The Finger Brain

vs. The Octopus: 

By a Concerned Mammal with Wi-Fi

written by jaron summers (C) 2025

Scientists keep telling us that the octopus is the Einstein of the sea — a gelatinous genius with a brain in its head and eight semi-autonomous arm-brains that can open jars, escape aquariums, and win staring contests with shrimp.

Impressive? Sure.

But let me tell you about a creature that walks upright, wears pants (usually), and wields a single, almighty digit that taps into the sum total of human knowledge, orders Thai food, and matches you with strangers based on left-swipes.

I am, of course, talking about the human being with a cell phone.
Or as I prefer to call it: the rise of the Finger Brain™.

🐙 THE OCTOPUS: AN EIGHT-ARMED KNOW-IT-ALL

Let’s give the octopus some credit before we put it in its place.

• It can camouflage better than a politician in an election year.

• It solves puzzles, navigates mazes, and breaks out of locked tanks — like Houdini dipped in olive oil.

• It can regrow arms. (Humans can barely regrow their hair.)

Each arm thinks independently — sort of like eight toddlers playing with knives — and yet somehow it all works.
It’s alien. It’s aquatic. It’s a marvel of evolution.

But it has a fatal weakness: no thumbs.

📱 ENTER THE FINGER BRAIN™

Now take the human finger — preferably the index or thumb, although the pinky does fine in emergencies — and attach it to a smartphone.

Behold: the Finger Brain.

This shimmering slab of glass and sorcery isn’t just a communication device.
It’s a telepathic wand, a memory prosthetic, and a remote control for the universe.

Things my Finger Brain can do that no octopus ever will:

• Order a pizza in the dark while coddling. 

• Unlock a car from three countries away.

• Summon a stranger to drive me to tacos.

• Read War and Peace while simultaneously watching cat videos.

• Fall in love. Then ghost. Then apologize with a meme.

The octopus might have nine brains.
But I’ve got a finger that can launch a satellite and send my mother a Bitmoji of a goat in pajamas.

Game. Set. Tentacle.

🧠 THE BATTLE FOR SUPREMACY

Sure, octopuses are emotionally complex and capable of dreams.
But have they ever doom-scrolled through Reddit at 3 a.m.?
Have they cried while listening to Adele, ordered artisanal hot sauce, and then lost $400 on crypto… all before breakfast?

No.

Because they lack the one tool that separates us from the beasts:

Thumbs. And low self-control.

🫣 THE CATCH

The octopus has brains in its limbs.
The human has limbs in its brain.

And now we’ve outsourced our brains to our thumbs — or rather, to the glowing rectangles they command.

Are we smarter than the octopus?
Or just better at asking Google for answers while pretending to listen to our spouses?

When the next species evolves, it won’t have eight arms.
It’ll just have one big thumb and a charging port in its forehead.

🧜 Final Thoughts from the Deep

So here’s to the Finger Brain — the miracle that lets us:

• Misspell our own names,

• Fall for phishing scams,

• Take photos of our lunch,

• And convince ourselves we’re smarter than the ocean’s squishiest genius.

The octopus might survive a thousand environmental catastrophes.

But I can upload a dancing baby GIF in four seconds flat.

I ask you: who’s the real apex predator?