A whale with a distinctly human-like voice

I wonder why the story came out today?
NOC the whale has been dead for five years now.

I was expecting to hear: "So long and thanks for all the fish".

Originally posted by ubeenhad
Will one day, mammals like whales and dolphins evolve enough to communicate with us?

It's interesting to note the automatic assumption that it would be "evolving".

We don't know for sure that our method of communication is actually an improvement, as we don't know the amount of information content being exchanged in a single bird chirp or whale song. There could be enormous amounts of information being exchanged despite a seemingly less complex sound exchange and we'd never know it because we aren't wired to understand them, much less detect all the nuances.

In general humans work very hard to poorly replicate what "nature" does automatically very well.

Originally posted by Zarniwoop
reply to post by ubeenhad

 

Will one day, mammals like whales and dolphins evolve enough to communicate with us?

Yes. But I think we'll have to figure out their language... not the other way around. I mean, we have the fancy computers and all.

This would not be able to happen. The reason is that their frame of reference would be so far removed from ours. For example; imagine you didn't know a thing about poker and you found yourself caught in the middle of a conversation about poker. The conversation included betting, bluffing, trapping and chips. This is English, but you don't understand, why?

It's all to do with the degree of separation. Now in the example I just highlighted it's very, very small but imagine you caught yourself between two Whales having a chat in English. You might understand certain words that have been used in the conversation, but as for communicating you could forget it!

Before reading this thread I was reading one about aliens, then listened to the whale "talking" and it scared the pee outta me. Anyways! this is really weird, I remember reading somewhere that dolphins can send telepathic messages to those who are open to hearing such things. If I find the article I'll post it.

what if the whales and aliens are talking to each other...!

reply to post by angryhulk


It wouldn't be easy to begin with, but you start off with the basics and build up the language from there. Ruling it out altogether is a bit short-sighted, I don't think it is impossible.

After all, if we can suss out how to converse with Whales, then we shouldn't have much of a problem when the Aliens turn up

reply to post by Lonewulph


Exactly... the diver misheard: the whale actually said "Get ME out of here"

HAHAH .. That was so funny . Was it trying to sing Opera !

Sad thing is this whale died 5 years ago and they've hung on to this recording without releasing it until now. My question is, Why?

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by ubeenhad

 

Whales, koalas, ducks, monkeys, and probably a whole lot of others that we just maybe don't know about yet all engage in rape. We humans find is horrifying. It seems that the rest of the animal kingdom doesn't have such an emotional hang up about it as we humans do.

Are you serious Implying that if it's OK for animals to rape, it OK for people to do the same
That's just sick Disgustingly, barbarically, sick!

reply to post by kudegras


while the whale was alive, they were concerned about the mob that would come to hear the singing whale, and how it would disturb the animals.
then well, the whale died, and they just didn't think it was important enough...
now, well, they need another grant, so it's important????

I was driving to work on day a few months ago, and there right in the middle of my lane was a squirrel standing tall, it kind of looked from a distance that it had it's arms crossed even...and there it sat, facing me off, daring me to run over it, smart enough to know that I wouldn't! It would not move!! I even thought about turning around and going another route to work. Finally, I began slowly moving towards it, window rolled down, and me yelling out the window at yet....and it backed down...
I've had the birds do the same thing....I mean they usually fly off as I approach, not sit there and look at me!!
anyone see the video of the crow that was having fun sliding down the rooftop??
how about the ape that was trying to tell the visitor at the zoo how to open up the window and let him out.
and now, we have a whale that sings....although, I am still wondering if it might be fake...

maybe there is an evolutionary process going on and the stupid humans aren't invited??

reply to post by Violater1


LOL Typical knee-jerk reaction from a typically programmed specimen. THINK. Animals are not subject to human moral codes. We impose them upon ourselves. That does not make them natural laws nor does it make them somehow right. They are our choice.

You make a lot of assumptions. Your indignation is laughable. Learn to think on other levels.

What gets me is, why haven't we as humans made more efforts to learn their laguange ? If sound is converted to math then in to binary, isn't it possible to find patterns and extrapolate a laguage ? If it was possible to decode the hyrogliphs of Egypt why haven't we decoded the animal kingdom's different tongues ?

Originally posted by Nuke2013
What gets me is, why haven't we as humans made more efforts to learn their laguange ? If sound is converted to math then in to binary, isn't it possible to find patterns and extrapolate a laguage ? If it was possible to decode the hyrogliphs of Egypt why haven't we decoded the animal kingdom's different tongues ?

That's an interesting question. I found some information on the subject here

As it turns out, many scientists are trying. They hope to someday learn dolphin, elephant, gorilla, dog and all the other animal tongues. One scientist has already decoded a great deal of prairie dog. But researchers are off to a slow and late start down this road, because they're having to overcome a major obstacle of their own making: the idea that animals don't actually have languages.

It seems like our own prejudices about animals and language have stymied research into decoding animal languages. However, some progress has been made.

