Moontanman

I think it should be said that the octopus in the above video is not your run of the mill octopus, I've never seen one even come close to moving on land like that one did. I've kept dozens in captivity and seen dozens in the wild. I've actually had three, years apart, crawl up out of the surf and attempt to crawl up my leg but in all cases the octopus looked more like a glob of goo with arms flowing along on land. I am fascinated by the above video, the octopus actually is able to maintain it's bodies integrity while moving fast, faster than the crab, which is almost unbelievable on land. If I hadn't seen the video I wouldn't have believed it, I've heard of octopus crawling out of the water around dock and catching rats but that is just hearsay. Oh and an octopus has 9 brains, networked together, but they can act independently as well. Natural selection is a harsh mistress but it does produce surprising results. +

China's navy is a poor rival to the US pacific fleet, if the US went into all out war mode China would lose it's navy quite fast, it's aircraft carrier is a joke even to china and so are the planes that fly from it being called some like a flopping fish in Chinese because of their tendency to take off from the carrier and dive into the water. Of course that wouldn't necessarily keep china from doing it's best to fight the US but my bet is that china would resort to nuclear weapons if the US actually landed on Chinese soil. Russia is a wild card, Putin is an autocrat whose grip on power is based on his image as much as anything. He might do something crazy just to maintain his shirtless horse riding.

I am not a big fan of the super being idea as i think you stated in the ants comparison so maybe you agree with me. How ever natural selection pressures resulting in humanoid aliens is IMHO a big stretch, water selection pressure is quite straight forward.. Every thing from squids to dolphins are under pretty much the same pressure to go through water as fast as possible. This results in a similar body shape due to the physics of moving through water. I'd really like you to elaborate on why octopuses couldn't conquer the land, the only realistic reason i can think of is that vertebrates already dominate the land, remove them and the octopus IMHO could conquer the land given time and selection pressure. Land how ever can be quite different from gravity to air content to pressure, I'm not sure I would place a bet on even vertebrates evolving much less humanoids. Pretty much spot on.

How do you know the octopus form wouldn't be better if they evolved in the direction of conquering land?

I don't think you would think of our chimp like ancestors as star travelers either, I love the elephants too...

It did have legs and my first thought was some sort of giant salamander, they do occur in Asia, but this video is not in Asia. I have to admit to being a little bit stupid, I would have tried to catch it, it wasn't "that" big!

I wouldn't cross out crows or octopus out of hand, crows are very good at solving problems and using tools, even altering natural objects to improve their use as tools Octopus also use tools and some populations actually live in groups and their ability to leave the water seems to mirror the first fishes evolutionary trip to land. Of course we would have to get out of the way. I forgot to mention that off the coast of central America an octopus species was found that lived through at least two or three mattings but the species has not been seen for decades and is presumed extinct. Over fishing may have played a part. If I remember correctly they had fewer young than other octopuses. I ran across this in a book when i was a teenager so i have no source for it so take it with a grain of salt.

I wasn't replying directly to you two but to the whole thread, it is correct I never had a intelligible conversation with an octopus but they do react to my presence and I was able to judge their emotional state as well as interact with them and when they wanted attention they would lift the glass cover and squirt water at me as I passed by. Once one of them actually squirted water on me while I was being intimate with my wife,, his aim was impeccable. The idea that crows, and other intelligent animals, don't fly star ships is missing the point, a couple million years of evolution and octopus might be colonizing Mars due to the low gravity. It took the human linage 6 or 7 million years to get to the moon. How much interaction with crows have you had? I suggest you do a little research about crows, even wild crows do some amazing things with tools and a complex communication system even bonding with humans who are kind to them and ganging up on humans who are mean to them, remembering the specific humans even years later. Beecee I missed your post on the ants idea, I apologize. Other planes of existence is not the same as the multiverse and has even less evidence but UFO abductees and even some researchers, and i mean real scientists, have frustratingly said it's like they pass in and out of existence as they go some place "else" meaning another plane of existence but I was just making a sarcastic joke when I said it.

