{"id":5307,"date":"2026-08-10T23:45:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T23:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=5307"},"modified":"2026-08-10T23:45:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T23:45:54","slug":"octopus-arms-distributed-intelligence-nine-brains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=5307","title":{"rendered":"Why Each Octopus Arm Has a Mind of Its Own"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span class=\"lead-in-text-callout\">Octopuses are clever<\/span> enough to unscrew jars from the inside and throw sand at their annoying neighbors. But only a fraction of their smarts come from their doughnut-shaped brains. Over two-thirds of their roughly 500 million neurons reside in eight sucker-studded arms\u2014a kind of distributed intelligence unique to cephalopods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Each of these powerful appendages can move in any direction and taste and feel with exquisite sensitivity. A nerve ring connecting all eight arms enables explorations of the seafloor that is not always governed by the central brain upstairs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">What&#8217;s it like when your arms <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/what-do-we-owe-the-octopus\/\" class=\"text link\">have minds of their own<\/a>? Many mysteries\u2014anatomical, behavioral, and philosophical\u2014remain. But here&#8217;s some of what scientists have been able to learn about these unorthodox invertebrates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/octopus-arms-distributed-intelligence-nine-brains\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Octopuses are clever enough to unscrew jars from the inside and throw sand at their annoying neighbors. But only a fraction of their smarts come from their doughnut-shaped brains. Over two-thirds of their roughly 500 million neurons reside in eight sucker-studded arms\u2014a kind of distributed intelligence unique to cephalopods. Each of these powerful appendages can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1151],"class_list":["post-5307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-galaxy-brain"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Each Octopus Arm Has a Mind of Its Own - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two-thirds of an octopus\u2019s neurons are in its arms\u2014each operating independently\u2014including the one it uses to have sex.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=5307\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Each Octopus Arm Has a Mind of Its Own - 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