Odd and strangely compelling, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis offers a unique posthumanist philosophical understanding of phenomenology and opens the way for a nonphilosophy of life. It is so bizarre that scientists classify it in its own taxonomic order, Vampyromorphida, to show that it differs markedly from other living cephalopods. In addition to the light produced during their defense response, vampire squids produce light at the tips of each of their arms. These twinkling lights confuse potential predators. Thinking afresh about the life of an “other”-as different from ourselves as the vampire squid/octopus-complicates the linkages between animality and embodiment. The Vampire Squid ( Vampyroteuthis infernalis) is an extreme deep-water cephalopod more closely related to octopuses than to squids. Instead the vampire squid expels a colorless substance that contains numerous particles of bioluminescent (light-producing) material. We have both lost our original home, the beach, and we both live in constrained conditions.” When disturbed, this cephalopod is known to wrap its red body with its unique webbed arms, forming a. The defense mechanisms can take a lot out of them. They’ll also refrain from using certain defense mechanisms against predators unless it’s absolutely necessary. Among other things, “we are both banished from much of life’s domain: it into the abyss, we onto the surfaces of the continents. The vampire squid has long carried a reputation for being a nightmarish creature of the deep. Vampire squid don’t expend a lot of energy, and they aren’t quick to digest their food. we are poorly programmed beings full of defects,” Flusser writes. Considering the human condition along with the vampire squid/octopus condition seems appropriate because “we are both products of an absurd coincidence. Part scientific treatise, part spoof, part philosophical discourse, part fable, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis gives its author ample room to ruminate on human-and nonhuman-life. The vampire squid prefers a temperature between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius. Vampire squids live in the oxygen minimum layer of the ocean where virtually no light penetrates. “The abyss that separates us” from the vampire squid (or vampire octopus, perhaps, since Vampyroteuthis infernalis inhabits its own phylogenetic order somewhere between the two) “is incomparably smaller than that which separates us from extraterrestrial life, as imagined in science fiction and sought by astrobiologists,” Flusser notes at the outset of the expedition. Vampire Squids living fossils Vampyromorphs fossils have been found from the Jurassic period, between 201 million and 174 million years ago. The vampire squid lives in the tropical and subtropical oceans of the world at depths ranging from 300-3000m with a majority of squids living between the ranges of 1,500-2,500m. How far apart are humans from animals-even the “vampire squid from hell”? Playing the scientist/philosopher/provocateur, Vilém Flusser uses this question as a springboard to dive into a literal and a philosophical ocean. The vampire squid is so named because of its jet-black skin, webbing between the arms, and red eyes - supposedly characteristics of a vampire.
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