Constantine Slobodchikoff may have ventured further beyond this barrier than anyone. A professor emeritus of biology at Northern Arizona University, he has spent decades decoding the communication system of Gunnison's prairie dogs, a species native to the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest. Prairie dogs are rodents. They aren't particularly renowned for their smarts. And yet, in dozens of books and articles over the past three decades, Slobodchikoff and his colleagues have laid out extensive evidence that prairie dogs have a complex language. And he can understand a lot of it.

If it is that hard to learn to communicate with species we share common DNA with, imagine how incredibly difficult it would be to learn to communicate with an alien species from another world? I can imagine a day when aliens land, with friendly intentions, and we find that we have nothing to say to each other.

Originally posted by Aquarius2150
Before reading this thread I was reading one about aliens, then listened to the whale "talking" and it scared the pee outta me. Anyways! this is really weird, I remember reading somewhere that dolphins can send telepathic messages to those who are open to hearing such things. If I find the article I'll post it.

what if the whales and aliens are talking to each other...!

Hello There!

I am not the dolphin expert, however, dolphins have a very unique gift. Their brains, from side to side, are much larger than ours. They have the ability to do things we can't even imagine. They see in pictures although they receive auditory leads, for one thing. They are able to send vocalizations to each other that may evoke images in the receiver.

It is entirely possible that dolphins are aware of ways to communicate with less sensitive creatures. Telepathy isn't a joke, really. There are lots of threads on this forum about it. The most recent I remember was a university that figured out, if two people are sharing the same internet connection and subjected to the same magnetic field, some of their thoughts are actually transmitted to the each other even though the terminals were about, what, 200 yards apart? Or was it feet?

Dolphins know when earthquakes in the ocean are imminent in some cases. They can feel those vibrations. It's in their interest to migrate away, because undersea explosions cause damage to the dolphin's sensitive sinuses. It's not uncommon for whales and dolphins to beach themselves after being exposed to underwater seismicity.
Sad!

I wanna watch the video, brb!

Edit: LMAO he sounded like a cartoon character, maybe FogHorn LegHorn, is what the lilting reminded me of!

The article says the whale was good enough at talking that the trainer thought someone had told him to leave the tank. He got out and asked the other employees who told him to get out, and they pointed at the whales.

LOL

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by ubeenhad

 

Whales, koalas, ducks, monkeys, and probably a whole lot of others that we just maybe don't know about yet all engage in rape. We humans find is horrifying. It seems that the rest of the animal kingdom doesn't have such an emotional hang up about it as we humans do.

How can you call a violent crime like rape an emotional hang up? That is a horrible thing to say. If you don’t understand why, what can anyone do to educate you? I hope you don’t come to understand by experiencing it yourself or someone you love. Though your comment sounds like you think it should be okay to engage in rape, you and the people who starred your ignorant comment. How can you not understand why this not the same thing? I feel sorry for any women or children in your household. Rapists and child molesters/rapists are the vilest creatures on this Earth. They should all be physically castrated at the very least but better if they were put to death. I don’t care how uncompassionate that sounds. Those evil perverted people have no compassion toward their victims. I don’t know why this was brought up in the first place. The OP is about whale communication not whale “rape.” Shame on you and the people who starred your comment.

Sorry to the OP but I had to say something to this.

Originally posted by ubeenhad
Click here to listen to the whale, and read the rest of the story.

For the first time, researchers have been able to show by acoustic analysis that whales—or at least one very special white whale—can imitate the voices of humans. That's a surprise, because whales typically produce sounds in a manner that is wholly different from humans, say researchers who report their findings in the October 23 issue of Current Biology. "Our observations suggest that the whale had to modify its vocal mechanics in order to make the speech-like sounds," said Sam Ridgway of the National Marine Mammal Foundation. "Such obvious effort suggests motivation for contact."

Will one day, mammals like whales and dolphins evolve enough to communicate with us?

Excellent post. S +F

I've always been fascinated with whales and dolphins. I would love to know how they think and feel. Maybe someday.

Originally posted by ubeenhad
Click here to listen to the whale, and read the rest of the story.

For the first time, researchers have been able to show by acoustic analysis that whales—or at least one very special white whale—can imitate the voices of humans. That's a surprise, because whales typically produce sounds in a manner that is wholly different from humans, say researchers who report their findings in the October 23 issue of Current Biology. "Our observations suggest that the whale had to modify its vocal mechanics in order to make the speech-like sounds," said Sam Ridgway of the National Marine Mammal Foundation. "Such obvious effort suggests motivation for contact."

Will one day, mammals like whales and dolphins evolve enough to communicate with us?

Sure just get a Mad scientist to wrap around Neurons in the Brain 3 rounds 3 times more dividing Neurons Cells of these animals

Quanity equalls to Quality

Originally posted by avocadoshag
I was expecting to hear: "So long and thanks for all the fish".

So long and thanks for all the krill?