Zhou Liqian, Associate Professor, School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
"The Mind of an Octopus", by Peter Godfrey-Smith, translated by Huang Ying, Houlang 丨 Kyushu Publishing House, March 2021, 280 pages, 60.00 yuan
First, encounter extraterrestrial intelligent life
At the bottom of sarasa, which has been colonized for more than a thousand years, humans have finally discovered that they are not the only intelligent life on the planet. The species, known as the "scorpion," looks like a lobster on Earth, but is more than four meters long. Humans accidentally captured a scorpion. After being released into the ocean, humans followed the scorpion to discover their gathering place: Scorpion City. As outsiders, humans observe busy scorpions in the submersible: harvesting the planted Sarasa macroalgae, using metal pieces as ornaments... The complex behavior of scorpions surprised humans to realize that they were intelligent beings, that their primitive civilization might eventually rise, and that they might eventually become Kraken, the giant demon of the North Sea.
This plot is the first encounter between humans and extraterrestrial intelligent life depicted in british science fiction writer Arthur Clarke's science fiction masterpiece "Song of the Distant Earth", and it is also the scene I came up with when reading Peter Godfrey-Smith's "The Octopus Mind". Godfrey Smith is Professor of The History of Science and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney and has made many important contributions in the fields of Philosophy of Biology, Philosophy of Mind and Cognition and Philosophy of Science in General. At the same time, as a Sydneyside growing up on the seashore, he is also a heavy diving enthusiast. Even when he taught at Harvard University and The City University of New York, he spent a lot of time diving on the east coast of Australia every year to observe marine life. Here, he and his friends encounter a similar scene in "Song of the Distant Earth" and discover the "octopus city-state". Like the "Scorpion City", the octopus city-state is a fixed place where a group of highly intelligent beings, octopus, gather. Octopus city-states are unusual because previous studies of octopuses have suggested that octopuses are not animals that live in groups in fixed places, where up to a dozen octopuses can live in groups for long periods of time, creating their burrows with empty scallop shells and performing complex social behaviors in the city-state.
Godfrey Smith was fascinated by the octopus city-state. He and his friends observed and studied the place year after year, and finally combined their personal diving experience, scientific exploration and philosophical thinking to create "The Mind of the Octopus". In this book, Godfrey Smith uses his extraordinary writing skills to show how octopuses can have a different kind of mind.
Second, an octopus with developed intelligence
Let's start with Arthur Clark's concept of the Sarasa scorpion, which is difficult to have complex intelligence. Clark conceived the Salasa scorpion based on the giant arthropod plate-footed horseshoe that lived 467 million years ago. Commonly known as the "sea scorpion", the plate-footed horseshoe crab has three pairs of appendages on either side of the pipa-shaped body, the first of which is a claw. The sea scorpion is up to two meters six meters long and was a ferocious carnivore in the Silurian oceans. The sea scorpion is closely related to the scorpions and spiders on land today. Since arthropods have immutable exoskeletons, the appendage functions on both sides of the body are solidified and the possibility of free development is small. This means that arthropods do not need a particularly complex nervous system to coordinate activity between appendages. For example, although insects have developed compound eyes, their visual ability is comparable to that of human lenses, but the nervous system is millions of times that of insects in terms of the number of neurons and the complexity of the structure. Although different arthropods send signals in a variety of ways, such as ants using chemical pheromones as communication signals, fireflies can use light signals, cicadas can use sound signals, and bees have even developed complex "8" dances to indicate the location of the honey source, but the signals available to each arthropod species are extremely limited. Vision, freedom of movement, nervous system, and signaling are all closely related to cognition and intelligence. Due to the limitations of these features, arthropods have difficulty in having the same level of intelligence as vertebrates such as fish, birds, reptiles, and humans.
Although cephalopods represented by octopuses belong to the same invertebrates and have the same ancestors as arthropods, they were separated from vertebrates 600 million years ago, but the above characteristics are almost everywhere different from arthropods. Compared to the Salasa scorpion, octopuses are more like extraterrestrial intelligent life, or have more complex and developed intelligence. Unlike arthropods, octopuses have a hard but immutable exoskeleton. In contrast, octopuses don't have any bones, so their bodies don't have a fixed shape. We often use the phrase "cats are made of water" to describe the flexibility of the cat's body. Octopuses are really made of water: an octopus can pass through holes that are only slightly larger than its eyes. They thus gain maximum freedom in their behavior and can change the shape of their bodies at will. Unlike the arthropod compound eye, the octopus's eye is also a highly developed perspective eye like that of a vertebrate. Octopuses also have a highly developed nervous system, and an octopus has more than half a billion neurons in its body, about the same as small mammals (such as dogs). Octopuses, as well as giant squids of the same cephalopods, have the ability to mimetically camouflage by changing the color of their bodies. Godfrey-Smith found that the giant squid's ability to change the color of its body seemed to far exceed camouflage. He believes this provides a resource for giant squids to evolve more complex signals, perhaps even a manifestation of self-awareness. Both octopus and squid are physical features that support cephalopods to have highly developed intelligence.
