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[Music]

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so in front of you right now is the

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phylogeny the family tree of the animals

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it is the diversity of the nervous

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system with the exception of perhaps

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porifera the sponges toward the top

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despite this diversity the

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overwhelmingly preferred model within

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the behavioral sciences is here the

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vertebrates which includes ourselves as

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the mind continues to diversify into

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unimaginable forms in the world and

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perhaps the universe around us so if we

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wish to understand the mind we should

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look beyond the vertebrate model to

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other forms of thought entirely and for

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this reason I have chosen the octopus is

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my model organism it has been for over

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five hundred million years that the

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octopus has been involved in cognitive

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complexity in parallel to that of

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vertebrates but has done so through

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entirely divergent neural architecture

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most of the octopuses nervous system

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exists within its arms as a distributed

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network this allows it to offload a

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great deal of computation from its brain

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into its arms and this allows it to

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process massive amounts of information

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in parallel including the information

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necessary to control the infinite

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degrees of freedom of its arms they

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don't really have fixed joints like we

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do as well as the massive amount of

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sensory information available from their

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suckers this is the morphology of the

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sucker it can orient and the spherical

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muscle you see in the middle when

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contracted will make will activate the

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adhesion mechanism if the proper seal is

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made this is what the innervation of the

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sucker looks like on the face of the

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sucker disk is where you'll have

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mechanical receptors those are dedicated

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to processing the shape of the substrate

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that's attached to him as well as assess

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the integrity of the adhesion mechanism

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along the outer rim where it's exposed

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to the most number of dissolved

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chemicals is naturally the Kimura

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system there are tens of thousands of

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both chemical and mechanical receptors

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in each sucker to put that into

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perspective each one of your fingertips

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has a few hundred mechanical receptors

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so it's a lot of information that these

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suckers are processing and the way

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they're able to do that is that each one

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has been delegated a cluster of neurons

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that serves as a local sensory and motor

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computation Center called a ganglion

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these ganglia are among a chain that

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projects toward the brain so the brain

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is where the eight arms converged and at

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the base of each arm there is a neural

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ring that serves to unite them that

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serves as a means by which the arms can

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communicate with each other without

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what you see here is a cross-section

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with the neurons stained in black like I

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said each sucker has its own ganglion

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each one of those ganglia wallet

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projects to each sucker shares

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information likewise with the arm

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musculature surrounding it

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so each ganglia processes the

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information from the local sucker from

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local musculature and as well controls

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that segment of the musculature and the

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sucker itself most of this information

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doesn't make it to the brain at all the

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brain receives but a very highly

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abstracted sense of what's going on out

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in the world and it will respond with a

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very generalized motor plan that will

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get specified based on this very densely

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innervated sensory field here is a

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simplified schematic of the cross

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section of the arm in a way the octopus

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has sent its mind down to the

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environment to meet halfway so it's a

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very different way of thinking about the

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world so what we're doing is we're using

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behavioral tracking to characterize how

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the suckers and the arms are

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collectively acquiring integrating and

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responding to information in the

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environment which I'm going to walk you

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guys through right now so from the level

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of the suckers what we can do is provide

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an arm with a simple puzzle or

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by which it's able to extract some food

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and we can simply characterize the

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strategies that's using to do this what

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becomes immediately apparent to us is

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that once a sucker makes contact with a

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stimulus it immediately recruits its

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immediate neighbor to joining it what

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you see here is the segment's lighting

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up proportionately to their angular

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speed during the course of this behavior

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so this is consistent with research that

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was done before me and what is showing

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us is that once the sucker makes contact

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with the stimulus it is recruiting the

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next sucker over to bend it toward the

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source of that stimulus once it makes

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contact with that stimulus it will do

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the same thing for the next sucker until

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it propagates the signal down the length

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of the arm and again the information

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acquired from the stimulus is highly

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abstracted on its way to the brain this

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dot is highlighting the different parts

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of the arm or the different segments and

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it's showing based on color coordination

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how the other segments are correlated

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with that one in terms of its angular

