Sea World should be shutdown, it's essentially torturing these animals. We would never accept this being done to humans and we shouldn't for such extraordinary and intelligent creatures.
A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
101–110 of 139 posts
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#102What I find fascinating about this is that there are various species which have tackled human speech with at least some success (both actively and passively), while, conversely, we are apparently rather bad at participating in their communicative acts (like, imitating utterances in a meaningful way). Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? Edit, regarding "something else": App…
There's strong implications that we as humans have dedicated wetware hardware for streaming out speech from the data structures in our mind. That hardware seems to be bandwidth constrained to about 39 bits per second. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/human-speech-may-hav... It makes sense that other animals may be able to cargo cult some of the underlying mechanical representations of speech, but would lack th…
I see no reason for that, it seems more like a pragmatic choice of reliability over capacity. (in other words to make speech comprehensible in noise)
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
why you want to stop your dogs from making holes in the ground? it's like making playing children stop
Common reasons include holes in the ground leading to dogs escaping out of fenced areas, or just general property damage (dogs can quickly dig large holes which are walking hazards, and don’t look as nice as a well kept yard). Also, when children play in the street, for example, wouldn’t you stop in that kind of situation? Or if children were digging large holes on someone else’s / public property?
Can't you just cover the holes, instead of trying to force dogs out of their nature?
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#104It seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. Perhaps you could add the lack of a prehensile thumb and deft fingers to build tools with, but I think communication is even more fundamental for…
A major distinction of humans is that we are a cultural species. We have evolved to pass down large amounts of knowledge to the next generation.
Being good at communication (and motivated to use it for teaching) kind of follows from this. We are not game-changing smart at figuring out new tools. But we are excellent at copying innovations from others, remembering them and fine-tuning them over generations.
On this I highly recommend Joseph Henrich's book: "The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter".
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#105What I find fascinating about this is that there are various species which have tackled human speech with at least some success (both actively and passively), while, conversely, we are apparently rather bad at participating in their communicative acts (like, imitating utterances in a meaningful way). Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? Edit, regarding "something else": App…
Shaun Ellis seems to communicate wih wolf alright. Also i believe quite a few people in the world knows how to express the "this territory is claimed, don't come around here" howl message.
national geographic about him : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eerUnxonS-I
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#106Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#107What I find fascinating about this is that there are various species which have tackled human speech with at least some success (both actively and passively), while, conversely, we are apparently rather bad at participating in their communicative acts (like, imitating utterances in a meaningful way). Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? Edit, regarding "something else": App…
> we are able to recognize individuals of other primate species by face at a very early age, but lose this ability soon
I don't buy this. I visit the Primate Rescue Centre (Monkey World) in Dorset, UK, and can recognise several individual chimps and orangutans by their facial features (especially if you include ears). Discriminators include size of brow ridges, facial colouration, distance between nose and mouth, eye separation, etc etc. Here are some facial shots of several individuals to illustrate the range of variations.
https://monkeyworld.org/our-primates/primate-groups/bachelor...
https://monkeyworld.org/our-primates/primate-groups/hananyas...
If you factor in body mass and musculature and other bodily features the differences between individuals can be dramatic.
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#108We better not embrace whales trying to communicate with us. These finned "c!nts" are only interested in taking our jobs, our land, and even our women! Coming up here ... Onto our land ... With their barely developed lungs ... And their hopes and dreams "of a better tomorrow for whales". GET BACK in the SEA I say!!
My name's Tucker Carlson from Fox news, and I say we need to ensure the brightest and best whales STAY IN THE SEA, and concentrate on making it aquatically prosperous, instead of coming up here, onto our land, and beginning the process of evolution that will eventually lead to all life on Earth after the humans.
(apologies, this was paraphrased from Stewart Lee's comedy vehicle "comin over here" bit and is satire)
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#109What I find fascinating about this is that there are various species which have tackled human speech with at least some success (both actively and passively), while, conversely, we are apparently rather bad at participating in their communicative acts (like, imitating utterances in a meaningful way). Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? Edit, regarding "something else": App…
> Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? A combination of the two probably. I communicate with my pet cat by mimicking her different kinds of meows, hisses, and purrs. It makes it a lot easier because it's very obvious to me she understands that language, but of course it's not perfect It seems unlikely I'm the only person who does this. Probably a lot of people speak to thei…
The two noises I used with cats are:
1. "sssssshheeeeessh" If you want them to leave, like a hissing sound.
2. A squeaking (by pursing lips together) to calls them or tell them you are interested to play.
Generally I don't believe cats really try so much to communicate - at least I don't get this impression.
I would say that with dogs they understand a lot more. They understand the concept of pointing and use it to communicate something of interest to me. For example, one of my dogs ran out of the gate and the other dog pointed to where they went using their entire body as an arrow. Another time a ball was lost in a stack of tires, so the dog requested help from me to retrieve it my pointing. I can ask "where is " and they'll take me to it, or help me search for it - to the point where one of my dogs will help me look for my keys.
My dogs will also try to communicate with me too, mimicking what they believe I sound like. "Helllooooo" they really try to copy as a greeting. They also like to get involved in singing too - I think they somewhat enjoy some music.
What I like about my dogs too is that they understand the more subtle things. When two people are arguing or speaking heatedly they will try to break them up by pushing in-between. They are not allowed into certain rooms unless invited, but a small sideways nod lets them know they have a one time pass.
Dogs also very much like routine, the human world is confusing and if you delay feeding for a few hours for example, they don't understand why. They often do their best to fit in if you help them to.
I think people really underestimate how smart dogs can be. They * really * try to communicate back, but they are mostly unsuccessful. Try sometime to take an interest in their attempts to communicate with you, encourage it even. If they think they can communicate with you, you'll have a much better time. My dogs even help me keep my daily schedule.
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#110They should put the spectrograms of Noc's speech
on the final exam of a phonetics class
and tell students to identify the words
without knowing that they were produced by a beluga.
Then we'll know what he was saying.