Creature with a non-centralized brain

I've always found animal intelligence to be fascinating, particularly that of the cephalopods, some of which show some pretty remarkable talents for tool usage, mimicry, and pattern recognition.

Apparently:

Two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are found in the nerve cords of its arms, which have limited functional autonomy. Octopus arms show a variety of complex reflex actions that persist even when they have no input from the brain.

Perhaps this explains the feeling that while the the octopus is obviously intelligent it remains somewhat challenging to anthropomorphize.

I was thinking about designing a creature that lacked a central brain altogether.

I'm thinking of an octopus-like creature that used 8, or so, separate "brains" in concert. Each "brain" would be capable of maintaining the creatures basic bodily functions (cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, and so on...), as well as being able to function independently or cooperatively with the other "brains".

Would such a creature design be feasible/believable for an animal level intelligence?

Taking this a step further, if we were to take this creature and anthropomorphize it a bit, would it appear to have some sort of dissociative identity disorder (split personality)? Would each decision would have to be run through committee or would it make more sense to have each brain take control from time to time?

(See also a different approach: What are the conditions in which a creature would evolve more than one brain?)

posted almost 10 years ago

apaul‭

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