[FRIAM] something serious from something silly

Sat May 1 12:54:23 EDT 2021

Same problem, but the pattern matching of cephalopods is so extraordinarily precise that it’s much harder to think of an explanation.  An octopus has a much more distributed nervous system so perhaps an explanation begins with the idea that it has eyes all over its arms.  Nothing that I have read gives me any comfort for that idea.  Another possibility is, of course, that it turns around, looks at the substrate, memorizes it, puts the pattern on its skin, and then arranges newly patterned  body to correspond to the remembered pattern of the substrate.  Lots of luck with that.  

I don’t know why I am feeling so certain about things this morning  Some times I wake up in the morning with the illusion that I actually know stuff.

“He Never Falls Harder Than Falls From His Highest Horse”. 

Nick Dixxed that, also. 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2021 9:18 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] something serious from something silly

Do chameleons see what's under their tails?

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:12 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Octopus ground mimicry is the thing I cannot understand.   How do you copy
what you are not looking at?

n

Nick Thompson
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2021 8:57 PM
To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> 
Subject: [FRIAM] something serious from something silly

A discussion of UFOs occupied some time in FRIAM today, including the
observation that despite looking for "intelligent signals" ala SETI have
failed. 

Made me think of octopi (& other cephalopods) that communicate with
brilliant displays of rapidly changing color. We think that these displays
are more than reactive, that they are "intelligent communication." Mostly,
it seems to me, we infer this because we have a lot of context, including
interacting octopi, but if all we had was the "signal" absent the context,
would we recognize it as "intelligent?"

I am not phrasing the question very well, but if we had nothing except a
5-minute video of an octopus' surface changing color, would we be able to
detect a hidden order or structure that would allow a reasonable
determination that it originated from an intelligent species?

davew

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