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Is an Octopus Too Smart For Us To Eat?
An anonymous reader writes: The New Yorker is running a piece on the ethical dilemma we face when considering octopus intelligence alongside our willingness to eat them. "Octopus intelligence is well documented: they have been known to open jars, guard their unhatched eggs for months or even years, and demonstrate personalities. Most famously, they can blast a cloud of ink to throw off predators, but even more impressive is the masterfully complex camouflage employed by several members of Cephalopoda (a class that also includes squid and cuttlefish)." While humans eat animals ranging widely in mental faculties, the octopus remains one of the smartest ones we do consume. And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive. As our scientific understanding of intelligence grows, these ethical debates will only come into sharper focus. Where do we draw the line?
Is where I draw the line..
That's all that matters.
We eat them, and if they're so smart why don't they defend themselves?!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
... what about bush meat?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Captain America says that babies test best.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... how does smart taste?
How is that different from a skunk spraying? Or millipedes, or the bombardier beetle?
if prepared properly they can taste pretty good. that should count for something.
its about cuteness.
Dog & cats = too cute to eat
cows & chickens = not so much
rabbits & horses = somewhere in between
Octopuses arent cute... so its okay to eat them.
After all were smart, were hot and where the party of the planet.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Maybe on Mars.
Is there a secret New Yorker colony on Mars that I'm not aware of? I woke up late today.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...or at least destroy the gelatinous bastards:
NSA
The camoflauge part is bullshit too. it's not an advanced function. It's a very low level one that happens to work well, but is extremely low in the neural function, not even getting close to the brain.
If we stop eating octopus because they are smart, should we eat dumb humans?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Yes.
"And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive."
unless humans destroy the environment an octopus survives in.
...that is where we draw the line.
Pave over everything beautiful and pop in fast food chains.
And if that doesn't work for you, get some Chlorine and inject it into the reef.
You kill the reef but have easy access to Octopus.
At least, that's what the Indians teach us here in the tropics.
I'm not an expert, but assuming octopi are that intelligent based upon brain size might be a false assumption. Their brains may be large to support their chameleon skin systems. Octopi are smart, but they don't have long life spans, advanced language or tool use as far as I know.
I do think everyone should take whales off the menu.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Unless you are from china.
Article is up for 20 mins, and no Kang and Kodos or Kent Brockman quotes yet. Thread starter. Bump.
In front of the sushi bar, of course.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
what a pointless comparison - eat vs no eat based on intelligence. Since canabolism exists, everything else is on the menu.
You never know where that idiot has been and what he got himself/herself into.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
As a vegetarian I find the whole debate about which animals people should eat and why both amusing and slightly disturbing.
I think pretty much any place you draw the line of what life to eat or not eat is arbitrary, since anything past self-preservation comes down to whatever beliefs or influences or ethics you choose; and that choice is always based on some foundation that is either arguable or inscrutably whimsical.
My own rule is that if I'm not comfortable at least with breaking down (aka, butchering) an animal -- or at least the idea of it, since it's not like I buy my cows whole -- then I'm not going to eat it. For whatever reason, the last time I was prepping octopus I didn't feel right about it and I realized it was the last time I was going to eat them. It was probably because I'd become more curious about them, but at the time it was much more visceral. It sucks since they're unique and delicious when done right; it wasn't long before this that I had a grilled octopus from a place on the Upper East Side (maybe 75th and Columbus) that was something of a revelation.
Octopus farms
"And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive."
I think the feral pig population ravaging the US would not agree with this statement.
And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive.
One is left to wonder if they could have gotten more intelligent if humans wouldn't have started farming them and killing them. But since "we humans are farming them", then it's fine.
Double standards. It's unfortunate I love pork meat so much and haven't been able to quit on eating it :-(
Everything else is fair game.
If they're so smart, they'd learn how to avoid being caught.
They're one of the few species i dont eat on purely ethical grounds. Cats and dogs I wouldn't eat on nutritional grounds, or other higher-order predators for that matter, but I guess that could be argued to be another sort of ethical reasoning.
