Ze Frank turns his focus to one of the Dish’s pet subjects:
Oliver Sacks also contemplates the creature:
Here, as a start, the nervous system is much larger—an octopus may have half a billion nerve cells distributed between its brain and its “arms” (a mouse, by comparison, has only 75 to 100 million).
There is a remarkable degree of organization in the octopus brain, with dozens of functionally distinct lobes in the brain and similarities to the learning and memory systems of mammals. Cephalopods are not only easily trained to discriminate test shapes and objects, but some reportedly can learn by observation, a power otherwise confined to certain birds and mammals. They have remarkable powers of camouflage, and can signal complex emotions and intentions by changing their skin colors, patterns and textures.
Darwin noted in The Voyage of the Beagle how an octopus in a tidal pool seemed to interact with him, by turns watchful, curious, and even playful. Octopuses can be domesticated to some extent, and their keepers often empathize with them, feeling some sense of mental and emotional proximity. Whether one can use the “C” word—consciousness—in regard to cephalopods can be argued all ways. But if one allows that a dog may have consciousness of an individual and significant sort, one has to allow it for an octopus, too.
Previous Dish on the minds of octopuses here, here, and here. All sorts of eight-armed fun here.
The Dish 