However hard it might be to do, it's worth trying to understand whether octopuses have consciousness, and what it's like if they do, says Godfrey-Smith. "We've just got to think about it, work through it and try to put together a picture."It's a question that is becoming more urgent. The multinational seafood firm Nueva Pescanova is currently seeking licenses to open the world's first commercial octopus farm in the Canary Islands. The announcement has raised objections from animal welfare activists that it is not ethical to farm such intelligent and possibly sentient animals. As one essay puts it: "When the question of animal consciousness is under consideration, our guilt or innocence as a civilization for an enormous body of cruelty may hang in the balance."
