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Comment by berkes | Hacker News Reader

Even cooler, IMHO, is that invertebrates evolved intelligence (and almost identical eyes!) parallel to primate's and corvids'.

Squid, octopi, etc have cognitive abilities that sometimes overtake that of "intelligent" mammals or birds. Yet common ancestors are about as far away as is possible in animal kingdom.

(And also please remember this when ordering calamari next time ;)

Edit: I very much enjoyed this bestseller popular science book on invertebrates intelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds%3A_The_Octopus%2C_...

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Since reading about cephalopod intelligence, I cut calamari out of my diet cold. I quip that I have a policy against eating anything smarter than me!

Would you eat a human that was less intelligent than a cephalopod?

If they're so smart why aren't I on their plate instead? (Though I'm not a fan and don't ever go for calamari personally anyways...)

Wait are any cephalopods vegan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_attack

I like how its mainly just a pile of old fisherman tales with very little proven recorded attacks. The Cephalopods have been haunting our nightmares for over a thousand years.

Slightly joking: but maybe "intelligence" is partly "empathy"? In my view, a truly evolved and highly intelligent species would be one that causes no harm, distress and certainly no pain or suffering to anything else.

So, to answer your question:

> If they're so smart why aren't I on their plate instead?

For the same reason I and grandparent commentor don't eat them: because we know their intelligence. If they were more intelligent that humans, that reasoning would mean they won't eat humans.

Slightly more on topic: humans often show a very narrow world view. In that many humans fail to see that there are other types of "intelligence" for example. We project our own narrow world-view onto others: "Intelligence means, you should eat anything that's less intelligent than you" (very much parafrasing, I know)

I enjoyed the novel “Remakably Bright Creatures” which had an octupus as a main character.

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