full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Roger Hanlon: The amazing brains and morphing skin of octopuses and other cephalopods

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, speaking of brains and evolution at the moment, you look on the right, there's the pathway of vertebrate brain evolution, and we all have good brains. I think everyone will acknowledge that. But if you look on the left side, some of the evolutionary pathway outlined here to the octopus, they have both converged, if you will, to cpmloex broahveis and some form of iintecenglle. The last comomn denominator in these two liens was 600 million years ago, and it was a worm with very few neurons, so very divergent paths but convergence of complicated boieahvr.

Here is the fundamental question: Is the brain structure of an octopus basically different down to the tiniest level from the vertebrate line? Now, we don't know the answer, but if it turns out to be yes, then we have a different evolutionary pathway to create intelligence on planet Earth, and one might think that the afciitiarl intelligence citnommuy might be interested in those mechanisms.

Open Cloze


Now, speaking of brains and evolution at the moment, you look on the right, there's the pathway of vertebrate brain evolution, and we all have good brains. I think everyone will acknowledge that. But if you look on the left side, some of the evolutionary pathway outlined here to the octopus, they have both converged, if you will, to _______ _________ and some form of ____________. The last ______ denominator in these two _____ was 600 million years ago, and it was a worm with very few neurons, so very divergent paths but convergence of complicated ________.

Here is the fundamental question: Is the brain structure of an octopus basically different down to the tiniest level from the vertebrate line? Now, we don't know the answer, but if it turns out to be yes, then we have a different evolutionary pathway to create intelligence on planet Earth, and one might think that the __________ intelligence _________ might be interested in those mechanisms.

Solution


  1. behavior
  2. community
  3. common
  4. lines
  5. behaviors
  6. artificial
  7. complex
  8. intelligence

Original Text


Now, speaking of brains and evolution at the moment, you look on the right, there's the pathway of vertebrate brain evolution, and we all have good brains. I think everyone will acknowledge that. But if you look on the left side, some of the evolutionary pathway outlined here to the octopus, they have both converged, if you will, to complex behaviors and some form of intelligence. The last common denominator in these two lines was 600 million years ago, and it was a worm with very few neurons, so very divergent paths but convergence of complicated behavior.

Here is the fundamental question: Is the brain structure of an octopus basically different down to the tiniest level from the vertebrate line? Now, we don't know the answer, but if it turns out to be yes, then we have a different evolutionary pathway to create intelligence on planet Earth, and one might think that the artificial intelligence community might be interested in those mechanisms.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
satellite brains 2
neurally controlled 2
nervous system 2
million years 2
evolutionary pathway 2
artificial intelligence 2
smart skin 2
smooth skin 2


Important Words


  1. acknowledge
  2. answer
  3. artificial
  4. basically
  5. behavior
  6. behaviors
  7. brain
  8. brains
  9. common
  10. community
  11. complex
  12. complicated
  13. converged
  14. convergence
  15. create
  16. denominator
  17. divergent
  18. earth
  19. evolution
  20. evolutionary
  21. form
  22. fundamental
  23. good
  24. intelligence
  25. interested
  26. left
  27. level
  28. line
  29. lines
  30. mechanisms
  31. million
  32. moment
  33. neurons
  34. octopus
  35. outlined
  36. paths
  37. pathway
  38. planet
  39. side
  40. speaking
  41. structure
  42. tiniest
  43. turns
  44. vertebrate
  45. worm
  46. years