Our biggest problem which has not been solved yet is human inability to ask questions in non-anthropocentric way. For example, when we investigate self-awarenes

Our biggest problem which has not been solved yet is human inability to ask questions in non-anthropocentric way. For example, when we investigate self-awareness in dolphins we use mirrors (by the way, one recent project failed to replicate the much cited and discussed mirror self-recognition study). We are visual species, dolphins are not, many live in very murky waters with limited visibility.Why are they expected to pass mirror self-recognition test? Can we measure self-recognition without mirrors? It is even worse with cetacean signals. Their system is nothing like human language; to begin with, it is very fast, it is so fast that dolphins could distinguish separate clicks in a sound that consists of 100s clicks which we perceive as one continuous "squeaky door" sound. Then they have 2 areas in their brain associated with auditory processing (unlike in humans and other mammals that have just one). https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150707082344.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150707082344.h... On top of that, small corpus callosum means that two hemispheres are more independent in dolphins than they are in humans. This should have at least some effect on how they "think".Finally, "seeing" world through sound, and being able to make 2 (maybe even more) sounds at once independently only adds to the "alien" complexity of cetacean species. Anyone who has seen a spectrogram of a dolphin pod vocalizing will testify: they rarely shut up! There is a constant chatter going on, apart from echolocation. It must have some meaning, evolution would not tolerate such waste of energy for nothing.We have been investigating dolphins cognition and communication since 1960s, we still do not know what they "think" or "say" and it could be partially due to our tendency to compare them to us, expecting something similar.