Posted by
michael
on from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-touchscreens dept.
zephc writes "Wired is reporting that a group of researchers are working with an artificial language of whistles in an attempt to communicate with dolphins."
This kind of research on animal intelligence is indeed groundbreaking, and is opposed from many sides who believe that animals cannot really communicate with humans, and any signs of communication are really just imitation. It's like with SETI: Trying to get people to finance a project where you tell them you want to talk to chimpanzees, or dolphins, or parrots (some interesting experiments there, too) is similar to requesting grants for funding a nanotechnological molecular assembler that circulates in your blood and destroys viruses..
This despite the fact that many of these projects have produced astonishing results. I was especially fascinated by the work of Dr. Roger Fouts and his colleagues, who have tried to teach the American Sign Language to chimpanzees -- and succeeded. Not only did the chimps communicate with them over food and life in general, they also taught the sign language to their children. And more precise than you might imagine: Instructions like "Tickle me, then bring me one of those bananas. Oh, and I would like to watch some TV" are not at all uncommon;-)
Find more info at their Institute, I especially recommend the book "Next to Kin". I really wish such projects could be funded through micropayments. If every Slashdot reader donated a dollar to this research, they'd be much farther than they are now.
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Re:Groundbreaking Research
by
Cyclopatra
·
· Score: 5
If every Slashdot reader donated a dollar to this research, they'd be much farther than they are now.
Well, you can make a donation online here. And the project's webpage is here for more info and pictures of cute dolphins:P
I gave 'em 25$. Anybody else find that they donate a lot more as a result of reading/. ? Maybe it's a second/. effect...your website gets hammered, but your donations skyrocket...
Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
-- "We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
What will they find...
by
Daemosthenes
·
· Score: 5
I predict the first message will read something like this...
"My hesitation is that dolphins are primarily acoustic animals while humans are primarily visual animals. In humans, the most-used sense is vision; we use it to process data."
"For dolphins, the primary route to assimilate information is via sound.
Perhaps they could use blind people.
--
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
Does no one here have respect for language?
by
OlympicSponsor
·
· Score: 5
I'm no Luddite, I'd love to be able to talk to dolphins and/or apes...but you can't teach language to apes and dolphins. Language isn't just a matter of brute processing power of the brain. It requires innate wiring created to handle it. Consider cases of otherwise intelligent people who because of stroke, disease, injury, genetic impairment, etc are unable to process language. Conversely, think of disorders where the subject is able to converse on quite a sophisticated level but has an IQ of around 50.
If apes or dolphins had anything approaching a human-level ability at language, we'd observe them spontaneously using it. Check out "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker for more info on this topic. --
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
The same technique was used to attempt to communicate with John Carmack of id Software
Johns remarks: Vertex programs aren't invariant with the fixed function geometry paths.
That means that you can't mix vertex program passes with normal
passes in a multipass algorithm. This is annoying, and shouldn't have
happened.
In light of these statements the efforts were seen as a failure, we may never know if anyone will ever understand Carmack.
Re:Your last comment is untrue
by
raju1kabir
·
· Score: 4
Try The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker. (Great book; should be on everybody's reading list. However, I can't give you an exact page because my friend stole it.)
Pinker's critical evaluation of Koko begins in earnest on p. 337 (I've assiduously hunted down my copy whenever it's left my hands for too long).
To begin with, the apes did
not "learn American sign language." This preposterous claim is based on the myth that ASL is a crude system of pantomimes and gestures rather than a full language with comples phonology, morphology, and syntax. In fact the apes had not learned any true ASL signs. The one deaf signer on the Washoe team later made these candid remarks:
"Every time the chimp made a sign, we were supposed to write it down in the log... They were always complaining because my log didn't show enough signs. All the hearing people turned in logs with long lists of signs. They always saw more signs than I did... I watched really carefully. The chimp's hands were moving constantly. Maybe I missed something, but I don't think so. I just wasn't seeing any signs. The hearing people were logging every movement the chimp made as a sign. Every time the chimp put his finger in his mouth, they'd say 'Oh, he's making the sign for
drink,' and they'd give him some milk... When the chimp scratched itself, they'd record it as the sign for scratch... When [the chimps] want something, they'd reach. Sometimes [the trainers would] say, "Oh, amazing, look at that, it's exactly like the ASL sign for give!" It wasn't."
Now, it's also possible that this native signer was excessively picky about ASL; in high school language classes, for instance, students can understand each other saying stuff that no native speaker of the language in question would ever be able to puzzle out. But it seems more likely that what was reported is true; the apes were just being apes and the researchers were biased in favor of positive results.
-- "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Why the preoccupation with "intelligent" animals?
by
Chuck+Flynn
·
· Score: 5
Why are humans so preoccupied with intelligence as a measure of species worth? Because we're narcissistic to think that we possess it as a defining characteristic and that therefore other animals are valuable in so far as they approximate our own species?
