
These dolphins talk to each other. Why do we insist it isn’t language? - CarolineW
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/20/dolphins-talk-language-animal-communication-cooperation
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madaxe_again
It's the same sort of thinking that used to say "the African does not truly
think or feel, he simply exhibits reflex responses that can give the
appearance of thinking and feeling". Given what we know of cetaceans their
classification as non-human persons seems fair, and future generations may
look at our treatment of cetaceans today as dimly as we now do early 20th
century whaling.

Assuming that only humans are sentient is a arrogant as assuming only the
white man is sentient.

On the note of how they communicate - I wonder if anyone has considered sonar
holography - I.e. The clicks and whistles aren't words per se but are
interpreted visually, as an actual sonar reflection off an actual object would
be. I'm trying to find the paper but I seem to recall some research in which
they realised a dolphin was mimicking the sonar echo of an object, with
startling accuracy.

~~~
augustnagro
Definition of anthropomorphism (noun): "the attribution of human
characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object. "

A common example of anthropomorphism is in voles (and other rodents). [1,2]
Very long ago, scientists noticed that bank vole pups frequently cry when
their mother leaves the nest. The scientists assumed that the pups were
afraid, and missed their parent. Eventually, it was discovered that the
absence of their mother drops the temperature of the underground nest, and
that the pups cries are actually a mechanism to generate heat. When scientists
took their mother away, but increased the heat of their den to normal levels,
the pups did not cry. The animals were not communicating or displaying
anything resembling "human" emotion, but were innately responding to
environmental stress.

No matter how much we want to believe that animals are sentient, have
emotions, and communicate to each other via language, science indicates that's
just not the case. In fact, there have been numerous studies that indicate
anthropomorphism is a byproduct of our complex social structure.

Nice job bringing racism into a discussion about dolphin vocalizations, by the
way.

~~~
cmdrfred
How do we know that human infants don't respond that same way, for the same
reason? Perhaps the voles reaction to heat signals a more sophisticated
understanding in comparison to the child who cries regardless of temperature.

~~~
true_religion
> How do we know that human infants don't respond that same way, for the same
> reason?

Infants are known to lack forward-planning, object permanence, and many many
other indications of reasoning. I don't think it'd be wrong to say that they
behave quite like little finite state machines.

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KingMob
Former neuroscientist here. In grad school, I TAed for one of the profs who
tried (and eventually renounced) to teach Nim Chimpsky language. I am well-
versed in this.

For starters, we need to make a clear distinction between communication and
language. Many animals communicate information to each other. But the hallmark
of language is flexibility; the existence of grammar allows us to communicate
novel sentences we have never spoken and others have never heard in a way that
is clearly impossible with conditioning.

Second, anthropomorphism is a big problem; It's why the field ultimately
rejected the project to teach chimps language, and why they are dubious about
language in parrots and dolphins. The evidence was, and is, relatively weak.
Many researchers heard what seemed like language from chimps (e.g., Washoe's
infamous "water bird" for swan), but when they analyzed Nim's total corpus,
the connection between utterance and meaning vanished.

Other than a few holdouts, the field largely concluded that all the chimp
behavior observed could be just as easily explained with conditioning (utter
that in this circumstance, get a reward, if no reward, try a new utterance,
etc).

Regarding the dolphins, I looked at the abstract of the original paper.
Nowhere do they use the word "language", and the lead scientist also says they
don't know if it's language. It's not clear why the Guardian article's author
wants to argue for more.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
> It's not clear why the Guardian article's author wants to argue for more.

It's pretty clear why - sensationalism, as always.

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mannykannot
If dolphins had a human-like facility for language, I imagine some captive
dolphins would have figured out (probably through a discussion among
themselves) that humans also have language, and that it would be greatly
beneficial if they could communicate with humans. With both parties sharing
this goal, I don't think it would take long.

On the other hand, I don't suppose human language emerged fully-formed (I
don't think there is much evidence for Chomsky's views on this), and these
pre- or proto-language skills may provide a lot of insight into its evolution.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Or the dolphins are just as biased as we are and simply think that humans just
appear to have a language.

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dharma1
"We’re still not able to break the whistles and burst pulses into meaningful
units, the equivalents of words or phrases."

Seems like something machine learning could help with.

Of course it may turn out it's impossible to translate between human and
dolphin languages in a meaningful way.

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129624-300-dolphin-...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129624-300-dolphin-
whistle-instantly-translated-by-computer/)

~~~
spatulan
We might be looking for sentences and words that just aren't there. Dolphins
see with sound, so maybe all those clicks and whistles are their way of
sketching images for each other.

~~~
suvelx
Perhaps to test this, you could have two sets of identical statues.

Two dolphins need to interact with the matching statues together to get food.

If you followed the 'five monkeys and a ladder with a banana' experiment and
found two dolphins who worked it out. Replace one with another. Presumably one
will try and teach the other.

With enough dolphins and statues, you might be able to use the similar methods
you'd use to break simple cryptography to work out what part of the
communication is about the statue.

Or, you'll find out every dolphin talks to every other dolphin differently.
And then and then the government bans dolphins out of fear of being unable to
intercept dolphin based communications.

~~~
jack9
> Presumably one will try and teach the other.

IIRC this has already been tried and demonstrated to happen. This is the first
thing that google came up with, but I'm sure Scientific American has also
covered the teaching behavior.

[http://www.earthintransition.org/2011/09/dolphins-teach-
each...](http://www.earthintransition.org/2011/09/dolphins-teach-each-other-
new-trick/)

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aaron695
That fact it mentions Koko (A great example of Facilitated Communication)
shows they have no real concern for science on the subject.

It's the one who "cried" when Robin Williams died, you can't make this stuff
up (1)

But the original research looks interesting, but yes silly humans finding
patterns to prove things they want to believe does not make science. Hence why
intelligent people still say, there's no evidence yet it's language.

(1) [https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/koko-the-gorilla-cries-over-
robi...](https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/koko-the-gorilla-cries-over-robin-
williams-94619476571.html)

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mac01021
Something I've always wondered about dolphins:

They are widely regarded as ranking among the most intelligent animals. At the
very least, they seem to be much more trainable than a wide variety of other
mammals.

But why? What about their lifestyle, diet, hunting methods, etc requires
cognitive ability greater than that of (say) a shark or an antelope?

~~~
jack9
Same could be asked about humans. Quirk of evolution is my best guess.

~~~
mac01021
Noone would ask this question about humans. Humans use tools, coordinate their
activity by communicating detailed questions, statements, and commands, and
contrive elaborate schemes for altering their environments to be more
favorable. The ability to do these things is accepted without controversy as
being essential to their success as a species.

But dolphins: what do they do in their natural environment that utilizes such
intelligence? If they just swim around eating fish and mating, then they need
not be any smarter than sharks, which do basically the same thing.

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linhchi
We call it communication as a broader classification. Then the system of
sounds they make is the communication medium. Like looking in the eyes.

