The Soul of an Octopus - Sy Montgomery - Part 3

The Soul of an Octopus - Sy Montgomery

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 117

  April 27, 2017 

Book 34 - The Soul of an Octopus -
A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

Sy Montgomery (2015)
 Part 3 - pages 125-179
Reading Time - 1 hour

The author got to go diving near Cozumel off the Yucatan coast in Mexico. Apparently the diving there is amazing with one of the best barrier reefs in the world. But, before that, she had to get certified as a scuba diver. That took a bit... although it did make me vaguely interested in diving. Maybe. There's just so much more to see if you can scuba dive than if you just snorkel.

Several times in this book, the author has said interacting with octopuses was like meeting an intelligent alien. Others have said the same thing. With an octopus, we are not just the observers... we are also the observed. Which is kind of a funky feeling I would imagine.

While the octopus has a central brain, it would also appear that each arm has some independence as well. They are almost like separate creatures. And those suckers on their limbs... those suckers are strong! Through their suckers they can also taste everything... from seawater to chemicals that humans might have ingested (like medicine). We are such visual/auditory people... I wonder what it would be like to interact with the world from a sense of taste. Go around tasting things rather than just smelling or seeing things. That is part of it... the octopus and how it interacts with the world is just so different... we might not be smart enough to understand their intelligence... which is a weird thought. So much we don't know...