A few years ago I saw a YouTube clip of a scuba diver whose camera was literally stolen by the octopus he was filming, who then proceeded to taunt the diver and make him give chase to wrest it back from the cephalopod. Holy shit! I thought, that sea creature is trolling this guy! And with that i decided i would no longer eat them. "Ability to troll" may not be a very scientific (or very high for that matter) bar I guess, but it apparently is mine. YMMV. Damn shame too, as i used to love eating them.
Does that mean cretins are relegated to vegetarianism?
"And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive." As the epidemic of destructive feral pigs around the world demonstrates, pigs born in human captivity unfortunately have no problem surviving on their own.
Anything that's too smart to be eaten by us would be not allow us to eat them. Did octopus issue that cease and decease order ?
Just eat with a marinara sauce and the stupidity of the tomato will even it out.
Simple rule. Never broke it.
I'm guessing it tastes much like a bicycle.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... I mean... bacon? So... the calamari aren't getting off that easy.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
is probably fair game. Doesn't mean everyone is going to want to eat it...at that point it's personal preference (or what you're used to/were brought up with).
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
Just don't eat animals, period. I know giving every squid an IQ test before it goes in the pan sounds like the saner approach, but it's actually not. It's not an ethical dilemma if you can Just Not Do The Bad Thing and the worst discomfort you're looking at is a passing sense of boredom when you sit at the dinner table.
Really. What's the fuss? We eat enough intelligent animals as it is. And it shouldn't really be a criterion. Do lions care if a hyena crosses their path and ends up lunch? Are cheetahs bothered if antelopes are almost as clever? Give it a rest. You'd probably eat me if our plane crashed in Andes and your life depended on it. Which is not to say I am even as intelligent as an octopus, but hopefully you see the point.
If you can say, "I have no problem killing things" and I see you killing animals yourself, then I will respect your decision to eat meat as a personal one. If you live with a double-standard, however, and will not kill animals yourself, yet do not consider it "wrong" to eat them, you live a life of inconsistent logic down at the fundamental level of basic survival. I became a vegetarian when my high school ceramics teacher told me about he became a vegetarian. He was on a vacation fishing salmon in Alaska, away from his wife and children. He caught a salmon too far upstream and its meat was squishy, and its head was ugly and twisted. Another fisherman told him why his fish looked so strange. The salmon develop this way as they enter the stream and undergo this transformation for a dual purpose: One, so that they can more effectively fight to reproduce and two, so that their body is already mostly digested, so that should they successfully mate, their body will be easier to eat for their yet-unborn children. The mothers do the same and offer their lives as well. As a father, the sacrifice of the animal struck him as something he would be willing to do for his own children. As a human, he realized that river-heads are where our species trap, for consumption, most of these animals. Exploiting their beautiful purpose, and only leaving as many as needed to ensure our free profit for next season's catch. If you want to point out that there have been no studies indicating that animals have what humans understand as "feelings" and reveal your hubris regarding the human perspective being the "absolute" one, then go right ahead. I choose to live in a world occupied by other living, breathing, thinking things, not a world inhabited by mindless and emotionless machines. What you eat is slain, dead flesh that lived with as much a purpose as we do.
Man eats octopus, dolphin eats octopus, man eats dolphin. If an animal is not intelligent enough to avoid getting eaten, maybe it doesn't deserve any pity.
Disclaimer: I generally agree that octopi/pods, whatever, are intelligent. But:
"Octopus intelligence is well documented: they have been known to open jars, guard their unhatched eggs for months or even years, and demonstrate personalities. Most famously, they can blast a cloud of ink to throw off predators, but even more impressive is the masterfully complex camouflage
Out of all of those examples, I can only see one that's definitely a sign of real intelligence (opening jars). The rest all sound more like at least partly instinctual behaviours.
Guarding unhatched eggs for years certainly sounds less intelligent than stashing them away somewhere you've determined to be safe, and going back out to octopus parties.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Only an idiot, or a liberal, would ask the question. Evolution dictates we eat what we can. I'm pro-evolution.
On a fundamental level, everything is actually part of one big organism, because where do you draw the line between where one organism ends and another organism starts?
For example, you could propose that if the nuclei of two atoms are further apart than x Angstrom (and the atoms are not connected through a "chain" of "close" atoms), those atoms are part of 2 different organisms. You can't choose x to be zero (this would be nonsensical) so how would you choose x? Clearly the question itself is nonsensical and the concept of "different organisms" actually does not exist.
