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Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

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Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#41

Post by bitwize »

mtrimpe wrote: post #31
bitwize wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SETI is not misguided. We've known for a long time that Earth was hospitable to intelligent life (us). That there are other species with similar levels of intelligent just makes Earth more awesome. But it would be a complete mindfuck if we found other intelligent life in space, where before there were mainly only stars, rocks, and interesting formations of liquid and gas somewhere in between. It would change everythi…

I'd say having a meaningful conversation with a dolphin would be a much bigger mindfuck. For all we know we could be discussing how the transition to Kantian philosophy played out slightly different for them in a few years.

Dr. Irene Pepperberg has had meaningful conversations with an African Grey parrot.

It was pretty cool. It gives me hope for a future of being part of a society with other sapient species in it.

But it wouldn't be quite the "whoa, on large enough scales the universe _really is_ the same, everywhere" type feeling that humans having meaningful conversations with, say, Fookin' Prawns would.

Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#42

Post by wfn »

maxharris wrote: post #27

I think it's a mistake to say that they call each other by "name," because that implies the ability to form concepts/speak a language, and there is absolutely zero evidence for that. Even the article is careful to point that out: While researchers often hesitate to apply the “l word” -- language -- to non-human communications, bottlenose dolphins and possibly other dolphin species clearly have a very complex and soph…

Depends on your definition of 'name' and your system/formalization of the act of reference and/or semantics.

In this case, 'name' seems to mean 'proper name', and there are systems explaining proper names as symbols used to refer, but not to carry semantic charge (whatever that would entail). For example in my native tongue many town names are named after rivers large and small that do - or - only used to flow next to / past those towns. Yet we don't suddenly change the proper name: the reference still works, but we do not need to cognize the semantic contents (originally associated with the name, if that was the case anyway; if you know where Baroomghtown is, I can use the term to refer to it and my reference will succeed as it were).

That was a mouthful. My (insignificant) point: perhaps they would only need cognitive machinery for referring to (in some simple(?) sense) / distinguishing between themselves. That is: (1) usage of proper names does not (necessarily) imply ability to speak a language (perhaps that's all I meant; talk about nitpicking..); (2) there's quite a lot of research showing that animals form concepts left and right (could dig something up, but googling under those keywords would yield enough). Consider this interesting report:

  Under Pepperberg’s patient tutelage, Alex [a parrot] learned how to use his vocal tract to imitate almost one hundred English words, including the sounds for all of these foods, although he calls an apple a “banerry.”

  “Apples taste a little bit like bananas to him, and they look a little bit like cherries, so Alex made up that word for them,” Pepperberg said.
(NGM, 2008: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/03/animal-minds... (a curious article))

So it might be possible to conceive of a schema such that [arbitrary symbols (sequences of syllables, etc.)] + [concepts] => proper names; and those would indeed be what we are used to calling 'proper names', a subset of the category denoted by 'names', not something else.

However, I agree completely with the sentiments re: fears of (over-)anthropomorphizing and projecting our own 'theories of mind' onto other life.

Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#43

Post by stcredzero »

> Bottlenose dolphins call out the specific names of loved ones when they become separated, a study finds.

...Holy, f^~kin crap! We've been in the presence of other sentients this whole time. Enslaved them. Killed them while gathering food. Holy, f^~kin crap!

Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#44

Post by leoh »

Last year around this time, I had the opportunity to interact with two dolphins in captivity. Being with them, they felt so present and warm, like being around a perceptive old friend. I had never had that experience with an animal before, except fellow humans. It's something I will never forget.

Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#45

Post by AlexanderDhoore »

acheron wrote: post #5

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars, and so on -- while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons." -- Douglas Adams

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#46

Post by prawn »

srean wrote: post #6

They are also known to build difficult to make toys (air bubble vortex rings) to entertain themselves. They have to discover how to make it. Sometimes they can be quite possessive, they would break the toy if someone not so knowledgeable wants to play with it. Once a dolphin figures it out how to make one, his/her peers eventually figure it out too. So it kind of spreads within a group like fashion. This behavior has…

I wonder if there is a wider gap between the smartest and dumbest humans, and the equivalent extremes in other species?

At our best, we accomplish astonishing things that melt brains to consider. However, the worst of us really are little more than what they would call (with derision) "animals", responding to base urges and the like, but dangerous, vindictive and controlling.

Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#47

Post by stcredzero »

srean wrote: post #6

They are also known to build difficult to make toys (air bubble vortex rings) to entertain themselves. They have to discover how to make it. Sometimes they can be quite possessive, they would break the toy if someone not so knowledgeable wants to play with it. Once a dolphin figures it out how to make one, his/her peers eventually figure it out too. So it kind of spreads within a group like fashion. This behavior has…

> They also have what appears to be fratricide were they bludgeon another to death targeting vital organs

Apparently Orcas have developed this Kung-fu like thing, where they can kill a shark by just holding it.

http://worldtourwhilediving.com/2012/01/13/orca-flips-over-g...

Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#48

Post by kaybe »

ChrisCooper wrote: post #30
ricardobeat wrote: post #14

“Hey everybody! I’m an adult healthy male named George, and I mean you no harm!” That would be more like "Hey everyone, I'm George". Humans also 'encode' information in that sense - from that introduction you could probably tell age, general health and friendliness. The day we can talk to any stranger dolphin and have a real conversation will be alike to contacting alien life.

Very true. On that topic, "...these communications consist of whistles, not words." Not to suggest that they're actually speaking a language, but a language consisting of whistles could still easily contain words. It would just have a different set of sounds.

It's not like it would be a new concept to humankind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle_language

Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#49

Post by enraged_camel »

seldo wrote: post #33
bitwize wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SETI is not misguided. We've known for a long time that Earth was hospitable to intelligent life (us). That there are other species with similar levels of intelligent just makes Earth more awesome. But it would be a complete mindfuck if we found other intelligent life in space, where before there were mainly only stars, rocks, and interesting formations of liquid and gas somewhere in between. It would change everythi…

The thing about SETI is that it is not really a search for intelligent life, it's a search for "intelligent life that broadcasts radio waves of a frequency and power that we can detect in a pattern and on a timescale similar enough to our own communications that we can recognize it". Fermi's paradox basically boils down to: if intelligent life is at all common, it should be everywhere we look, and yet we don't see an…

It is also possible that we haven't found intelligent life yet because we define both intelligence and life in very specific ways that we as humans can relate to. For example, there can be an intelligent microorganism species out there where each individual microorganism leads a life as complex as a human. They may have invented all sorts of things in the micro scale, but chances are we might never find them simply because we are not looking for intelligent life in such a micro context.

Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name

#50

Post by nickpinkston »

pg wrote: post #18

Someone should define a canonical way to transform dolphins' whistles into syllables. Then we could at least sort of refer to them by their names.

I'm also sure we could make a sort of pin-yin conversion system for said syllables to make a pseudo-pronunciation.
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