Oops I forgot the link! 33:59

Mormyrid fishes have the largest branes compared to body size of any vertebrate and it would seem the part that is the biggest is the part we use to think! I knew they had large brains but this video astonished even me. I have a mormyrid right now, I've had his for 6 months and he has some quite interesting behaviors. One of which is his interest in moving magnets and his voracious apatite. He uses his electric field to bully the other fish away from food and eats like a pig. This video, if anyone is interested, at least partially explains his eating habits and the composition of his brain.

What the hell is this at 33:59?

As a long term studier of octopus I can assure you they are sapient, but they seem to have hit an revolutionary wall with the whole mate and die thing. Keeping them from mating helps but not much, if you have never kept octopus in captivity and interacted with them on a daily basis it's difficult for me to explain why i take this stance. They have emotions, and even a sense of humor, if not for their short life spans and the high gravity of earth we would be their slaves. I would also like to comment on the idea of aliens being above us as we are ants... talk about speculation!!! In my personal opinion the idea of super beings is bullshit, improbable speculation at least, AI might reach such levels but I have my doubts about that was well. BTW we study ants, in very elaborate ways, even if super beings existed there is reason to think that some of them would want to study the rectums' of rednecks... Wouldn't it be a hoot if traveling to other plans of existence turns out to be far easier than star travel?

There seems to be some interesting chemistry happing in Titan, liquid methane and ethane lakes and seas, with a mysterious loss of hydrogen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry#Other_solvents_or_cosolvents

I think I'd have to trade the anomalocaris for a small species of sauropod, plenty of crustaceans to eat in the ocean already. A large part of the subglacial ecosystem still exists, caribou, musk oxen, and smaller animals, you could go ahead and resurrect the woolly rhino, and the aurochs. The northern ecosystem needs these animals to help stop global warming https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2017.0437 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0217166

If you could, lets say you have been granted limited god status, and all you can do is bring back 4 extinct animals in large enough numbers to establish a breeding population, what would they be and why? Anomalocaris, because they are big and look delicious. Ichthyosaur, Because I'd like to see how they interact with dolphins. The smaller species. Liopleurodon, small species, because i'd like to see them interact with dolphins as well. Woolly Mammoth, because I hope they can genetically engineer one the size of a small pony so I can own one.

Across Real Time" Verner Diving. is a great read an. I also enjoyed A book called "steel breach"

Dou you not think the lack of explanation become important at some point? Show what can cause two weekends of insanity in Washington, DC glowing orbs seen in the sky, integration with both civivilain aircraft, the orbs were see from the ground by hundreds, picked up by two separate ground radars, see by the men who manned those radars even to the point of being able to tell on radar two they are in your area of radar one and the checked and they were there. While none of these things prove anything they certainly do suggest something. What do they suggest to you?

Since you were kind enough to point out my grammar I will again point out shreds of real evidence which I also pointed out were not necessarily aliens. How ever it becomes ever more difficult to handwave away the reports that cannot be explained even though prodiditious amounts of evidence exist.

I think radar returns connected with glowing objects flying over restricted areas reported by both civilian and military personnel in Washington DC, interacting with both civilian and military aircraft constitute solid evidence. Turning off ten ICBMs at Malmstrom Air Force Base and at other bases as well is suspicious at the very least. I think the government admitting to these radar returns and radar jamming not to mention admitting these objects could constitute a flight hazard to our aircraft and a danger to our nation constitutes a few threads of evidence. None of this makes them aliens but it should peak the interest of any normal people. Hitchens razor can be quite dangerous if not used properly.

I can't believe I got no takers on the trucker and the UFO!

The tank is progressing well!

One of my favorite aquarium fish! I've known for a long time they we special from their behaviors but this video suggests they actually talk. The details are too complex for me to do it justice but the video explains it very well and provides links to the papers the video author uses to make his video. The fish had the biggest brain to body ratio in the vertebrate kingdom and uses electrical impulses to communicate in a way that suggests language. The fishes cerebellum is extra large as well. These fish live in murky water and they school so they communicate to keep the school together but other impulses mimic actual conversations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormyridae https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00603-5 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)31405-2 Sorry about the video but it is a complex subject.