Two minds? That’s an understatement. Like a Cirque de Soleil juggler, he is able to keep any number of disparate ideas in the air at the same time. Claywood sees myriad sides of any subject; he can’t help simultaneously entertaining several points of view.

Entertain is the right word. Claywood’s nimble brain enables him to hop effortlessly from one idea to another. It must be a constant source of diversion for him, while also making him very entertaining company.

He finally insisted on getting off the phone because his loyal dog had been staring at him for some time, in an attempt to remind him that she had not had her dinner. Those who do not share your gift of gab, Claywood, whether human or canine, must needs find other ways to communicate. Her technique was effective, at any rate, because he did terminate the conversation, and I assume that he fed her immediately thereafter.

People are always saying that there are two sides to every story, a claim which I find annoying. There are many sides. Dualism is so boring.

On the other hand …

As my mother and grandmothers used to say when they were trying to get dinner on the table and we kids were making demands, “I’ve only got two hands.” What would an octopus say?

Scientists are claiming that cephalopods, and especially octopuses, are intelligent, but how can that be true? They don’t have any brains to speak of. Most of their neurons are in their arms.

Still, while some scientists tell us that octopuses are as intelligent as cats and dogs – that they can use tools, think ahead and act purposefully and even mischievously – they still contend that an octopus is not self-aware because it can’t recognize itself in a mirror.

Is that how scientists are evaluating intelligence? Ha ha. It seems pretty arbitrary to me. By that standard I am, or used to be, brilliant, having achieved the height of my mental prowess as a teenager, when I used to gaze into mirrors with the intensity of Narcissus. It’s a wonder I didn’t fall into the looking glass. It’s a wonder I didn’t wear the bathroom mirror out.

That time was before the selfie, although when my friend Julie and I were 13, we took a number of photographs of ourselves with a Polaroid camera, opening our eyes wide and making moues until the film ran out. We looked very beautiful, or, at least, that was our intention. So innocent, so silly. And yet, compared to octopuses, so highly intelligent.

Then again, in all fairness to the octopus, nowadays when I accidentally catch sight of myself in a mirror at a shopping mall I think, “Who is that old woman?” or “What’s her problem?” Perhaps my self-awareness is ebbing along with my vanity.

In his article “Just how smart is an octopus?” (Jan. 6, 2017, Washington Post) Callum Roberts writes, “Encountering an octopus in the wild, as Peter Godfrey-Smith argues in his fascinating book, ‘Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness,’ is as close as we will get to meeting an intelligent alien. … Humans, perhaps uniquely, have gained the ability to step outside ourselves, to think about our thoughts by means of an unstoppable internal monologue.”

I agree. We look for intelligent life on other planets when we haven’t even come close to understanding life on earth. Are we alone in the universe? People ask. Meanwhile our planet is just crawling with humankind. There is no reason for us to feel lonely. Never mind octopuses. We don’t even understand our own human species. We’re building walls to keep each other out. How do we expect to understand aliens from outer space when we find them?

On the other hand, nothing fascinates me more than space exploration. Liquid water has been discovered on Mars. I want to know whether extraterrestrial life exists. I regret that I won’t live long enough to find out about our solar system, our galaxy, the universe.

Do I believe in the “Star Trek” mission, as exemplified by Kirk and Spock?

Well, yes and no. Have a good week.