← Start with a question
Investigation
What if an octopus is intelligent in a way we cannot measure?
Every intelligence test humans have built rewards being like us. That is a problem for octopuses and dolphins. It is a much bigger problem for something that came from somewhere else.
Biology · Cognition · Philosophy
The evidence
Suggested reading path
01Established KnowledgeIs Intelligence a Hierarchy?We keep drawing intelligence as a ladder with humans at the top. The evidence looks much more like a bush.02Established KnowledgeWe Are Still Learning to Recognisze Intelligence at HomeBefore asking whether we would recognisze an alien mind, look at how recently we conceded that octopuses, corvids, whales, and colonies have minds at all.03Speculative FictionWhat Counts as Life?Every confirmed organism on Earth stores heredity in DNA or RNA. That does not make it a requirement of the universe. It makes it the only successful system in our sample of one biosphere.
Questions to think about
Keep arguing
- — What would an octopus's intelligence test look like, and how would you score on it?
- — Is a mind distributed through eight arms one mind or nine?
- — If we cannot recognize intelligence in a cousin species, what are the odds we recognize it in a stranger?
Continue
Other investigations
Biology · History · Ethics · Literature
Who has the right to rewrite a human being?
Physics · Measurement · Philosophy of science
How can the Servator hang there without pushing anything?
Astronomy · Statistics · Astrobiology
If intelligent life is rare, how could anyone ever find us?
Astrobiology · Ecology · Literary criticism
What do they want — and why do we keep guessing?