Intelligence isn't even an evolutionarily important characteristic: just look at how few species possess it -- if it were more valuable, then it would be selected for, and more species would have it. Which species do have it? Squids, spiders, and other predators. Intelligence has evolved at each stage in animal evolution (cephalopods, arachnids, mammalia, etc.) but only as a means of furthering predation. Where's the morality in that?
If any animal has worth, then they all have worth. If we're squeamish about killing any one kind of animal (a "higher-order" "intelligent" animal), then we should be squeamish about killing all animals, since intelligence is just another characteristic and not a particularly important one at that. This absurdity is well illustrated by the author's final point:
The ultimate goal of Marten's research is to illustrate to the world the high intelligence of dolphins and the need to protect the species.
"Dolphins are being killed by the millions so we can get our tuna. It's like what people used to say about the American buffalo -- 'Gee there used to be buffalo up on those hills.' The same will be true of the dolphins if we do not act," Marten said.
It's been said before, but it needs repeating: what about the tuna? Why worry about killing all those dolphins when we're so intent on killing the damn tuna? If you cut tuna, do they not bleed?
I can only think of one really good reason why we should be studying dolphin communication and that's so we can learn from their experience with other sea creatures. We've been to the moon and back, but there are parts of our own ocean that we've never explored, depths we've never plumbed. If we could communicate with dolphins and ask them what they've seen of our aquatic universe, then maybe we'd know a lot more about what goes on beneath the surfaces of our placid lagoons. Dolphins provide a perfect solution to the dangers and expenses of manned and unmanned submarine exploration -- let's not reinvent the wheel by reinventing the dolphin.
Slashdot Mirror
This despite the fact that many of these projects have produced astonishing results. I was especially fascinated by the work of Dr. Roger Fouts and his colleagues, who have tried to teach the American Sign Language to chimpanzees -- and succeeded. Not only did the chimps communicate with them over food and life in general, they also taught the sign language to their children. And more precise than you might imagine: Instructions like "Tickle me, then bring me one of those bananas. Oh, and I would like to watch some TV" are not at all uncommon ;-)
Find more info at their Institute, I especially recommend the book "Next to Kin". I really wish such projects could be funded through micropayments. If every Slashdot reader donated a dollar to this research, they'd be much farther than they are now.
--
I predict the first message will read something like this...
"So long, and thanks for all the fish."
Sorry, I just couldn't resist it.
47.5% Slashdot Pure(52.5% Corrupt)
Perhaps they could use blind people.
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
I'm no Luddite, I'd love to be able to talk to dolphins and/or apes...but you can't teach language to apes and dolphins. Language isn't just a matter of brute processing power of the brain. It requires innate wiring created to handle it. Consider cases of otherwise intelligent people who because of stroke, disease, injury, genetic impairment, etc are unable to process language. Conversely, think of disorders where the subject is able to converse on quite a sophisticated level but has an IQ of around 50.
If apes or dolphins had anything approaching a human-level ability at language, we'd observe them spontaneously using it. Check out "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker for more info on this topic.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
The same technique was used to attempt to communicate with John Carmack of id Software
Johns remarks:
Vertex programs aren't invariant with the fixed function geometry paths. That means that you can't mix vertex program passes with normal passes in a multipass algorithm. This is annoying, and shouldn't have happened.
In light of these statements the efforts were seen as a failure, we may never know if anyone will ever understand Carmack.
Pinker's critical evaluation of Koko begins in earnest on p. 337 (I've assiduously hunted down my copy whenever it's left my hands for too long).
Now, it's also possible that this native signer was excessively picky about ASL; in high school language classes, for instance, students can understand each other saying stuff that no native speaker of the language in question would ever be able to puzzle out. But it seems more likely that what was reported is true; the apes were just being apes and the researchers were biased in favor of positive results.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Intelligence isn't even an evolutionarily important characteristic: just look at how few species possess it -- if it were more valuable, then it would be selected for, and more species would have it. Which species do have it? Squids, spiders, and other predators. Intelligence has evolved at each stage in animal evolution (cephalopods, arachnids, mammalia, etc.) but only as a means of furthering predation. Where's the morality in that?
If any animal has worth, then they all have worth. If we're squeamish about killing any one kind of animal (a "higher-order" "intelligent" animal), then we should be squeamish about killing all animals, since intelligence is just another characteristic and not a particularly important one at that. This absurdity is well illustrated by the author's final point: It's been said before, but it needs repeating: what about the tuna? Why worry about killing all those dolphins when we're so intent on killing the damn tuna? If you cut tuna, do they not bleed?
I can only think of one really good reason why we should be studying dolphin communication and that's so we can learn from their experience with other sea creatures. We've been to the moon and back, but there are parts of our own ocean that we've never explored, depths we've never plumbed. If we could communicate with dolphins and ask them what they've seen of our aquatic universe, then maybe we'd know a lot more about what goes on beneath the surfaces of our placid lagoons. Dolphins provide a perfect solution to the dangers and expenses of manned and unmanned submarine exploration -- let's not reinvent the wheel by reinventing the dolphin.
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