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speed what becomes apparent is that

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there is accordingly this symmetry

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around the point of original point of

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contact showing both distal and proximal

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recruitment of suckers and toward the

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tip of the arm where the arm is actually

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wrapping around the stimulus what you

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see here is how the strategy actually

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changed over time we recognized that

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there was two strategies that the arm

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was mainly using one was really the arm

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feeling around in the water column and

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the other one as a direct consequence of

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the mechanism I just described to you go

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straight for the wall and so it's

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following the wall like you might amaze

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if you wanted to get out of it

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interestingly enough the highlighted

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images are when there actually is no

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food in the box and what we started to

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notice was that while following was

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overwhelmingly preferred in these cases

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so in lack of chemical information in

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other

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words for the next task we made it a

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little bit more interesting by added a

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texture on one side by the way you're

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looking at this sideways but I couldn't

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bear to show you guys a vertical video

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so this showed a very similar pattern

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but it was particularly strong in the

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direction of the texture itself as you

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can see so what was the arm doing during

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this time it was literally just feeling

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up the texture so what it what seems to

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be the case is that the arm uses the

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chemical and mechanical composition of

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the environment as a framework upon

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which to behave the brain doesn't need

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to choose where the arm bends that's the

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environment doing that this is probably

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an intrinsic property of the soft bodied

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intelligence it's using the environment

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as a computational resource and

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mechanical novelty is a particularly

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strong reference by which is able to do

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drawback of this different kind of

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intelligence is that sometimes there's

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not always a consensus in the arm will

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play tug-of-war with itself but there

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are drawbacks to our kind of

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intelligence too but that's going to be

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all right let's reorient ourselves so

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what this mechanism allows it to do is

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it maximizes both the amount of control

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that the arm has over a given stimulus

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as well as the amount of increment

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information gathered from that stimulus

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so this is particularly a particularly

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important time for a pert particularly

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interesting stimuli as well as stimuli

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that might be struggling for its life so

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if you ever feel an octopus grabbing on

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to you don't struggle so what's actually

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happening at the system's level and this

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is happening well when one sucker grabs

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on to an object it sends a signal to the

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brain again a very abstracted signal but

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then as a next sucker over also gains

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access to that signal or stimulus that

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signal is going to be a lot stronger

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until it reaches a certain threshold at

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which point the brain is recruited the

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brain is the node by which the arms vie

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for control over the others and a

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winner-take-all fashion at that point

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the brain will update the motive

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strategy of the arms and again that

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information that is in the peripheral

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nervous system will be used to specify

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that information or specify that motor

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so we can track this as well and and the

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way we're able to do this is by looking

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at synchronous versus asynchronous

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movement in the arms because what

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synchronous movement will tell us is

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that it's not the arms really doing this

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it's that the brain is intervening to be

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able to update the motor plan of the

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this broad motor plan generated from the

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brain can be very dramatic in this case

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you can see how all the arms have been

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told to reach at the same time and again

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it's the information that never makes it

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to the brain at all that is being used

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to locally modify that behavior to fit

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the conditions at that time and we can

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track that too for now so we are also

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seeing this other kind of recruitment

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strategy I've talked about sucker to

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sucker

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I've talked about armed brain we can see

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that the arm will actually create its

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neighbors but this happens a lot more

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turbulent environments because obviously

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the arms from all sides are now getting

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a lot more information it's not a simple

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just like one object one behavior kind

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of task so you saw it there you can see

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it again here and it's not hard to watch

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I've had them described to me as living

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lava lamps okay so what do we think is

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happening here well through the ganglia

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so a separate pathway and then through

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the ring which is called the inter

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brachial commissure which is a bit of a

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mouthful a signal will be sent to the

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neighboring arms those arms will

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actually join the one that sent the

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signal to begin with and then now the

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representation of that stimulus now

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being handled by three arms will have

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the maximized amount of representation

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and the narrow system and that will

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recruit the brain so characterizing

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these strategies these recruitment

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strategies sucker to sucker arm to arm