The fact that there is no strong neurological connection (chain of strongly interacting atoms) between your brain and the brain of a (random) octopus, doesn't mean that you're two different creatures. On a fundamental level you should be considered as being one.
Hence eating octopus (or in fact anything) is like eating yourself.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Chew air is human...
rewriting history since 2109
I think the line is: "what has an octopus ever done for you?" Not much, by most reckoning.
Hmm taste good! Simple .. Not really, .. let's say we're "100" and cows are "20" and 'something else' is "130"..... OK.. we are ~"100".. and I'll NEVER eat any -"80".. or +"130" Well, "90" is kinda where the line .. fi they are "200" .. I don't have much a chance.. kinda like scallops for our friend.. .. maybe always less then 'human'
?? ..
As the human population continues to grow, we're going to have to resign ourselves to consuming things that are easily replaceable. Either that or resigning ourselves to die of starvation.
But I would personally draw the line at dolphins, whales, and monkeys.
Octopuses have a relatively short lifespan - only up to 5 years, and as short as 6 months for some species - which is far shorter than the natural lifespan of most of the other animals we consume. Males die shortly after mating, and females die shortly after eggs hatch. So most of their life cycle simply revolves around reproduction (more like an insect or fish in that regard), so it's not like they are happily frolicking around in the sea until mean humans come and end their long, happy existences. Also, their "intelligence" is rather relative. A bigger factor is what they sense and what causes them fear, pain and suffering - these are things that humans can empathize with and thus a bigger factor in whether or not we feel sorry enough for them not to eat them (and I believe the answer to that is solid no, as pigs, etc, are far easier to empathize with than an octopus, and yet most people have no qualms about eating pork).
Better known as 318230.
Someone will ask, "Then do you eat horses?".
No, they prey on each other
I guess that does mean I'd eat Dugong though.
There are plenty of people who are less intelligent than some Octopi. People with sever brain damage, infants and fetuses. Is eating them ok?
While we like to justify our opinions on whats ok to kill/eat based on intelligence, thats not how it works. Most people oppose kitten killing, but many are fine with raining death from the sky in the middle east. I think it has its roots in tribalism: its an us vs them thing. Octopi and our human enemies (terrorists, criminals what ever) are not "us" and so we can kill them. We like kittens, we want them to be on our side: we don't kill them. Babies (human and otherwise) are good at such tricks: it was heavily selected for.
When we get super-human AIs, will they be too intelligent to kill? No, what matters is if its part of "us" or part of "them". Same as with people, and everything else. Evolution is great at breeding such rules into people: the tribes without them did really poorly. It doesn't matter if the rules make sense, or have any real grounds, as long as they are heritable and control people enough to keep society working, evolution favored them. There is no reason to expect such rules to make logical sense, or generalize coherently beyond the conditions in which they formed. Rules that appear to make logical sense likely tend to be selected for (they are more effective), but its not required.
but octopus is just gross
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Not only wild boar, but feral pigs do just fine.
The Wikipedia entry on Meat lists the commonly consumed mammals. Curiously, only dog meat has a nutrition label.
I am pretty sure your local butcher would NOT appreciate you printing up some of those labels and leaving them around his store...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Bravo!
But they are definitely too chewy. Carry on, my eight-tentacled friends, you're safe with me.
I've had octopus a couple of times. Tends to be a little chewy. I'll stick to ahi tuna (maguro and toro), yellowtail, scallops, freshwater eel (unagi), surf clams, etc. Still haven't had enough to drink to try sea urchin. Just something about the appearance and texture.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Social contract? What a load of crap. Most animals do not eat member of their own species. Do you you think it's because they also have a "social contract"?
I think you have never owned chickens, gerbils, rats, mice, hamsters, and never read about sand tiger sharks, polar bears, spiders, parasitic wasps, or tiger salamanders.
All of the listed animals eat their young. I guess the ones that get eaten don't have opportunity to sue for "breach of social contract"...
We eat them, and if they're so smart why don't they defend themselves?!
They *do* defend themselves!
They open sacrificial jars of food for us to eat instead!
but octopus is just gross
Try it raw on rice (sushi style). You'd be surprised how good it tastes with soy sauce and wasabi. The texture is a little chewy which puts some people off.
