Why Each Octopus Arm Has a Mind of Its Own

为什么章鱼的每条触手都有自己的“思想”？

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—a kind of distributed intelligence unique to cephalopods. 章鱼非常聪明，它们不仅能从内部拧开罐子，还会向烦人的邻居投掷沙子。但它们的智慧只有一小部分来自那甜甜圈形状的大脑。章鱼大约有 5 亿个神经元，其中超过三分之二分布在八条长满吸盘的触手中——这是一种头足类动物独有的分布式智能。

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. 这些强有力的附肢中的每一条都能向任何方向移动，并能以极高的灵敏度进行感知和辨味。连接这八条触手的神经环使它们能够在不完全受大脑中枢控制的情况下，对海底进行探索。

What’s it like when your arms have minds of their own? Many mysteries—anatomical, behavioral, and philosophical—remain. But here’s some of what scientists have been able to learn about these unorthodox invertebrates. 当你的手臂拥有自己的“思想”时，那会是什么感觉？关于这一点，仍有许多解剖学、行为学和哲学上的谜团尚未解开。但以下是科学家们目前对这些非同寻常的无脊椎动物所了解的一些情况。