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and arm to brain will give us a sense

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for how the suckers and arms are

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collectively acquiring integrating and

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responding to information in the

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environment and to what extent the brain

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our methods starting with

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two-dimensional tracking have become

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more sophisticated now we move into

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three-dimensional tracking now for the

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first time ever we can completely

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characterize the movement patterns of

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the octopus and its arms and all their

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infinite degrees of freedom allowing us

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to characterize the strategies that the

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octopus is using to coordinate its

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distributed mind characterizing the

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computational strategies of these

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alternative models of intelligence are

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using will give us a perspective on the

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forms of intelligence we can expect from

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worlds beyond our own so this was

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obviously a team effort I can possibly

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do this alone

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so I'd like to thank my research

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assistants everyone in my lab I'd like

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to thank the University of Washington

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Institute for Near Engineering who has

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funded mean is currently funding to my

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research assistants Friday Harbor

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laboratories which is where I'm

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currently doing my research for the

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summer and of course University of

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Washington master biology program if it

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weren't for them I wouldn't be here at

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all

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[Applause]

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[Music]

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[Applause]

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Thank You Domini

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do we have any questions I didn't get to

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comment on it so uh you know when you

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read anthropological literature that a

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lot of explanations for why we have such

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a big brains you know the expensive

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tissue hypothesis or sexual selection

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and in I'm wondering in the octopus

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community what hypotheses have been put

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forward as to explain why that octopus

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has such a big brain so I'm gonna repeat

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the question just to contextualise it so

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what did select for the octopus's brain

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as opposed to like our brain right it's

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or as opposed to other invertebrate

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brains that aren't as big as octopus

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brains

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ah yes okay so that's a really relevant

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question and we don't have all the

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answers we weren't there during their

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evolution nor were we here for our

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evolution and our intelligence was

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selected by our environment we don't

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have a generalized intelligence we have

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a repurposed intelligence that seems

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more generalized than what it was

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probably used best for at the time if I

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were to speculate the octopus probably

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had extracted foraging as its most

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overwhelmingly selective pressure so it

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had to find and extract food and so

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that's why you get this while following

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this is why you get this preference for

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novelty for instance the arms are

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sampling and even with the brain removed

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or even with the arm removed this

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exploration strategy that you guys saw

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in front of you happens so it is

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embedded within the nervous system of

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the arms and it will activate even

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without the brain at all but it's

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important because we have with us the

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consequences of the Selective pressure

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for our intelligence as do they and as

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well whatever evolves to intelligence

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anywhere out there in the universe is

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that if your answer there are lots of

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other vertebrates who also have that

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living strategy whose brains are much

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smaller than the octopus that's true

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yeah but they figured it out in a very

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different way the size of the brain does

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I like to make the point that more

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important than the question how

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intelligent are they is how are they

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intelligent and we can ask that question

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to anything that's out there somewhat

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related but one of the paradoxes well

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one of the things that's often presented

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as a paradox of octopus intelligence is

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the relatively short life span like some

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species only one or two years so I was

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wondering in terms of memory with this

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distributed intelligence do you is there

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evidence that the arms maintain some

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kind of memory of their environment and

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how long that persists and how that's

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transmitted if we can show that it would

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change the field forever there a good

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question that was a lot of fun um

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there's a lot of other cephalopods

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besides octopi mm-hmm

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how similar are different are they given

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that they have different completely

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different life styles yeah so they're

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yeah their mode of lifestyle is very

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different as you mentioned in terms of

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their neural Anatomy what you'll get is

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that the the peripheral nervous system

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for the squid cuttlefish is not as

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distributed as that for the octopus but

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the brain itself is more distributed

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which is interesting in the case of

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squid you'll actually have more

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sophisticated optic lobes which is

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something I did not talk about so it's

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supposedly suggesting that the eyes are

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more sophisticated than that of the

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octopus which is interesting because the

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octopus during the day is primarily a

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visual hunter and this probably has

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something to do with the squids pelagic

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lifestyle so they live in the water

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column they probably need to see farther