The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

MONTGOMERY, Sy. The Soul of an Octopus. Atria. 2015. 261p, illus., bibliog., index. WILLIAMS, Wendy. Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid. Abrams Image. 2011. 224p, illus., bibliog., index. These two books are about cephalopods –octopuses (not “octopi,” the word comes from Greek, not Latin) and squid. Both books are well written and copiously illustrated (photographs and drawings) but what makes them such fascinating reading is the creatures they are about. Octopuses and squid offer us our only examples of what intelligence and feeling could be like outside of the vertebrate family. University of Chicago neuroscientist Cliff Ragsdale comments: “Short of Martians showing up and offering themselves up to science, cephalopods are the only example outside of vertebrates of how to build a complex, clever brain.” Alexa, who works with octopuses as a volunteer, says: “There’s nothing as peculiar as an octopus.” (Both quoted in Montgomery) There is ample evidence of octopus intelligence. There is general agreement that they are among the smartest animals on earth. But it’s not our kind of intelligence, not even close although there enough points of similarity to convince observers they are reasoning and feeling. To start with, their brains are organized differently, distributed in parts spread across a central brain and eight tentacles rather than consolidated in one central spot like ours is. Furthermore, whatever they think and feel, their actions are so different from ours that in many cases, we don’t have a clue why they react like they do. Octopuses in captivity, even in the wild, respond differently to different people. With some they’re comfortable, even friendly, with others hostile or defensive. We know from this and from their puzzle-solving ability --they are master locksmiths, for instance, who can get though up to three sealed containers to reach the food within-- that they make inferences and remember what they’ve learned. They get bored, need to keep active. Bored octopuses held captive in tanks get in trouble, much like bored Border collies moping around a house get in trouble, but where the collie will likely chew up rugs and furniture, the octopus will try to escape, maybe migrate to a neighboring tank to eat the creatures inside it. Octopuses in captivity beg for food, appearing in the same part of the tank and adopting the same posture whenever food-bearers arrive. We can read their emotions in broad strokes: red, angry or excited: white, calm or indifferent. The books are written by seasoned science reporters. This is Montgomery’s ninth natural science book for adult readers and her twenty-first in all. For Williams, it’s her seventh. Both writers have won awards for science reporting. Montgomery’s is the warmer book, as she details her personal interactions with four octopuses in succession: gentle, friendly Athena; playful, inquiring Octavia; the more fiery Kali; and Karma. These are fascinating and informative books about a creature that’s like us in some respects but alien in most, an animal that sees and weighs us just as do it. Montgomery’s especially is about what it means to respect and love a creature without expecting it to become like us.

I have every confidence that author Sy Montgomery will be impressed to see a review of her book, "The Soul of an Octopus," begin with a hockey reference. Yes, hockey. At some point in Detroit's hockey history, someone had the bright idea to throw an octopus on the ice at the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Apparently the connection was that it took eight wins to earn the championship at that point in National Hockey League history, and an octopus had eight legs. It takes 16 wins to win the Stanley Cup now, but the tradition continues in Detroit. You can count on the fish stores being raided for octopuses before the game. Before reading this book, I thought of this tradition as something resembling harmless fun - part of Detroit's rich hockey heritage. Now, having read Montgomery's latest effort, I'm much more likely to be upset that such a noble, interesting creature is sacrificed in such a demeaning manner. Such is the effect of "The Soul of an Octopus," a frequently fascinating story about one of our friends from the sea. Most of this book centers on Montgomery's quest to get to know octopuses (and no, it's not octopi) better. Toward that goal, she frequently drove 2.5 hours from central, rural New Hampshire to Boston once a week (and 2.5 hours back) to an aquarium, where the caretakers let her get up close and personal with these creatures best known for having eight arms. After a while, Montgomery finds out just how complex these creatures can be. An octopus, it turns out, can solve simple puzzles. Enthusiastically greet people. Be bored. Love to play. Have a memory. This is one (relatively) smart mollusk. Who knew? And we have no idea just how clever an octopus really is, as we scratch the surface of the subject. The co-stars of the story are those who work at the New England Aquarium in Boston. They come across here as kind and loving individuals when it comes to the facility's 'residents." When something goes wrong for whatever reason, they seem to take it personally. The book has the odd story of someone coming in at 3 in the morning when an overnight staffer notices a problem. The level of dedication is impressive. Speaking of dedication, Montgomery herself went to great lengths in order to gain first-hand knowledge about the subject. This is someone who flew to Seattle, just to watch a couple of octopuses have sex. She also took up scuba diving, just so that she could go underwater in places like the coast of Mexico to take a look at octopuses in their natural habitat. The author did plenty of homework for this book, as the research shows up on every page. Her enthusiasm for the subject certainly comes across as well. The starring octopuses here aren't just creatures of the deep - they became her friends. One other point - there are a few scientific terms thrown about here, if that's a concern. But while you might feel the need once in a while to grab a dictionary, the jargon generally isn't intimidating - even for someone who is more familiar with hockey terms than scientific phrases. (Guilty.) Science can be difficult for many people to grasp, and Montgomery has a nice way of mixing first-person experiences with other information to make her books reader-friendly. "The Soul of an Octopus" follows that tradition well. You'll want to use all of your arms to wrap yourself around it.

