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Octopuses Have No Personalities and Enjoy HDTV
Whiteox writes about an Australian researcher named Renata Pronk, who has discovered that octopuses prefer HDTV. She recruited 32 gloomy octopuses from the waters of Chowder Bay. Previously, researchers have reported little success when showing video to octopuses. Miss Pronk's insight was that the octopus eye is so refined that it might see standard PAL video, at 25 fps, as a series of stills. She tried HDTV (50 fps) and her subjects reacted to the videos of a crab, another octopus, or a swinging bottle on the end of a string. A further discovery is that octopuses show no trait of individual personalities, even though they exhibit a high level of intelligence. It would certainly be possible to quibble about the definition of "personality" employed, and whether Miss Pronk had successfully measured it.
People who don't understand statistics and scientific research methods, but like to pretend they are the smartest people on earth, love to say that phrase, just remember that.
Monstar L
You're kidding right? If anything slashdoters would misread HGTV as HDTV.
So I wouldn't pass judgement on octopus personality until somebody compares younger octopuses to older ones.
It is interesting that the octopi have quite a different perception of reality than we are accustomed to. If you imagine the divergent paths that evolution may have taken on different planets throughout the galaxy you can have an introduction to the challenges we face as a species if we ever were to encounter a truly alien life form.
Our models of intelligence, perception and personality are limited by our very narrow ideas based upon our feeble attempts to understand each other. We define ourselves as the "most intelligent" and "most social" creatures on our own planet. If we were to meet the seven armed trindoc from Beta Centauri (thank you Larry Niven) we may fail to recognize something that is superior to ourselves.
A Buddhist monk sitting in contemplation of the nature of the universe may appear to be comatose if we were a similarly handicapped species (as ourselves) coming to earth.
We need to enhance our understanding of every living species (or hive mind colony) on our own planet if we are to be anything more than space traveling, xenophobic rubes when we leave our own planet.
Tisha Hayes
I don't know. The mods are on crack again. Just go with the flow.
:P
In fact, parent and I are both losing karma for this. We are getting modded up Funny (+0 Karma), and then getting modded down (-1 Redundant/Flamebait/Troll). So even though the resultant post scores are high, we are actually going backwards.
Meh, I have karma to burn
It is a Scandinavian word, so the correct plural form would be kraker.
"Form is a Latin word, so the correct singular form would be forma, with plural formae."
That's about how linguistically defensible your complaint was.
I'd refer you to the very rich literature on octopus behavior. Octopus have been estimated to be about as smart as dogs with surprisingly adept skills at problems solving and recognition.
If you'd say that dogs have no personality, I'd say you've never spent *any* time around animals.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
There seem to be a *large* number of people who have convinced themselves that animals with the intelligecne of dogs or cats are non-sentient, and any personality or self awareness that they seem to exhibit is just the owners self-deception. I've seen smart and dumb cats, and smart and dumb dogs. There are certainly cats and dogs which seem to have no personality or mental model of the world, and act like simple stimulus-response system. There are also cats and dogs with clear personalities that interact with the world in a thoughtful manner.
I have to agree that those who say that self-awareness (or at least world-awareness, but it's hard to imagine a good mental model of the world that doesn't include oneself) is limited to humans simply haven't spent the time to know better.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
No, his anecdotal evidence (unless it is just a pack of lies) falsifies the scientist's report that they have no personalities.
This is not a tale of two conflicting stories, it is a falsifiable claim which has been falsified.
Infuriate left and right