Never thought I'd like escargot but had enough to drink one time and I've been hooked ever since. Who woulda thunk that snails make a great vehicle for garlic and butter?
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
There's always a solution to your moral dilemmas, and they often come from Futurama:
"We can't eat dolphins; they're intelligent!"
"Not this one. He spent all his savings on instant lotto tickets."
I'd extend that to the rest of all creatures. If something is smart enough that it's worth more than food, spare it. Otherwise go with your gut.
it's not just that their cute. Their Pack animals, and they integrate into my pack as something useful. Even a cat is useful if it's eating the mice in my barn that would otherwise be chompin' on my grain. Horses can be ridden. Rabbits, otoh, are fair game (pun intended).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
...depends only on brain capacity, I would have not moral dilemma to eat for instance feminists, christs, islamists, or scientologist.
As a naval officer I abhor the implication that the Royal Navy is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we have the problem relatively under control, and that it is the R.A.F. who now suffer the largest casualties in this area. And what do you think the Argylls ate in Aden? Arabs?
Yours etc. Captain B.J. Smethwick in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms and garlic.
Have gnu, will travel.
...not to eat any animal that specifically asks me not to.
Once again the insight of Douglas Adams: The Dish of the Day at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe was bred specifically to recommend parts of himself for dinner, "clearly and distinctly".
I won't eat octopus, because chewing on octopus is like chewing rubber tubing. It is not a pleasant experience.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Disclaimer: I am a vegan and all carnivores are morons.
Wait, doesn't that make octipi morons? Logic breakdown, never mind, carry on. :-)
But seriously, don't let me catch you eating one, I'll kill you...
This is just silly. Pigs are just as intelligent as most dogs, and a lot smarter then an octopus.
If an octopus is so smart why is it a predator? Personally I like octopus. I draw the line at primates and cetaceans because I'm not that despesparate. Some day we might have test tube meat that is cheaper, tastier and more nutritious. I probably would avoid dead animals then. But we might still find chances to dispose of animals whose death was unintentional.
Can't wait to get my fill of Eloi!
out of a piece of volcanic glass or flint and use it to open a vein it specifically targetted, is off the menu. Otherwise, it's on the menu.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I have some other ones though. I have two criteria and I employ some highly specious logic to justify eating whatever I want.
The first criterion is whether something seems really stupid.
The second criterion is whether something would eat me if it could.
Chickens fail both tests. Cows only fail one, but I still eat them.
Chickens and cows can both be cute, depending on your point of view. But nom nom nom.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seriously, rights of an individual animal can wait. We need to first sort out rights of individual humans and plight of animals as species. Once we do, we'll be much more morally qualified to judge these other issues.
As animals get higher up the food chain we seem to find them less appetizing. Perhaps because they start to seem more like us in terms of their intelligence, social structure and behavior.
Lifespan length is irrelevant. "Advanced language" is hardly a qualifier for animal intelligence. And, as far as I'm aware, octopi do have basic tool use. Even the opening of jars is mentioned in the article summary. I know RTFA isn't common, but did you manage to miss RTFS?
That's not really the definition of "arbitrary". You can say arguable, like you did later in the sentence about the "foundation", but drawing that line is definitely dictated by unique perspectives in a pretty intentional way.
dogs and cats are carnivores. You need to raise animals to feed them, which raises the cost quite a bit. Compare that to a cow, rabbit, or horse, which can grow on plain old grass, or a chicken which can be grown in a factory on grain from egg to eat to kill in 45 days. Cows are more efficient at converting grass into dairy products.
My personal philosophy bends in the direction of not eating things that might be intelligent.
But a problem that I have with cephalopods is that they are r-strategists: they have a really large number of offspring, the vast bulk of which die without reproducing, and a really large percentage of those die as some other animal's food. Because of the nature of r-strategy, us eating them doesn't change the experience of their whole population much at all.
But is "all the other animals were doing it!" an adequate excuse?
Pigs will revert to hairy wild boars within a couple generations in the wild. Judging by how they're considered pests throughout most of the US and are Freetown hunt (bounties, even), I'd suspectmost of what else you've ridden for factuality as well.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
> Their brain is a toroid.
Mmmm, donut....
