Dolphins Communicate Holograms And Now We Can See Them

a reply to: smurfy

There was a book called SETI (iirc) that came out in the early 1990s. It had chapters by various scientists and something by Ben Bova. One of those chapters was about the study of the dolphin brain and how it has similarities with ours. There was a discussion about how developed the Broca's area was in their brains and how it suggested advanced language skills. To be clear, 'advanced' meant more sophisticated communication skills than most of the rest of the animal kingdom.

It referenced a study whereby attempts were made to teach dolphins 'words' and for researchers to emulate their clicks to communicate. I wonder if that's the same project you mean? Sounds kinda similar...wish I still had that book.

To me, such things seem artificially linear and naive. Sure, we can only work within concepts we know, but with dolphins we're dealing with intelligences that could be expressed/experienced in ways we can't currently comprehend. They have our senses and yet their interactions with physical reality are through a different medium to ours and would, presumably, create different root concepts.

I'm in danger of rambling; my broader point is we could be projecting to expect dolphins to have language features like nouns, adverbs and adjectives. I mean, what the heck is a phoneme in sonar?

a reply to: Astyanax

I wasn't pitching at a 'dolphin world culture.' It was an idea that a dolphin uses echolocation to get a sensory impression of its immediate surroundings. If a dolphin could communicate that impression to another dolphin, the experience would be shared. Yes, I'm aware of different species of dolphins; as are most people. Yes, I've read about arguably different dialects within whale and dolphin pods. And yes, most children over the age of 7 have heard that dolphins switch hemispheres during sleep.

If the impression can be transmitted to another dolphin, it would be possible to 'span the world' as in share with another dolphin from elsewhere and 'span time' in the sense of coming after the fact.

There's a rumour going around that Father Christmas isn't real, but I don't believe it

It's rather funny seeing "holograms" on flat LCD screen, you know..

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

a reply to: Jonjonj

To think of any creature on this earth as a "lesser being" really escapes my understanding. Each being has it's place and it's job and it's function. Perhaps humans were lucky in the evolutionary chain. Perhaps we were not so lucky, as evolution clearly didn't quell our innate greed, or aptitude towards violence. (Yes I know that some dolphins are prone to violence, rape, murder and other such acts...but it is we humans that have turned it into art and continually perfect and invent new ways to kill each other.)

To glimpse into the lives of these animals is to understand ourselves just a little bit better. To understand their ability to communicate through images might just help our blind humans a little bit. To understand their society a bit more might just help us understand our own societal practices.

Lesser animals? No. Different animals, yes.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: stormcell

But since each dolphin would send out the same kind of clicks, other dolphins can understand the picture too...

That wouldn't be how it worked at all. Dolphins process a pattern of sonic returns — that is, echoes — as an image.

If a dolphin wanted to say 'boat hull', he would simply produce a similar sonic pattern.

But could a dolphin think of a picture or phrase at the same time as they were talking, and other dolphins think of the same picture?

A little confusion here, I think. Consider again how this would work, if it were in fact the case.

I understand echo returns.
There's a sonar system called "Echoscope". That processes the echo returns to generate a true 3D picture from sonar.

www.youtube.com...

With dolphins, the sonar is emitted from the lower teeth and received by a melon shaped organ in front of the eyes.
www.dolphins-world.com...

They were taught language and used different whistling sounds to make words for colours and shapes (red, green, blue), (ball, cube, food). So probably, they don't need to transmit images. It's more time and energy efficient just to use language.

a reply to: Jonjonj

what hypocrisy? it's cool that they found this out.

originally posted by: Lora73
a reply to: theantediluvian

They are remarkable creatures

Except when they get horny and wants to screw anything that swims in the sea....

a reply to: Kandinsky

Yes, I've read about arguably different dialects within whale and dolphin pods.

I hadn't heard about that. Wouldn't someone have to have deciphered their language, indeed verified that it is a language in the first place, before claiming dialect variations?

The news that dolphins communicate in holograms does not necessarily support the idea that they have language, you know.

If the impression can be transmitted to another dolphin, it would be possible to 'span the world' as in share with another dolphin from elsewhere and 'span time' in the sense of coming after the fact

Only if location and time were also coded somehow. Otherwise it would just be a transmitted image, lacking context.

There's a rumour going around that Father Christmas isn't real, but I don't believe it

Of course he's real. I saw him at a shopping mall just yesterday afternoon. He was wearing gilt-framed spectacles.

a reply to: kelbtalfenek

To think of any creature on this earth as a "lesser being" really escapes my understanding.

That is because you have never heard of the shoebill stork, a being so determinedly lesser it mistakes floating sticks for lungfish and encourages fratricide amongst its offspring.

a reply to: stormcell

They were taught language and used different whistling sounds to make words for colours and shapes (red, green, blue), (ball, cube, food).

They are intelligent animals with very sophisticated vocal apparatus that enables them to make a wide variety of sounds. So yes, they can be taught by humans to make some kind of sound and to associate that sound with a colour, shape or possibly even something abstract. This is simple operant conditioning.

It has no bearing on what we are discussing here, which is how dolphins communicate with one another.

So probably, they don't need to transmit images. It's more time and energy efficient just to use language.

Since I am sure you have not the faintest experience of being a dolphin, it may safely be said that you are talking through your hat.

