Sealife

[raino]

Had a fun family outing at Sealife aquarium, looking at weird and wonderful sea creatures, feeding fish, etc. Sea anemone and coral animals, starfish and medusae are fascinating and otherworldly beautiful, but they give me a similar feeling of dread as seeing a huge truck driving across the zebra stripes I crossed only 30 seconds before. A sense of just-missed terrible catastrophe. Those animals which hardly have any kind of central nervous system seem to be doing just fine. Their species have lived for millions of years without eyes, without intentional communications, without even tiny brains... what if evolution had never taken the turn towards complex brains? It's not hard at all to imagine an Earth with only starfish and mollusks and medusas and such, and it gives me shivers.

All the rainbows and sunsets and colours and no eyes to ever see them. All the possibilities of touch and mating, and no-one with a skin to welcome another's touch. No companionship, or pleasure of successfull communication. Admittedly, a lot of suffering would have been avoided, but still! I'm so thankful for my (our) big brains and all the complexities that follow from having them.

Comments

[flexagon]

Recommended:
https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Octopus-Surprising-Exploration-Consciousness/dp/1451697724/ref=sr_1_1

And also for a different reason, but exactly on topic:
https://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640/ref=sr_1_1

[raino]

Ohhh I loved Blindsight - or not exactly loved, it was gross and intensely scary, but it really made an impact. Got under my skin. Watts was in Finland as a guest of honor in a scifi con, and i went to his kaffeeklatch, and he was super cheerful and energetic, a total opposite from Blindsight!

I’m going to look into the octopus book since you must have good judgement about books!