Re: planets

Ed Heil wrote:
>
> Patrick Dunn wrote:
> > Wouldn't there need to be some kind of pressure on the octopus
> > population
> > in order to select for intelligence?
>
> I don't think that anybody is sure exactly why humans developed human
> intelligence at exactly the time they did.  Selection pressure, side
> effect of heat demands on the brain from walking upright on savannahs,
> there are all kinds of ideas out there but nobody knows for sure.
>
        Mmmm... That's very true. How knows, maybe intelligence is just a side
effect of the position of the connection between the spinal column and
the head :) .

> > Hmm.  Maybe we should uplift
> > octopuses; then we wouldn't be so lonely.
>
> Maybe they're already "uplifted."  Perhaps they are the great
> neglected marine intelligence; everybody's busy channeling dolphins to
> produce tarot card sets, but the octopodes quietly construct their
> philosophies and poetry....
>
        Have you ever tried channeling an octopus by chance? :) Well, maybe
they just look too weird for us. After all, when people think of
monsters, there's a big chance that those monsters have tentacles...

> >  I wonder what octopus speech
> > would be like.  Do they make noises?
>
> Dunno.  But I learned recently that if we were not fully bipedal, we
> wouldn't be able to talk like we do.  A quadruped needs to co-ordinate
> breath with pace, in order to inflate the thorax so it has the
> necessary rigidity at the necessary times.  A biped can breathe
> however it wants to.  Chimps cannot produce the kinds of airstreams
> necessary for oral speech because their breathing follows a quadruped
> pattern -- they're only semi-bipedal at best.
>
        And for an octuped? :) Seriously I doubt that octopodes can make
noises. But with all those tentacles, maybe they are the real Rikchiks
:) .

> Ed
>
--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
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