I know the military has used dolphins before. I wonder if they would want to use them again with this technique. Train dolphins to swim near naval groups or subs, and then return to home base and say what they saw, putting it in holographic detail.

a reply to: Astyanax

The dialects idea came about through studying pods from different areas; it's a research topic. It was noticed that orca and dolphin pods have group peculiarities in tones and clicks that differentiated them from other pods. It doesn't prove they have a language, it's still worth pursuing to see what might cause these differences.

I haven't been making a case that dolphins have a language although I mentioned we (humans) could be projecting our own concepts of such onto them. Maybe they do have language? Maybe they don't? It's a fascinating pursuit to find out.

If language is parcelled up in the awareness of dolphins, it adds a different spin on the values of transmitting images between individuals and/or pods.

a reply to: theantediluvian

S&F. Its interesting to think that this is the "other" intelligent species on the planet, and they communicate in a totally different way than us. You can only imagine how aliens on other planets might communicate, and their technology might be just as different, they might think up things wildly different than what we see on this planet. Maybe NASA is going to have to think a lot harder about how we might receive alien signals from space.

a reply to: openminded2011

And yet despite those differences, their failings as sentients are about on point with our own.

I once had a dolphin in my arms. Such a mystical, loving creature.
Then it rolled over for a belly rub and let lose the contents of it's lower digestive tract.

Damn sea monkeys!

originally posted by: revmoofoo
WOW! Amazing stuff OP. Isn't this the point where Phage usually shows up and ruins it all for us?

S&F

Rev

The reason why he doesn't (show up) any more, dip stick comments like that.

Aren't you glad? Now you can leave your ignorance where he was, previously.

originally posted by: stormcell


They were taught language and used different whistling sounds to make words for colours and shapes (red, green, blue), (ball, cube, food). So probably, they don't need to transmit images. It's more time and energy efficient just to use language.

But that's what their language would be---it wouldn't "feel" like images to the dolphin.

Remember, we have two distinct sensory inputs---eyes and ears. Language in humans is connected to ears and is about sequential phonemes. Dolphins have a fundamentally different architecture---they have a brain processor element with as much complexity as a human visual cortex, but connected to the sensory organs in a different way.

Humans don't form any internal 'visual'-style representation of sounds naturally---dolphins must because they do geometric processing and understanding (in cooperation with their regular visual cortex) so there could likely be a complex form of 'visualization' for communication purposes. Dolphins would naturally 'see' sound in a way that is completely alien to us, any more than we can taste radiowaves.

For evolutionary reasons it is more likely that a dolphin would adapt the pre-existing huge brain power and sensory power devoted to echolocation and comprehension into a communication system. Evolution will adapt with whatever is easily at hand---instead of evolving complex sequential language logic like humans, it would repurpose an existing brain organ.

Dolphins can emit sounds and hear up to 120 Khz---human speech is at a much lower frequency. In short impulses then, if it can be modulated sufficiently, quite a bit of information could be transmitted.

Dolphins can make two sounds simultaneously as well.

I wonder how they communicate abstract ideas to one another? does the image of the "man" imply danger? or just "there is one of those humanoidy-type things in the water with us. be aware of it because sometimes they do nice things and sometimes they do bad things." but how is that second part communicated? what about another dolphin that has never seen a human before? then the image would be meaningless wouldn't it?


a reply to: theantediluvian

originally posted by: Aazadan
I know the military has used dolphins before.

The Navy dolphin training base is out here on the CA coast.

originally posted by: smurfy

There was a five year project in the 80's called Project Janus using a lot of 'Analogue' and digital synth sound gear to work on Dolphin sounds as a means of a communicative language between Dolphins and humans by virtue of a similarity of human digitized speech and Dolphin clicks in the lower ranges, but they didn't use the very high unltrasound like here. It's difficult now to get a full rundown on that Project Janus, but one man's name I have is Dr John Lilley from back then.
The aim then was to create a forty whistle-word vocabulary with the dolphins, which was accomplished it seems, but I think they then realised there was more to it than just 'language' how much further they got, I don't know.

You were almost there, it did ring the bell in my head though
It's Dr. John C. Lilly
A very interesting man indeed.

In the 1980s Lilly directed a project which attempted to teach dolphins a computer-synthesised language. Lilly designed a future "communications laboratory" that would be a floating living room where humans and dolphins could chat as equals and where they would develop a common language. Lilly envisioned a time when all killing of whales and dolphins would cease, "not from a law being passed, but from each human understanding innately that these are ancient, sentient earth residents, with tremendous intelligence and enormous life force. Not someone to kill, but someone to learn from."

As a sidenote, the Lily-wave was named after him, which some speculate to be of use in modern day propaganda.

After Graduating from Penn State University, Lilly was forced to stay on as a member of the faculty working under Dr. Detlev Bronk for 19 years of indebted servitude, conducting priority military research for the U.S. Air Force. During World War II, Lilly researched the physiology of high-altitude flying and invented instruments for measuring gas pressure. After the war, he trained in psychoanalysis at the University of Pennsylvania, where he began researching the physical structures of the brain and consciousness. In 1951 he published a paper showing how he could display patterns of brain electrical activity on a cathode ray display screen using electrodes he devised specially for insertion into a living brain. Furthermore, Lilly's work[8] on electrical stimulation of nervous system gave rise to biphasic charge balanced electrical stimulation pulses (later known as "Lilly's wave" or "Lilly's pulses"[9] ), which is currently an established approach to design of safe electrical stimulation in neuroprosthetics.

Edit: Apologies if the latter part doesn't fit in with the thread, I just thought it a nice little factoid.