I’d speculate that if you did an identical breeding experiment with octopuses (as in, the breeding criteria of non-aggressively interaction with human hand) you’d breed for curious, bold, or playful octopuses which tend to approach novel stimuli … but not friendly in the sense of affectionate.
It’s not that they’re asocial, I think they sometimes lay eggs cooperatively and obviously seek each other out for mating… but primarily octopuses see others of their species as predators or prey. (I mean, cats do eat each other but only in bounded contexts, like infanticide, not hunting.)
I’d speculate that if you did an identical breeding experiment with octopuses (as in, the breeding criteria of non-aggressively interaction with human hand) you’d breed for curious, bold, or playful octopuses which tend to approach novel stimuli … but not friendly in the sense of affectionate.
It’s not that they’re asocial, I think they sometimes lay eggs cooperatively and obviously seek each other out for mating… but primarily octopuses see others of their species as predators or prey. (I mean, cats do eat each other but only in bounded contexts, like infanticide, not hunting.)