The test which I remember was of an octopus being put into a cage which was locked with a type of combination lock which the octopus was able to manipulate from inside the cage.
The different octopi were able to figure out the combinations quickly and escape from the cage.
But that’s not all...
When an octopus which had learned the lock combination reproduced, the baby octopus was born knowing the lock combination.
👀
A few years back, a local bar owner went fishing and caught an octopus. Instead of throwing it back, he took it to his bar and put it in his aquarium.
The Octopus would rearrange the contents of the aquarium, plants, objects, decorations, etc.
The man would put them back where they came from, but during the night the octopus would rearrange them back again!....................
That would be amazing... similar to birds and butterflies knowing how to find their way to places they've never been.
Science fiction always glosses over the problems of communication - when it should be obvious there's a problem... Not one species in OUR world - that we've lived with for millions of years - that we can communicate with.
If it becomes a problem get a new lock.
I’ll tell you an absolutely true story from my past.
I had an ex that was a very ambitious type who went on to have a very distinguished career in the biosciences. But she was also a bit of a whackjob.
When she was in elementary or middle school she won the science fair.
Her project was (don’t ask me how or the particulars) that she “taught” goldfish to swim around the bowl in a certain way. Again I know this doesn’t make a ton of sense but keep in mind I’m relaying a story I heard second hand 40 or so years ago.
Then she ground these goldfish up and fed the ground up goldfish to other goldfish who she claimed now knew how to swim the way she had taught the original fish to swim.
Except ... it was all BS. She had made up all the results. But she won the science fair.
Moral of the story? There’s probably a healthy does of wishful thinking that goes into a lot of this stuff. People want to believe many of these “theories”.