The developed intelligence of octopuses is also supported in unexpected and incessant octopus behaviorist experiments. Unlike obedient pigeons and mice, octopus experiments often have things outside the situation. Godfrey-Smith recounts what happens in multiple labs: octopuses will escape from tanks in various ways; they will "deliberately" spray water on lamps, short-circuit lights, and spray water on strangers; they will deliberately block the tank's valves and flood the lab; and they will deliberately throw food that is given to it but don't like it in front of scientists into drains. This kind of behavior shows that octopuses are scheming mischievous ghosts, not just mechanical like arthropods. These octopuse behaviors seem to indicate that octopuses are not only instinct-driven behaviors, but also curiosity. A few years ago, the particularly popular documentary "The World After Humanity Disappeared" even predicted that octopuses might be the next intelligent life like humans.
Third, a different kind of octopus mind
Cephalopods, including octopus, squid, gun squid and nautilus, have a large proportion of their heads and many tentacles or tentacles, making them the perfect prototype for extraterrestrial intelligent creatures or deep-sea trolls, and in fact, the North Sea giant kraken is based on cephalopods. What doesn't match the giant head, though, is that octopuses don't have particularly prominent nerve centers like brains like vertebrates, including humans. The octopus does have a nerve center on its head, but it is not particularly prominent compared to the nerve center of eight tentacles. In other words, an octopus has nine brains, one head, and one for each tentacle. The nerve centers on the antennae are connected only to the nerve centers of the head by simple ganglia. This means that the head brain does not control parts of the body as effectively as the human brain. In other words, the octopus's nervous system is distributed. Godfrey-Smith found that while the octopus was alone, its tentacles seemed to be exploring uncontrollably, touching and tasting the things around it.
Godfrey-Smith argues that the octopus's distributed nervous system challenges the dominant view of the origin of the nervous system— the perceptual-motion theory. Perceptual motor theory holds that the nervous system is the mediating system that mediates and coordinates animal perception and action. The nervous system makes animals interact more efficiently with their surroundings. However, the octopus's distributed nervous system with "bulk" head and tentacles seems to support, and the nervous system may also be designed to integrate different parts of the body. One of the difficult problems to solve in the evolution of single-celled animals to multicellular animals is how to integrate different cells. Originally, perception-action was responsible for the sensory surface and effect surface of single cells, but in multicellular animals there was a division of labor, some cells were responsible for perception, some were responsible for action, and some were responsible for other functions. The emergence of the nervous system could solve this integration problem and make a more efficient division of labor possible.
This distributed nervous system also seems to give octopuses a sense of self unlike we humans have. The question of mind and body is an important question of philosophy. One of the premises of the mind-body problem is that the mind is one and the person has a same self. Godfrey-Smith argues that the octopus' distributed nervous system seems to indicate that the same octopus may have different selves, or nine selves. This enlightens us that the human mind is not the only possible form of the mind, that the mind may have different forms. Or rather, each animal has its own unique form. For example, insects have developed vision, but the ability to feel pain is very weak; snails have weak vision, but the ability to feel pain is very strong. Like octopuses may have distributed selves.
In terms of evolutionary history, octopuses are also more like extraterrestrial intelligent life. As mentioned above, both octopuses and arthropods are invertebrates, separated from chordates six hundred million years ago. The common ancestor of humans and octopuses is most likely a simple multicellular animal like a worm. But octopuses evolved complex and developed nervous systems independently of vertebrates, which means that "evolution has shaped the mind twice." In other words, the octopus mind is indeed alien to our human minds.
However, octopuses with developed nervous systems can only live for a year or two. The massive nervous system and short life create an evolutionary puzzle. The maintenance of the nervous system requires a particularly large amount of energy, for example, the brain, which accounts for ten percent of the human body, needs to consume twenty percent of the energy. Such a short life should seem unnecessary to develop such an energy-intensive nervous system. Godfrey-Smith speculates that this is the result of natural selection due to the octopus lifestyle. One consequence of the octopus's lack of bones is that it does not have a defense to protect the soft body, but the octopus itself is a predator, and it is impossible to hide in the shadows all the time, but to constantly hunt for prey. Octopuses live in open, species-rich shallow seas where there are many other predators. This means that octopuses are constantly exposing themselves to high-risk environments. Developed intelligence allows octopuses to live such a life. This also makes octopuses intelligent life that evolved independently from vertebrates.
