Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Otto
Today’s blog comes from my perusal of Facebook posts this morning. Because of a funny post, I have a new animal hero. His name was Otto, and in the 2000’s he lived in an aquarium in Germany. I’m pretty sure he is gone from this earth by now because octopi usually don’t live longer than 1 to 5 years, depending on their classification. For example, a Giant Pacific octopus can live 3 to 5 years, but most live between 1 and 2 years.
Otto had a wicked little sense of humor. He stumped the aquarium staff who, for several days, arrived at work to a blackout. Somehow the electricity kept going off at night. Finally some staff spent the night at work to figure out the mystery. They discovered that the mystery was named Otto. He had figured out how to climb the walls of the tank and shoot a projectile of water on to the bright light that was annoying him. Boom. Lights out. Octopi have a siphon through which a powerful jet of water can emerge and Otto took full advantage of this power to manipulate his environment.
Otto was also witnessed using his multi-arm prowess to juggle the hermit crabs in “his” tank. On days when he was especially cranky, he threw rocks at the glass walls and managed to crack them once. And from time to time he would rearrange the tank’s landscape to better suit him. Tank companions be damned.
Otto and his “people” are extremely intelligent animals. In captivity they can: “complete puzzles, untie knots, open jars and toddler-proof cases, and are escape artists from their aquariums. Even more fascinating – their intelligence stems from a completely unrelated path to human intelligence, and about two-thirds of their neurons are in their arms, not their heads.” (Smithsonian Ocean article).
A scientist at U.C. Davis, Dr. Brenda McCowan, is working on a project in which researchers have “successfully engaged in a ‘conversation’ with a humpback whale named Twain.” (Earth.com) Scientists are studying the intellectual powers of animals thought to have extraordinary intelligence: octopi, whales, dolphins, pigs, ravens and chimpanzees. Of all these creatures, octopi are felt to be a species at the top of the smartness heap. I think Chimpanzees come close as well. There’s a name for the study of non-human intelligence: Animal Cognition.
Even philosophers are interested in animal cognition research. “In recent years there has been increased attention to animal minds in philosophical discussions across many areas of metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory. Given that nonhuman animals share some biological and psychological features with humans, and that we share community, land, and other resources, consideration of nonhuman animals has much to contribute to our philosophical activities…..Animal cognition research challenges philosophers to consider that many capacities and behaviors often assumed to require language, sophisticated technological capacities, or legal systems may in fact be had by other animals who lack these properties. In this way, animal cognition research often surprises us by showing that sophisticated-looking activity can be caused through rather simple mechanisms.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Animal Cognition”).
Some of this research and development is conducted in an attempt to develop filters for any possible communication with extra-terrestrial intelligent beings. SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has its own institute, established in 1984. First launched in 1977, the space crafts, Voyagers 1 and 2, are carrying a gold-plated phonograph record that contains scenes and sounds of life on Earth. The Whale-SETI project has one of its goals as the study of sound and behavior patterns, meanings, and other modes of interspecies communication. The use of these patterns may support the rationale that there is life out in the cosmos and that it is important to be able to respond to any communications that may come from within the Universe(s).
These random facts excite me when I consider the potential research and understanding that my grandsons will experience as they grow up. This is not a new concept. Shakespeare’s Hamlet says, “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Truer words….