Two things have been bouncing off each other in my head for a while now. One is the bestselling The Soul of an Octopus by naturalist Sy Montgomery, which explores the psychology and individual personalities of that most intelligent of molluscs, the octopus. The other is the film The Arrival, in which a linguist is assigned to kick off communications with an alien species that strongly resembles the octopus. Having only seven arms, however, they’re called heptapods.

I was  particularly troubled by a piece in Popular Science that draws on linguistics professor Jessica Coon, who was consulted on the film, which goes in a lot of screwy directions in its thinking about life, grammar, and communication. Bottom line upfront, Coon seems to think that language is somewhat arbitrarily constructed and therefore we can expect a tough slog trying to communicate with aliens.

I think that a comparative psychologist, who studies the relationships between human and non-human cognition in Earth-based life, might give you a more realistic view of how the universe constructs things (it’s far from arbitrary) and thus a far more optimistic view of our chances at communicating with extraterrestrial intelligence.

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Before you get your undergarments in a bunch, let me reassure you that I’m not taking a stand against this party or that, or even against politicians in general. But, I am about to take a stand against partisanship, political archaism, and unrepresentative dynamics in supposedly democratic bodies.

The Senate has pulled the “nuclear option,” dropping the 60-vote hurdle for confirming nominations, and this has many people fearing that the Senate’s barriers to passing legislation could be next on the chopping block.

The perceived crisis was well-described in the New York Times:

But as both parties have moved to do what was once unthinkable — eliminating the filibuster for judicial and cabinet nominees, known as the nuclear option — senators are now forced to consider if the final step could be in the offing, one that would fundamentally alter the character of the Senate and make it indistinguishable from the House in a crucial way.

“Benjamin Franklin is somewhere turning over in his grave,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who has been a crucial player in the efforts to preserve the filibuster. “Why have a bicameral system?”

That is actually a damned good question. Continue reading →