First, it was not a troll.
Now I shall defend my previous comments.
I understand the intent of the project, and I apologize if I gave the impression that I didn't. The differneces between human languages and dolphin language(s) are obviously quite numerous. That is why "we don't have the ability yet to understand what they are saying."
The reason we can not understand them is not because their language is beyond us, it is merely because our languages are different. Any language that we create in an effort to communicate with dolphins will be more similar to human languages than dolphin languages
Currently, they are researching with single words, and are apparently successful. Where do we continue after this? A question can not be asked with only nouns. In order to form a question, a grammar is needed. Any grammar we create will be based on human grammars.
This is exactly the case with apes learning ASL. ASL has a human grammar. Apes have the advantage of being similar to humans and this is not too far a stretch from their own forms of communication.
Why, though, should we expect dolphins to understand our more complex linguistic nature, when we can't understand theirs?
I, frankly, don't see the point of constructing a new language for use only in dolphin-human interactions. Human languages are all very similar (there are linguistic elements actually built into us genetically), and I can't imagine it being possible for us to create a new language without relying too much on our own linguistics. We try to teach dolphins how to say "fish," well I wouldn't doubt that dolphin-speak may lack nouns. Can anything be learned from teaching dolphins a new language, besides the fact that dolphins can learn a new language? It's the equivilent to meeting a primitive human tribe somewhere and getting them all to learn esperanto to communicate with us. If we want to learn about dolphins, we have to learn what dolphins are saying... not what we are teaching them to say.
But I bet that park in Hawaii is getting a lot of new visitors, and subsequently revenue;)
right now, if user A goes out and buys a new CD, and someone downloads it from him, the availability of this song on Napster doubles. Being that "protected" MP3s will not be available for download, the number of users you can download a given song from greatly decreases. Chain reaction: people who actually buy music have all their bandwidth taken, give up and continue buying music. People who don't buy music get frustrated that the honest people left and that there's no music left on Napster. Napster goes out of business.
Of course, this all changes if we are allowed to download downloaded music. But then the client would actually contain code to undo the protection layer, making it just that much easier to crack. Plus, I'd imagine the RIAA wouldn't care for this too much, either.
I'm reminded of an urban legend about Coca-Cola. It says that their trademark includes Coca-Cola gum. In order to keep their trademark, they (keep in mind, this is not true), make a single pack of gum a year, ship it to some small store in New Jersey. Then a Coca-Cola employee walks into the store and buys the pack of gum
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First, it was not a troll. Now I shall defend my previous comments. I understand the intent of the project, and I apologize if I gave the impression that I didn't. The differneces between human languages and dolphin language(s) are obviously quite numerous. That is why "we don't have the ability yet to understand what they are saying." The reason we can not understand them is not because their language is beyond us, it is merely because our languages are different. Any language that we create in an effort to communicate with dolphins will be more similar to human languages than dolphin languages Currently, they are researching with single words, and are apparently successful. Where do we continue after this? A question can not be asked with only nouns. In order to form a question, a grammar is needed. Any grammar we create will be based on human grammars. This is exactly the case with apes learning ASL. ASL has a human grammar. Apes have the advantage of being similar to humans and this is not too far a stretch from their own forms of communication. Why, though, should we expect dolphins to understand our more complex linguistic nature, when we can't understand theirs?
I, frankly, don't see the point of constructing a new language for use only in dolphin-human interactions. Human languages are all very similar (there are linguistic elements actually built into us genetically), and I can't imagine it being possible for us to create a new language without relying too much on our own linguistics. We try to teach dolphins how to say "fish," well I wouldn't doubt that dolphin-speak may lack nouns. Can anything be learned from teaching dolphins a new language, besides the fact that dolphins can learn a new language? It's the equivilent to meeting a primitive human tribe somewhere and getting them all to learn esperanto to communicate with us. If we want to learn about dolphins, we have to learn what dolphins are saying... not what we are teaching them to say. But I bet that park in Hawaii is getting a lot of new visitors, and subsequently revenue ;)
right now, if user A goes out and buys a new CD, and someone downloads it from him, the availability of this song on Napster doubles. Being that "protected" MP3s will not be available for download, the number of users you can download a given song from greatly decreases. Chain reaction: people who actually buy music have all their bandwidth taken, give up and continue buying music. People who don't buy music get frustrated that the honest people left and that there's no music left on Napster. Napster goes out of business. Of course, this all changes if we are allowed to download downloaded music. But then the client would actually contain code to undo the protection layer, making it just that much easier to crack. Plus, I'd imagine the RIAA wouldn't care for this too much, either.
I'm reminded of an urban legend about Coca-Cola. It says that their trademark includes Coca-Cola gum. In order to keep their trademark, they (keep in mind, this is not true), make a single pack of gum a year, ship it to some small store in New Jersey. Then a Coca-Cola employee walks into the store and buys the pack of gum