However, I never ate octopus growing up, and I learned of their intelligence before I tried it more than a few times. It was easier to "never start" than to quit. And besides, octopus is not that great and if you insist on eating seafood I find pretty much any other item to have more enjoyable texture.by unethical_ban
8/25/2026 at 12:57:40 AM
Octopus is the only animal I've ever stopped eating due to ethical concerns (not that I'm against examining my relationship with other animals). That being said, it's really delicious if you get it fresh. It just so happens that it's very rare (in the US) to get fresh octopus. I liked tako nigiri and grilled octopus, Mediterranean style. The taste and texture difference between fresh and not fresh is huge though. Probably another great reason not to eat them!by slowin
8/25/2026 at 1:31:20 AM
This is almost certainly equally or more valid for pigs. Pigs have the unfortunate property of being much tastier than octopus, though.by idiotsecant
8/25/2026 at 1:42:12 AM
Some people enjoy eating live baby octopuses. To me that is an odd delicacy -but then some Americans like shucking Oysters too, so I can't be critical.by mc32
8/24/2026 at 9:35:44 PM
[flagged]by testaccount28
8/25/2026 at 1:06:38 AM
Yep, they do some cognition in their arms. You also do some processing in your ears and your eyes. There is a lot of evidence that you learn to recognize certain stimulus in the neurons outside of the "brain".by georgeecollins
8/25/2026 at 1:22:00 AM
In some sense this (not as literally as this case, but in measurable scientific tests) is true for other species. Processing is demonstrated to be distributed through sense organs in the frog in What the Frogs Eye Tells the Frogs Brain https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4065609, i.e. in frogs at least, the eye is not like a camera sending pixels to its brainby stevenwoo
8/24/2026 at 8:36:18 PM
It's like 9 brains, one central one in the head and 8 semi-autonomous ones in the arms. Makes one wonder what an octopus consciousness is like. Is it distributed among the nine brains, or focused on the central one? If the latter then the arm-brains would be zombie minds. It's also possible the 8 arms have their own separate experiences.We also have a nervous system distributed throughout our bodies, so we do experience the full body, but the neural signals are sent to one location, not nine. We experience ourselves as a unified hole, allowing exceptions for certain conditions.
by goatlover
8/24/2026 at 9:34:15 PM
> We also have a nervous system distributed throughout our bodies, so we do experience the full body, but the neural signals are sent to one location, not nine.Mostly yes. But we do have some processing that bypasses the brain: reflexes for example. The classic example is the kick reflex that doctors test with a small mallet on your knee. Or when you blink as something flies towards your eyes. It happens and your brain gets informed afterwards.
But there are degrees of non-conscious processing, from the heart beating by itself and your guts doing their things, to the breath which will be on autopilot until you take control over it, to entirely voluntary things like moving about your limbs (for healthy individuals).
Maybe the octopuses experience their disconnected brains somewhere on that spectra, where the limbs are semi-autonomous unless it focuses on them? (All we can do is speculate, there is no known way to learn the qualia of being an octupus.)
by VorpalWay
8/25/2026 at 3:26:26 AM
I don't know if you could consider what the AV node in the heart does as "processing". It's more like a clock, to my understanding.by MPSimmons
8/25/2026 at 3:16:31 AM
>to the breath which will be on autopilot until you take control over itThank you for making me breath manually.
by mrheosuper
8/24/2026 at 9:31:23 PM
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness [excellent]https://www.amazon.com/Other-Minds-Octopus-Origins-Conscious...
by bookofjoe
8/24/2026 at 9:10:00 PM
If you haven't read it, you might enjoy Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series. It's fiction which explores different intelligences, with the second novel[0] dealing specifically with octopuses.by cgriswald
8/25/2026 at 12:03:48 AM
While the specifics of octopus experience are hard for us to fathom, we do say our stomachs have a mind of their own, and science has backed that up mostly. The enteric nervous system is complex and large and intimately in touch with gut microbes (of which there are trillions), and is connected to the brain. Both speak to each other, but the gut does a lot of independent stuff, and we’re learning a lot of the chemicals the gut microbiome releases shapes our moods and behavior.For an octopus, it must be something similar but with all 8 of their appendages. Some specialize for hunting vs moving, so that’s at least easy to understand, but given they can act independently, I wonder if the octopus feels like the conflict between gut and brain with respect to food.
by randomImmigrant
8/25/2026 at 2:13:25 AM
Mind != Consciousnessby perfmode
8/25/2026 at 1:35:09 AM
How sure are you that you have a unified embodied experience? Have you ever caught an unexpected ball? Run (I mean, really run)? There are a lot of situations where you conscious self isn't in charge so much as it is a really good storyteller convincing 'you' that you've done something yourself that you had no part in. Cut the interface between brain hemispheres and 'you' will still have the absolute self assurance that 'you' are the one in charge.by idiotsecant
8/24/2026 at 11:23:52 PM
You might find the recent Theories of Everything podcast interview [0] with Peter Godfrey-Smith interesting. Godfrey-Smith is the author of "Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness," which is a great read to delve further.Two other interesting aspects of cephalopods:
* Make many more changes to RNA than other invertebrates [2]
* Have only one type of light sensing cell in eyes, so may detect color by chromatic aberration
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_...
2. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/octopus-squid-rna-editin...
3. https://news.berkeley.edu/2016/07/05/weird-pupils-let-octopu...
by adolph