We empathize with that which we perceive to be like us. People who look and act like me from my tribe? The halest, heartiest of the bunch, worthy of respect and honor. People who don't look like me but act like me... still, hearty mates. Animals which have emotions like me? Puppies, dogs, cats? Can't hurt them. Chickens? Well... they seem to be pretty different. They're okay to eat. Cows. Wow they're dumb and utterly unlike me - they're okay to kill. Fish? Utterly unlike me. No question, okay to kill. Octopi... wait, you're telling me they're like me? Hmmm, let me consider this.
I don't get it. How does that capability make them "smart"? Mosquitoes secrete a deadening agent into your skin to give them a few seconds to eat. Maybe we don't eat mosquitoes because of their intelligence.
Many creatures, such as fish, can camouflage themselves. But fish are really, really stupid.
Apparently the author hasn't heard of wild pigs, which don't require human intervention to live. They are pretty good at opening containers or other enclosures, when there is something they want inside.
Gah, now I want to go out and find a dish that has dolphin, whale and monkey meat in it.
If it's too smart, let's dumb it down. I think we agree government is well-suited for this task.
Dolphins, great apes, and humans can identify themselves in a mirror. Everything else doesn't know that itself is a thing so it's basically a really complicated set of reactive algorithms with no true consciousness.
I am pretty tolerant, but these people really disgust me. Notice that the octopus really, really does not want to be eaten.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
An octopus is a highly specialized form of life with some impressive tricks. But that doesn't make it intelligent, just well-adpated to its environment. Nothing in TFA demonstrates even modest octopus intelligence, merely excellent specialization. The two concepts should not be confused with each other.
Humans evolved to be intelligent because their ancestors were generalists and social, and the right environmental factors forced adaptations that proved beneficial to survival. They lacked a high degree of specialization except in the area of physical endurance (not a lot of marathon runners in the natural world), and the only reason they survived was by learning how to think about cause and effect, and understand how other creatures around them thought (especially other humans). In order to hunt dangerous animals with limited physical traits, you need to coordinate an attack, which requires you understand what your hunting partners are thinking, and what they'll do next. Other animals will hunt in packs, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of thought or speculation involved, mostly trial-and-error learning and instinct. Humans are the only hunters on the planet that track prey by footprints (or hoofprints). Other predators will go after prey they can directly see, or smell, or touch, but we seem to be the only animals to have ever recognized that when another animal steps in the mud they leave an indentation that can be recognized and followed days or weeks after all scent of the animal has been blown away. Other animals can communicate, but humans seem to be the only ones to ever ask any questions. We don't just scream out into the world "I'm here!" or "There's danger!" or even "Hey I found food!", we also say things like "Why are the elephants all headed that way? Is there water over there?" and then try to find out. Elephants may remember where all the watering holes are, but humans entering a new area for the first time can find those watering holes by recognizing elephant tracks and imagining that elephants all traveling in one direction may be heading for water, without ever having even seen the elephants who left the tracks.
Once you start asking questions about the world, and trying to learn answers, that's when all the magic happens. In all our research of animal linguistics, we've never been able to find any non-human animals asking any questions. Chimpanzees can be taught enough sign language to understand and respond to questions, but they can't seem to form any of their own. Non-human animals are capable of learning from their experiences, but learning is not intelligence. Non-human animals are capable of exchanging information, but communication is not intelligence. Humans have the ability to consider the future and the past, form hypotheses, and question the nature of not only their own experiences, but those experiences of others. Intelligent animals can understand that a symbol, word, or hand motion can represent a specific kind of food. Very intelligent animals can chain together sentences like "Bob likes bananas." Only humans can say "Does Alice like bananas?" That may not seem so important, until you realize where that leads. "Bob likes bananas but Alice doesn't like bananas. Do bananas taste differently for Bob than Alice? Is her experience different than Bob's? Why is that? What is taste, anyway?"
What I do know is that octopuses don't ask questions, but they do taste delicious. I also know what taste is, and why people like different kinds of seafood, because I was smart enough to ask. I don't feel bad about eating octopus, and neither should you, but I can understand that your thinking on the subject may be different than mine. You're wrong, but I understand that some people other than me are wrong sometimes. An octopus would never even consider that your thoughts on a subject would be different than his.
Plants are intelligent too, by the way. Should we not eat them?
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Lambs are cute, and we still eat those.
