What I also find a kind of 'freaky' is that it touches the object and then feels it is attached to something and says 'nope!'. And it is gone.

Ofcourse this is no proof but to me it shows some kind of intelligence.

There is plenty of proof that cephalopods are intelligent, but we keep moving the goal posts on what we define as intelligence.

They have advanced problem solving capabilities and a distributed nervous system that can achieve levels of parallel processing software devs dream of.

We don't need to go to other planets to find intelligent life, it is already here. We are just aren't smart enough to communicate with it yet.

I wouldn't say this behavior is part of intelligence, it's probably the first thing nature crafted in any life form. Unfamiliarity => move.

Maybe this one specific behaviour doesn't convince you of intelligence, but squids, octopi, and cuttlefish are among the most intelligent cephalopods, which are in turn the most intelligent known invertebrates.

Oh, I'm well aware of their prowess, it's been taped and discussed (also many more animals have more cognitive abilities than were thought before). I was just discussing this particular reflex/behavior.

Is this worth eating or fighting (for) it?

I have no knowledge on how they identify/distinguish food over a rock, if the tentacles have some sort of receptors on them, but apparently this didn't "taste" like food, thus unworthy of eating or fighting for and therefore better safe than sorry.

Maybe something on the surface didn't mesh well with the succion-cups

I don't know if this is true. Most simple animals are very curious.

If it doesn't move => go check it out.

well, the squid do check it out but it didn't like what he found

Squids do not use the tentacles to swim and all species advance with the ten arms fused in a cone. Taking the more aquadynamic shape possible Is the more efficient way to swim for them

Squid jet propulsion: https://youtu.be/9OIjaHIrM0U. 8 arms + 2 tentacles: https://www.aqua.org/blog/2017/October/Cephalopods-Arms-or-T...

I saw that too. I couldn’t tell if it was a video artifact or not though.