Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "sentience"

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Several chapters of this readable memoir/octopus biology review are named for individuals, whose unique personalities are made vividly clear. Historical anecdotes add to this engaging read, as the author reviews our problem with allowing the "dignity of mind" to be applied to "octopuses." (The plural is not octopi, since the word comes from the Greek, not Latin, according to the author.)

Her interactions with the different octopusial personalities are fascinating. Those raised by humans look to them for attention, while those taken from the wild require a place to hide until they are convinced that interaction with humans is more interesting. That interaction involves several arms acing independently, embracing human arms thrust into their water, while exploring new objects, or enjoying TV sports and cartoons when made available.

At the Boston Aquarium, direct contact with octopuses had not been tried before the year 2000, but their intelligence is now quite clear. It probably evolved millions of years ago when they lost their shells. (In the ocean techniques for defense and for hunting prey require some smarts if you run around without armor.) Tool use by octopuses has been noted by patient divers, as has home building and defense against urchin spines. They understand what a human pointing a finger means, as do dogs and human children at age 3 to 4. This is called Theory of Mind—i.e. they realize that other life forms have one.

The author conquers her early problems learning to scuba dive and treats us to undersea visits with wild octopuses, who study their human visitors after taking them on tours of their neighborhood. The book gives us technical information along with the author's intimate view of emotional lives shared between humans and creatures biologically very alien from us in some ways (with their many arms housing scattered brain matter) but very much like us in the essentials of life—its experience and its caring..