Someone recently pointed out to me that you can buy 'vegetarian water', which has all microorganisms filtered out so that you don't accidentally consume them. My immediate reaction was to wonder if we can persuade the people who buy this to stop breathing, as air also contains microorganisms, many of which are members of the animal kingdom...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
How much more intelligent than us aliens should be for them to be OK to eat us?
The simple answer is "no"
The only line humans almost unanimously draw, is we don't each other. And that line is/has/will be crossed when necessary.
We eat whales, dolphins, monkeys, crows, all deemed intelligent. But they aren't like 'us' so they are fair game.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
âoeThe question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer?â
â Jeremy Bentham, The Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
Whatever happened to personal choice? PC police who are the same type who would have been burning witches.
...not as intelligent as bacon or dolphin frenemy tuna
Plus octopus tastes good, so that shot down your argument right there.
Its of course not a perfect measure, but the ability to communicate would probably be the easiest guidepost as to what we should/shouldn't eat. Language of some sort is required for a society/culture to develop and without society/culture creatures often act on a purely instinctual level. I don't think we have any concrete evidence of a non-human species on Earth having a language, the closest possibilities would be certain cetaceans. I am sure there are other guideposts (personality, intelligence, problem solving, etc) but communication should be the easiest to recognize.
Can we still catch them?
Some individuals may be too smart for us to eat, but the ones that end up in the fisherman's nets are obviously not too smart to be eaten.
So I feel the score is pretty much even. Both squid and octopus, if large enough, will attack and consume a human, given the opportunity.
Their all intelligent, We as Human's are at the top of the food chain. I would eat none of these. Out on the Web I recently came across cricket sandwiches!
Greeks fish for them along sewage estuaries...keep that in mind when ordering them along the Mediterranean!
Apparently not, otherwise it would be eating us.
When you are being tortured (say, when someone slowly cuts off your fingers) your intelligence plays absolutely no role.
I believe (true, I haven't tested this hypothesis) that your brain is consumed with 100% suffering such that you can't focus on any other thought, no matter how capable your intelligence may be. In other words, when tortured there is no difference between Albert Einstein or a mentally retarded man. Both human brains will be busy yelling "PAIN!!!" and will be identical in terms of ongoing thoughts.
Since the "pain-feeling" portion of the brain is very very similar between Albert Einstein and a monkey, we can safely assume that when a monkey is tortured his brain will be in the same "PAIN!!!" state of mind. In fact, since that part of the brain is very ancient (in Evolutionary terms) it is rather similar even for a cow and even for a chicken. Sadly, this has been confirmed by brain scans and different methods (we can pity the animals who confirmed this).
Same goes for the part of the brain that feels thirst, hunger, cold, heat, etc.. we can safely assume that since it is very ancient then even a simple mouse or chicken feels those feelings very very similarly to how we feel them (even identically?).
So I believe the ethical question should be NOT if an animal is intelligent - but whether or not it can suffer.
If the animal can suffer it is unethical to make it suffer - in the purest meaning of ethics.
And its terribly sad that when animals that are used for meat or fur or eggs, and to save every penny they ARE being tortured.
He also wrote "JAWS". Nuff said. I like pepper spices on my squid & octopus!
fresh and chopped up, with some olive oil, chili flakes, salt, charred over wood fire (quickly and lightly) with the marinade dabbed gently with decent (even semi decent or lots of rough) wine, is worth an afternoon well spent.... don't anyone dare tell me otherwise
Some egg laying related chemical change causes the female octopus to die after the breeding cycle is complete.
I have never heard of any of the many assorted species of octopi to be long lived - please correct me if another know differently?
If this process can be halted, there seem to be a number of species of octopus that might develop intellectually to rival man, since they already seem as capable as many lesser species like crows and monkeys - to a degree, as the life media differs so.
I wonder if there have been any training trials with octopi? I suspect there have been. some links
http://bit.ly/1yFZ4Vk
I think there is a need for some research into the life cycle to see what can be done?
prions, birth defects ... among others;
taboos are a pre-scientific (pre == before, NOT less than, scientific) method for cultures to maintain healthy community
wait 'til we start to recognize how intelligent plants, fungi and bacteria are, then we'll really have trouble deciding what to eat
to fork life is (simply) divine!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And if so, what would stop people doing the same?