Fourth, the continuity of spiritual evolution
Godfrey Smith's Book of The Octopus Mind not only introduces the fascinating and peculiar marine life of the octopus, but as a philosopher he is also concerned with a classic philosophical problem: the problem of consciousness. The English title of "Octopus": the Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origin of Consciousness is an example of the octopus mind to explore the origin of consciousness in the ocean. Consciousness is often thought to be unique to humans, or only possible in animals with fairly developed cognitive abilities, such as chimpanzees. The problem with this presupposition is that consciousness, or mind, is something independent of the body (physical). Through the evolution of animals and their subjective consciousness, Godfrey-Smith attempted to argue that consciousness was not something independent of living systems, but had evolved continuously. As William James quotes in his introduction:
Most fields of science require continuity, which proves its true prophetic power. Therefore, we must sincerely try all possible conceived of the origin of consciousness, lest consciousness be seen as a new substance that suddenly entered the universe as if it had not existed before then.
Life and mind are continuous, and we can examine the evolution of consciousness by examining the evolution of the biological characteristics of life. Godfrey-Smith's investigation shows that the evolution of consciousness, or subjective experience, is as gradual as the evolution of life. Just as the species of life are diverse, so are the forms of the mind.
Godfrey Smith's approach to examining the mind and consciousness is called the approach that begins with life, which corresponds to the traditional approach that begins with human beings. In previous studies of mind and cognition, the human mind is exemplary, and may even be the only legitimate object of philosophy of mind. In scientific research, people's cognitive processes are also seen as information processing processes like computers. The human mind is a computer, and consciousness or subjective feelings are not important. Godfrey Smith's approach to life, on the other hand, holds that the mind is a phenomenon of life, and that the mind is to be understood in the context of the whole of life. Because humans are so complex, it is difficult to explain the human mind. The way to simplify complex problems is to break up complex problems into simpler problems. For life, it is simpler to trace back to life from the history of evolution. Explaining life begins with explaining the simplest life. Similarly, explain the mind, starting with the simplest mind. Godfrey Smith's research provides us with another enlightening way to discuss the mind and consciousness.
V. How to do philosophy in the age of science?
The Octopus Mind is also a huge inspiration for how we do philosophy in the age of science. In this book, we will find Godfrey Smith as a philosopher who cites a great deal of scientific research. In fact, his study of octopus city-states is itself serious scientific research. He and his collaborators published these studies in prestigious biological journals. In Godfrey-Smith's case, it seems that there is no strict distinction between science and philosophy. This way of doing philosophy is called naturalism. Naturalism holds that philosophy is consistent with science, and that philosophy should make extensive use of science-related research and not rely solely on common sense. Because science is by far the most successful body of knowledge for mankind, the solution of philosophical problems cannot be separated from science. Another spirit implicit in naturalism is that philosophy is not closed and isolated, but open and evolving. Philosophy should make use of all the research methods and theories that are easy to use. This is about the role of science in philosophy.
This, in turn, does not mean that philosophy has become an appendage of science. Godfrey-Smith believed that philosophy was also beneficial to science, and that philosophy could use logical analysis to help science clarify concepts and methodologies. In addition to this, another function of philosophy is more important. An important goal of science is to understand the world, to understand nature, to paint a complete picture of what our world is like. In today's continuous refinement and deepening of disciplines, even if you master and study a small field in depth, it may take a person's life's time and energy, let alone depict the entire world picture. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. Godfrey Smith does this in Octopus Minds, which provides us with a magnificent evolutionary picture of subjective consciousness by combining evolutionary biology, octopus research, and philosophy of mind. I believe that anyone who is interested in octopus, philosophy of mind, consciousness, animal evolution, etc. can be inspired by this book. Even if it's just for spiritual leisure, it's an excellent choice.
Godfrey Smith's exploration of the evolution of consciousness did not end with the publication of this book. On the basis of Octopus Minds, he published a book last year that more fully depicts the evolution of animal minds: Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. It is expected that this book will also be translated into Chinese as soon as possible for the benefit of readers.
Editor-in-Charge: Zheng Shiliang
Proofreader: Luan Meng