Octopuses (not octopi, I learned) are clearly interesting creatures: Eight armed. Nine brained (a brain in every arm, plus one in the mantle). Camouflage expertise. Escape artist. Intelligent and curious. Who wouldn’t want to learn more about them? This book is not just a dry recitation of facts and observations about octopuses. The author (and naturalist) is as interested and fascinated in octopuses as most people are with dogs and cats. Her affection for octopuses (and, apparently, their affection for her) made this science-oriented book also a very personal book. Much of the author’s time with octopuses takes place within aquariums (although she also did some ocean SCUBA diving as well). That allowed the author to also talk about the some of the aquarium’s employees and volunteers, thus bringing additional personal anecdotes into the book – as well as also writing about their observations and interactions with the aquariums’ octopuses (and other sea life). There are some repetitive aspects to this book. The author would often interact with an octopus by putting her bare arm into the octopus’ tank and experiencing the octopus then grasping her arm with one or two of its tenacles. That always thrilled the author. (And it would have thrilled me, too.) But, as a reader, the thrill got a little less with each telling. The author (and many aquarium personnel) attributed some of an octopus’ behaviors as signs of its intelligence, curiosity or playfulness. Probably so, as we attribute those characteristics to dogs and cats, too. And it’s why the title refers to the “soul” of an octopus. But can we ever really know creatures so very different from us? Bottom line: It’s fun to learn about fascinating creatures, especially when the author is so fascinated by them too.

A worthy companion piece (even if the author didn't intend it as such) to Peter Godfrey-Smith's "Other Minds:________" While I already knew from other accounts (Godfrey-Smith, Jacques Cousteau, etc.) that octopuses were not only intelligent but ofttimes friendly and playful creatures, this book takes that notion even further; not only are octopuses sentient beings, they apparently even have distinct individual personalities (and, arguably, apparently even emotions) that become evident in their different interactions with individual human beings. A most fascinating, sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, always engrossing and enjoyable read. RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS (and noteworthy passages): --"I knew little about octopuses—not even that the scientifically correct plural is not octopi, as I had always believed (it turns out you can’t put a Latin ending—i—on a word derived from Greek, such as octopus)." Hey wow, just like my buddy Jeremy Nelson said! It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange." Like that one octopus escape video I posted on Facebook a coupla months back that got so much attention . --"they are classed within the invertebrates as mollusks, as are slugs and snails and clams, animals that are not particularly renowned for their intellect. Clams don’t even have brains." Ironic taxonomic company that the octopus keeps. --Victor Hugo was such a woefully ignorant phuquetard when it came to the octopus. --"Her black pupil is a fat hyphen in a pearly globe. Its expression reminds me of the look in the eyes of paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses: serene, all-knowing, heavy with wisdom stretching back beyond time." Same can be said about cuttlefish. Squids' eyes, by contrast, aren't so dreamy-looking. --"As I stroke her with my fingertips, her skin goes white beneath my touch. White is the color of a relaxed octopus; in cuttlefish, close relatives of octopus, females turn white when they encounter a fellow female, someone whom they need not fight or flee." In the immortal words of Johnny Carson, "I *did* not *know* that!" I’ve always harbored a fondness for monsters. Even as a child, I had rooted for Godzilla and King Kong instead of for the people trying to kill them. It had seemed to me that these monsters’ irritation was perfectly reasonable. Nobody likes to be awakened from slumber by a nuclear explosion, so it was no wonder to me Godzilla was crabby; as for King Kong, few men would blame him for his attraction to pretty Fay Wray. (Though her screaming would have eventually put off anyone less patient than a gorilla.)" Haha, valid point. --"'There’s always an effort to minimize emotion and intelligence in other species,' the New England Aquarium’s director of public relations, Tony LaCasse, said after I met Athena. 'The prejudice is particularly strong against fish and invertebrates,' agreed Scott." Against birds too, I would hasten to add. --"Each arm seemed like a separate creature, with a mind of its own. In fact, this is almost literally true. Three fifths of octopuses’ neurons are not in the brain but in the arms." Just like discussed in the book "Other Minds." --"And yet, this body, so unlike my own, was responding to my touch like a dog’s or a cat’s or a child’s. Even though her skin can change color and taste flavors, it, like mine, relaxes into a caress. And though her mouth is between her arms, and her saliva dissolves flesh, she, like me, clearly enjoys a good meal when she’s hungry." Aaww shucks. --"If animals were conscious, according to one book, written by a Tufts University professor, dogs would untangle their leashes from poles and dolphins would leap out of tuna nets. (That author clearly doesn’t read Dear Abby. Why don’t those women leave their abusive husbands? Why won’t that couple just stop visiting the rude in-laws?)" Bingo. --"'An aquarium without an octopus,' as the Victorian naturalist Henry Lee of Brighton, UK, wrote in 1875, 'is like a plum pudding without plums.'" Too bad Henry Lee couldn't slap some sense into Victor Hugo! --"The eel was dreaming." Wow! --"The students were supposed to refer to their animals by numbers in their research papers, but they ended up calling them by name: Jet Stream, Martha, Gertrude, Henry, Bob. Some were so friendly, Alexa said, 'they would lift their arms out of the water like a dog jumps up to greet you'—or like a child who wants to be lifted up and hugged." Jet Stream the Octopus = Jet the Dog?!?! --"The bliss of stroking an octopus’s head is difficult to convey to most people, even to animal lovers." Must add this to my bucket list....