Live from the field: Octopus just barely escaped being in our menu today, while ordering seafood in a right-next-to-the-sea tavern, outside of Nafplion, Greece.
Well, fact is, octopus IS really admirable animal, among other reasons for passing the mirror test. For the record, dogs typically do not pass the mirror test, ie. cannot consistently recognise themselves in a mirror. Octopus is surprisingly intelligent for an animal that is apparently primitive!
That being said, it's very tasty, too. I'll spare you the details of the great ways to cook it and prepare delicious dishes in the greek cuisine; for one, I have been catching octopuses, even before I was a teenager, in a traditional millenium-old underwater manner using just a harpoon. Big thrill for any young child.
However, there IS a problem with how we catch octopus and much other marine life: it is seriously important to avoid catching/capturing the young animals and only collect the individuals of some age, after having passed from breeding cycle. This is an increasing concern with many fishes, also, and we should all frown upon the practice of catching really really young fish, which is considered a delicacy in some places (Yes, I'm looking at you, South Italy). The sea needs to be respected and cultivated with more seriousness than it is currently done. Human population and technical know-how for fishing have increased in a way that is unsustainable: the sooner we understand it, the better. The sea could and would provide, yet not for the greedy...
None of the traits listed here signify intelligence. A dog can do all of those things also.
It's only a hunch but i feel that no one helps themselves by eating a very smart beast if it is alive and kicking. But what is more unaware than a piece of lifeless flesh. So it is not a question of who we eat, but how we treat them before we eat them. The meat of a fulfilled life, i would predict, tastes better than the beef of constant fear and pain.
https://www.libertyislandmag.com/creator/frfleming/content.html?ln=whomurderedthedinosaurs
Part of the job of eating things is to improve the world. Trolls are not something we want so eat them. I eat mean people. It's my contribution to the advancement of the Universe.
Babies test worst. Or at least that's what GLaDOS would say.
If cows could talk I'd still eat them.
If octopi are not "too smart" to eat then perhaps infants, retarded adults, people in comas, and Alzeheimers patients are too stupid to deserve human rights?
Not to offend catholics, but...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
If belief is worth anything, there's a lot of cannibalism happening on Sundays...
In the US, most smart animal shelters carefully review who is adopting to make sure the adopter is not using the shelter as a meat supplier. I happen to be a dog lover and find it offensive, but I understand it is cultural.
Wait, can you clarify?
Which kind of dog lover are you?
Do you find it offensive that people eat dogs, or do you find it offensive that animal shelters prevent themselves from being used as suppliers?
Wait for the followers of Cthulhu to become smart enough to catch and eat us.
If octopi are not "too smart" to eat then perhaps infants, retarded adults, people in comas, and Alzeheimers patients are too stupid to deserve human rights?
That is easy for you to say now, but if something changed, if times got hard enough, "perhaps" the living would find exception to your heart felt rule, and if you stuck to your word, them some "perhaps" such people might eat your wife or child before they got down to cooking you.
They are smarter than the sort of idiots that ask these moronic questions. Animals are food. Get over it.
IMHO it's barbaric for humans to kill and/or eat any sentient being. Maybe I bend the line at vermin in my house, but the poor souls are only taking advantage of my hospitality creating a hard-to-resist habitat for them. We're just fortunate we rose to the "top" of the food chain, and are too sick and poisoned by the toxic environment we created to provide tasty meals for alien visitors, perhaps.
I live near Puget Sound - the home of the giant pacific octopus. They are easily found for sale on the docks or at local fish markets. I learned about octopus intelligence over 20 years ago and so quit dining on it. I couldn't bring myself to eating a creature that is likely to be scentiant. (M.S. Biology)
They're definitely intelligent; the most intelligent invertebrate. Probably around the same mental horsepower as a pig, but very different in detail. If they can't hire a lawyer, they get eaten.
"Unlike pigs which are dependent on humans for survival"
you utter moron-Texas has more feral aka wild aka unaided by man swine running around than it has humans in the state.
Wild swine are running wild everywhere but Hawaii and maybe Alaska and wild pig is the only native surviving land animal in Hawaii but in greatly reduced numbers.
