> we do really like to anthropomorphize them.

Yes, people tend to over-anthropormphize in the sense they map to specific human concepts. But otoh, we tend to greatly underestimate the complexity of animal behavior. Sometimes people mix these up. So, just because an anthropomorphization isn't correct, doesn't mean that the behavior isn't complex.

Even animals like spiders and ants demonstratw incredible complex behavior, for social, hunting, sanitation purposes etc. So don't feel bad about anthropomorphizing, as long as you are aware it's just fun speculation. There are infinite mysteries in animal behavior and it's absolutely fascinating. There is so much left to explore.

Yep. I've kinda gone full circle on this. My view now is that it's increasingly difficult to say exactly what makes humans special or unique, if anything [0]. So it's overly anthropocentric to deny the possibility that other species have analogous experiences of the world, or experiences which are richer than ours, or completely inconceivable by us [1].

Sure, there will be people that do anthropomorphise the octopus' actions, but this doesn't deny the possibility that an octopus can experience something analogous to feeling pissed off. (See: my table has four legs therefore it's a dog.)

To preempt those who might say "ah, but you can't prove that an octopus does have any form of consciousness" I'd point out that it's practically impossible to do that with humans too.

[0] It's certainly not one single ability. Perhaps some fuzzy superset of fuzzy sets.

[1] I include consciousness in "experiences", and I'd suggest that human-type consciousness is just one among very many.

> it's increasingly difficult to say exactly what makes humans special or unique, if anything

Absolutely. Every trait previously thought unique to humans that I know of have been found in animals, such as deduction, tool making, intra-species warfare, delayed gratification, play, language, dialects, curiosity, mischieviousness, boredom, empathy, grieving rituals, etc etc. The only generic trait missing from my bingo card is humor (but monkeys seem close).

It may very well be that humans just got a constellation of traits that happened to fit really well together. If I was a betting man, I'd say:

- Very long brain development time. At birth, our skulls aren't even hard yet, and we're blind. This lets the brain develop at a slow pace towards general purpose problem solving.

- Hands are extremely helpful for tool making.

- Knowledge sharing. Yes, we're quite smart, but more importantly we can combine our findings through language and persist it over time through writing. This is an incredible change in the topology of knowledge. Even an animal with 3x intelligence would not stand a chance without language.

Generally speaking, very good points, just wanted to point out that writing is extremely recent in evolutionary terms. Modern humans are at least 10,000 years old (but more typically viewed as 100,000 years old). Writing, as you probably know, is only around 3000 years old (at least that we can verify).

It seems quite easy to conflate complexity with anthropomorphism, because we see ourselves as the apex, of sorts.

They really like being anthropomorphized.

There can be little doubt that octopodes routinely complain to one another about cephalopodizing humans. The low number of appendages, inflexible bodies, and erratic self-destructive behaviour make it hard to take seriously any claims that homo sapiens is anything but the simple-minded, land-bound, fear-driven mammal it appears to be.

Maybe they are just confused about the whole thing, you know. :)

Thank you for this. Perfect joke.

Engaging in play is not unique to humans, so assuming an animal is just fooling around is not anthropomorphizing anything.

It makes me wonder if they engage in "play" does it evoke some "emotion" in them such as joy etc? some reward maybe? and if it does does other scenarios evoke other emotions we consider to be human centric. Anyone have a link to a good paper regarding it?

Octopuses have been known to nuzzle favored humans with their tentacles, and to spit water at disliked humans through their siphon.

Do they really feel affection for their favored humans? I don't know. Discussions of this sort tend to devolve into debates about "qualia". What I do know is that octopuses appear to manifest signs of affection, and of contempt. And that I'd be honored to be nuzzled by an octopus, and I'd surely prefer that to being spit at by one.

It's amazing that some people are so arrogant that they think humans are the only species capable of playing and being anything but bots that respond to stimulation.

It's equally ignorant to assume they don't have emotions as it is to assume they do. We literally don't know, but the harm in assuming they don't is people get a free pass to be cruel without guilt. If you assume they do then maybe you'll think twice about torturing animals or destroying their habitats.

Anthropomorphizing animals is probably a good thing. Maybe we can gain some sympathy for fellow living things. The people like Joe Rogan that say it's 'dangerous' to anthropomorphize are, well, people like Joe Rogan.

The worst that can happen is you have empathy for them.

It's as much as the article says:

> “We weren’t able to try and assess what the reasons might be,”

On the other hand, evolutionary pressures and constraints of communication and game theory are frequently similar, and hence often lead to similar functional behavior even if the underlying systems are not homologous.

tx for sharing love this quote:

What looks intentional to one observer may seem accidental to another. “A lot of animal-behavior analysts would look at the same sequence of behavior and give a different interpretation,”