The Tentacles of Life

Mind Under Matter

Do you ever wonder what alien consciousness could be like?

The Oceanic Exploring Boys of Comedy™ take a deep dive under the surface and through evolutionary time to contemplate the minds of octopus.

You don’t need sci-fi to see an alien world, marine biologists research it every day. Octopus and humans’ closest common ancestor was a worm-like creature that existed about 600 million years ago. Our tentacles of evolution went off to become a wide range of vertebrates and all sorts of large-brained mammals. Invertebrates took a very different path and tended to opt-out of those costly big brains. But octopus prove that you don’t need a spine to have an incredibly impressive mind.

Who says a brain needs to be a certain way at all? Octopus evolved brains completely independently from our boney lineage. They might be the best creature on earth to study for learning about what kinds of minds might be possible elsewhere in the universe.

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