Even in Japan, octopus meat is usually cooked (boiled) for sushi. The arms of the common octopus and the giant octopus (most common varieties for sushi) are edible raw, and are treated as a delicacy, but they are very chewy--you'd need to get a good sushi chef to slice it paper thin to have any hope of chewing it off. The Koreans do eat living octopus arms that are only chopped and not sliced, but they use a different, smaller species that isn't as well suited for sushi.
There is plenty of room for all of god's creatures... right next to the mashed potatoes
- some poster
While I can find the articles heart a good and worthy debate I begin to doubt the research when an example is an octopus predicting the outcome of a sporting event via opening a jar. Either the octopus is so intelligent that it could intuit the intricacies of human society from inside it's tank and it condones being held there/possible eaten like other octopi or it was an aquariums attempt to boost attendance numbers.
It makes the article sound especially sensationalist. Why not examine more than the why but also the how of their intelligence (Which we still do not even understand ourselves.)?
Again it comes more done to how/why/what do we feel comfortable doing so. What kind of suffering do we condone? Some suffering is necessary in life. So can we or more importantly should we change and why?
I think a majority consensus is needed and the main thing blocking that is can we?
The list. Out of the millions of animal species in history... Top 12 Smartest Animals ever on Earth: 12. Portia Labiata Jumping Spider 11. Raccoon 10. Rats 9. Ravens & Crows 8. Dogs (namely, The Border Collie) & Cats (namely, The American Shorthair) 7. Rhesus Macaque Monkey 6. North Pacific Giant Octopus 5. African Grey Parrot 4. Elephants 3. Capuchin Monkey 2. Dolphins (namely, Bottlenose) & Whales 1. Apes (namely, Chimpanzee and Gorilla... oh, and i guess also those pesky ole humans). i didn't make it up. Google it. Dolphin research has shown that the creatures are more intelligent than chimpanzees, they recognize their reflections in a mirror, and can even think about the future. The scientists originally proposed the ten Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans two years ago at a conference in Helsinki. You can sign the petition at http://www.cetaceanrights.org/
Even in Japan, octopus meat is usually cooked (boiled) for sushi. The arms of the common octopus and the giant octopus (most common varieties for sushi) are edible raw, and are treated as a delicacy, but they are very chewy--you'd need to get a good sushi chef to slice it paper thin to have any hope of chewing it off. The Koreans do eat living octopus arms that are only chopped and not sliced, but they use a different, smaller species that isn't as well suited for sushi.
I didn't know that. The other items on the menu at our favorite sushi place are noted as being cooked (e.g., unagi, ebi) or lightly flamed (seared tuna, scallops if you ask for them that way) but otherwise raw. I just assumed that since the octopus wasn't noted as cooked, it was raw. Unlike most of the other items on the menu that I might see in a fish market, I've never been to a fish market that had octopus (cooked or not).
I enjoy learning and, especially, learning about the things I eat. Thanks. Also, something tells me that the octopus being boiled isn't going to make it acceptable to my friends and family who stick to cooked items on the sushi menu....
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
There are a _lot_ of animals that are tool users. Many of the tool uses are instinctual, some are learned, some are a combination. This is not a good criteria to use to determine who to eat and who not to eat.
A much better criteria is economics. This doesn't have to do with capitalism but rather what are the costs of production. How long does it take to get the food? How fast does it grow? What resources does it take? From this perspective there are some plants that are poor candidates because they grow so slowly and there are some animals (like pigs and octopuses) who are excellent candidates for eating. Humans aren't a very good candidate because the reproduce and grow so slowly. It is actually more economically efficient to raise mice than humans. Pigs are far, far better as are chickens, cattle and sheep, all of which can be raised on pastures that won't easily grow other human foods.
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Another way of looking at the question is to put us in place of the octopus. Imagine if the octopus had evolved several hundred thousand years further, becoming the dominant life form on a different planet, and chose to explore and colonize Earth. They may look on our people and cities like a bee hive or ant mount; intelligent as a collective but oblivious and insignificant as individuals. Smoking us out and sucking our honey (or worse) may seem completely ethical and moral to them. Our nukes could be their ink cloud, our cries of panic would be incomprehensible, and our futile efforts to escape their snares would be comfortably familiar and expected. What's considered "right" and "wrong" only has meaning if practiced and communicated by those with power, and for those whose minds work differently it often seems arbitrary.
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