Openly ponders about the degree of conscious activity in an octopus nervous system; subconsciously flails arms and hands while entirely focused on his speaking role. Unconscious body language and microexpressions are huge in human social function (emergent from our complex minds, and in my opinion, should not be ignored when considering our superintelligent cousins (thrice removed)

I absolutely loved 'Other Minds'.

I've just bought Other Minds and the sequel - Metazoa. Love that his thesis is not simply "this is an example of evolution in action" but has original and novel ideas. Especially compelling is his emphasis on the developmental grayness of complex systems - nervous, action, communication, response, etc He stresses repeatedly that the current state of systems (nervous, for example) was not a step by step procedure but instead involved fuzzy relationships and combinations. The chapters on colors was just incredible.

this book was astonishingly good, came looking for more! Just finished the talk and it doesn't contain nearly as much complexity or insight into this fascinating subject. I would 100% read the book even if you disliked the talk

One of my favorite philosophers talk about one of my favorite animals. :)

He’s a great, thoughtful writer. Love his books.

Stumbled across the book in a bookstore and read it pretty much in one sitting. Highly interesting and well written! It did leave me hungry for more, which lead me to this talk. As a previous comment states: read the book! Thank you!

Answers with Joe!

Great book, great presentation. I find theost compelling part of this is the connection of a rich inner life, or rather the latent introversion trait.

I've always been interested in life in the sea and how it developed before Tiktaalik made that giant step onto land. I found this lecture quite interesting and will get his book. I'd like to know more of his take on how all this got started. Thank you so uch for posting!

26:17 This GoPro camera is now mine

Excellent

Very interesting!!

I downloaded this Thank you

Consciousness is awareness - awareness is about truth - truth is about history, chemistry, biology, geology, glaciology, volcanology, botany, astronomy, politics, economics, etc. - no need to complicate it more than it already is.

Nice video, to my Octopus it's like our brains but it brain evolved to make arms without body maybe?.

The mysteryof consciousness is rooted in the breath in conjuction with the brain.

I think an equally good question is how does it feel to be an octopus’s arm!

octopusses :)

This talk does not go deep enough into the rules that govern our universe. What laws of physics govern self-awareness/consciousness? NOTHING can exist in our universe unless it follows the controls of some law of physics that allows it to exist and controls what it can do and when it forms and/or is destroyed. Building an electrical-generated nervous system that acts like a complicated wind-up toy and can perform various actions to solve problems like a digital or analog computer is based on the mechanical side of physics and how it governs the interactions of the particles that make up our universe. Self-awareness cannot exist unless ALLOWED by some congiguratio0n of physical laws interacting on matter that is doing some sort of vaguely computational function. Matter, for example, can act like a clock by certain designs doing repetitive actions, but how does not translate into something that a self-aware being (us, I assume) finds some use for? The very term "use" implies that the being has the ability to choose from a selection of alternatives what it "wants" (again, a VERY odd word) to do. Where does "want" and "use" and related words follow from the laws of physics, no matter how complex the piece of matter is. There has to be some special "rules" or extensions to the laws of physics that allows such behavior to come into being when the proper conditions occur. If we cannot understand these extensions to the laws of physics that allow things like self-awareness to come into existence, we are totally in the dark about a very important part of our universe. Like flight, you cannot fly unless you ALREADY HAVE wings of some sort -- this is true of >ALL< THINGS THAT EXIST, PERIOD. Rules about how PATTERNS (sets?) arise and act are probably what we are talking about, which will be very complicated.

cuttlefish on europa, think about it

Cuttlefish buffets, spicy divers 24/7

Eh.

I guess women at google weren’t invited to this talk.

"Octopolis" appears to be a deliberately overpopulated "maximum stress" environment for its solitude-preferring captive inmates, providing its resident human torturers maximum entertainment. He actually says the octopuses prefer solitude! A deliberate hell for beautiful intelligent creatures. Sadistic bastards.

I'm probably going to cop it here, but every time he says "we don't know" or "mystery" or "we are not sure. I just think "God knows"..

why does he say "arms" ? Does he think we're too stupid to manage a vocabulary of over 200 words? They are called tentacles. Not arms.

Dumb down “The Selfish Gene,” add the enthusiasm of any animal lover, mix in some script from an Animal Planet documentary, and intermittently pretend to be talking about philosophers = this presentation. (Or am I just in a bad mood right now?) On chapter 3 of the book but will be returning tonight. No greater thief than a bad book.

Couldn't get past the first two-minutes --- the statement, "I am not saying everything was in place before we came up on land" is absurd and gives no consideration to the possibility of a creator. Obviously, Peter is an atheist, which is inconsistent in and of itself. The wonder then turns on the great process, by which this or any other man, could grow to the immense intelligence that can know that there is not a creator. What ages and what lights are requisite for this attainment! This intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity, while a creator is denied. For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he nor any other human-being can know that there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by which even he may be overpowered. If he does not know absolutely every agent in the universe, the one that he does not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent of the universe, and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he may want maybe that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be God.Thus, unless he know all things, that is, precludes another Deity by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects does not exist. BUT he must know that he does not exist, else he deserves equal contempt and compassion for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejection and acts accordingly. I am however fascinated with the octopus and its extraordinary anatomy and physiology.