After watching a documentary called "My Octopus Teacher," I became very interested in these fascinating creatures. This non-fiction book taught me more about them.

Recommended to me by an 88-year-old volunteer at a Philadelphia bookstore, this book not only held my attention but also captured my heart. I've since given away a copy as a gift to a dear friend, hoping she enjoys it as much as I did. It's a magical book that redefines what "love story" means. Not a quick and easy read. This one deserves to be savored.

The title of this book is a misnomer, and therein lies the bait-and-switch. (Disclosure, some spoilers ahead) This is more a memoir and meditation of a naturalist longing to feel a connection with a creature that shows more nuance and intelligence than most; in short her own spiritual journey. She warns against anthropomorphizing animals's behaviors but then proceeds to do exactly this over the course of the book. The book itself is well-written, but hard to slog through at times, given the breezy, often tangential prose. She conveys enough interesting interspersed facts about these creatures as to have given me further desire to look more into the subject matter, and for that I am grateful. I believe the author to have a good heart and is well-meaning but unfortunately comes across as superficially naive with an undercurrent of narcissism that cannot be ignored; you get the sense of "Look at me!" much too often especially when she details her learning scuba diving techniques and the challenges thereof. I have read some of the author's other books that did not me this impression. There are too many digressions into the lives of her friends and her own personal experience. I'm an MD psychiatrist, and as such my bias/responisibility will always be shifted towards confidentiality and discretion as it pertains to my patients and friends/family. This maybe why I find the sharing of intensely personal details regarding these peoples's lives so jarring especially given that these do little to advance the purported story of the octopus; with intent as far as I can see that which is given that these people of diverse backgrounds can come together and admire and feel a connection with this creature, ergo said creature has a soul, ergo we are all good people. The logical fallacy I will not go into here. I find what is most interesting about this book is the fact that it provokes such a strong moral question that is cavalierly overlooked and not discussed by this author. If we are operating under the principle that the octopus has higherintelligence and a soul, are we not doing the ultimate disservice to the creature, by keeping them in an artificial prison of our design to be looked at and played with at our leisure? There was an instance where the author discusses the trapping process of the octopus that made me inwardly cringe with emphasis on the danger of the transportation process. Other instances of discomfort are that one of the octopuses in the narrative is in as far as I understood to be in a large barrel that she increasingly did not fit in, but needed to be kept there because the other octopus in the larger tank was still living. This octopus once moved to a larger tank immediately proceeds to escape. The staff, the author, and the other octopus support staff are all distraught, and one character states something along the lines of "at least she had one day of freedom". To which I say, how about a life? One final instance where I was very uncomfortable was the concept of the Valentine's Day date/mate incident at the Seattle aquarium. A male and female are held in a tank separated by a common barrier that is released on V-day, and the public is treated to a show. To me this seems to cheapen the dignity of what should be the most private of undertakings into mass entertainment. I have not thought so deeply about a zoo/aquarium previously, but I felt an increasing feeling of unease regarding our common practices of taming nature while simultaneously shouting to the world how much we respect it. The hypocrisy jumps out at me the more I meditate on the subject matter.

This book is just such a lovely book. So full of facts, but also so full of love for the species. I'm going to recommend it to my book club.

Even if one has no interest in octopuses, the amazing parallel worlds detailed in the book are mind-expanding. There is so much about life and this planet I will never see the same again. And that is a good thing.

Fascinante!!

What a charming tale by a sympathetic biologist about wonderful animals with a soul: three hearts, nine brains, and a vocabulary of mood expression through a spectrum of changing colours. You will oookk differently at animals after this: and want to see an octopus at close range, with hands on (Their suckers leave love hickies when pleased by your taste and mood.

One of my favourite books! To experience the thoughts and life of another. An in-depth look, scientifically & emotionally of what great writing can produce.

Fantastic insights and a lovely personal story.