Alien intelligence: the extraordinary minds of octopuses and other cephalopods

After a startling encounter with a cuttlefish, Australian philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith set out to explore the mysterious lives of cephalopods. He was left asking: why do such smart creatures live such a short time?Inches above the seafloor of Sydney's Cabbage Tree Bay, with the proximity made possible by several millimetres of neoprene and a scuba diving tank, I'm just about eyeball to eyeball with this creature: an Australian giant cuttlefish.Even allowing for the magnifying effects of the mask snug across my nose, it must be about 60cm (two feet) long, and the peculiarities that abound in the cephalopod family, that includes octopuses and squid, are the more striking writ so large. Continue reading...