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A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
- montenegrohugo 5y agoIt seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. Perhaps you could add the lack of a prehensile thumb and deft fingers to build tools with, but I think communication is even more fundamental for the recipe of civilization. Anyone can empirically recognize some form of intelligence in animals, whether it be your pet dog, a smart street crow or a beluga whale. Additionally, I've never found the relative brain size theory sufficiently satisfactory to explain our superiority. How can the brain of an elephant, or a blue whale (about 7 times the mass of our brain), be that much inferior? I don't think it is; I think it is just different, and that we are not capable to really empathize with it enough (unless we reach some absurd degree of anthropomorphizing it). If we accept these premises, what does it make to our worldview and the morality of how we treat animals?
- firebaze 5y agoAnother point of view could be intelligent animals like whales see another dimension of existence we simply cannot understand. Maybe they just think further, they deeply understand the fractal nature of the laws of the universe and they came to the conclusion, that nothing they'll ever do will have an influence to improve anything at all, since nothing is really bad, so they just sing their songs and propagate reasonably? :) /semi-sarcastic viewpoint Maybe this comes across as an emo-anti-intelligence-nature-knows-it-best post. It wasn't intended to, at all. It even isn't meant to.
- steve_adams_86 5y agoThis is precisely why I’ve transformed my eating habits. I realized that while I can’t prove these animals have a conscious experience like mine (or one I would value as I do the human conscience, I suppose), I also can’t prove that they don’t. We can all read and likely have many experiences indicating that animals, in many circumstances, actually behave much like humans do. And for all the arguments that animals do x or y because they’re responding to stimulus, well... So are we. It really clicked a while back and since then, I just can’t go back. I no longer feel sufficiently different from a cow or a pig in order to feel comfortable eating them. I certainly don’t judge others for disagreeing either though. Just as I don’t judge wolves for eating caribou or fish for eating fish. Humans operate under the illusion that they have free or stronger will than these animals, but I’m not sure that’s true anymore. I’m not even clear on why I had this revelation or why it matters enough to me to act on it! It’s all very absurd in a way.
- p1necone 5y agoOccams razor tells me that other animals probably do have a concious experience just like ours. Sure, they could have all the same internal organs as us (at least with mammals, and reptiles/birds to a slightly lesser extent), a similarly structured brain, be evolved from the same common ancestors and exhibit all the same outward signs of being conscious and self aware but somehow be totally different from humans. But that would be much more complicated than the simple explanation that they are just like us, but less intelligent.
- jack9 5y ago> Occams razor tells me that other animals probably do have a concious experience just like ours. For most mammals, everything is so similar...including responses to stimuli like light, sound, temperature, pain, pleasure, even predictive behavior (knowing when they have done something to provoke a human response) that the same principle leads me to believe it's likely they have a very similar experience.
- jamiek88 5y agoEveryone who has lived with a dog has seen the sheepish ‘I fucked up look’ when you’ve got home instead of the pure exuberance usually experienced You know immediately there’s a mess to clean up! I mean they clearly dream too. If dreaming isn’t evidence of an inner life I don’t know what is.
- steve_adams_86 5y agoI personally loved having this realization. All these creatures of the earth are probably having very rich and significant experiences. If it’s not limited to humanity, then wow, the world really is so alive. I still struggle to imagine a bug having a conscience that resembles mine. I’m not sure why. I tell myself they don’t have the brains for it or the sensory capabilities or whatever. I’m probably wrong.
- r721 5y ago
- stormbrew 5y ago> Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. I mean, this whale seems to be doing about the same thing I do with my cats. I don't really see how you can derive any directionality here about how 'rich' their communication is from that. It's likely cats are intrigued and also baffled by what we're 'saying' when we do this. That's not to say I think cats have as rich of communication as we do, just that we can't even manage to make much sense of other species' vocal communication, let alone mimic any meaning present in it, even when we are pretty sure it is actually simpler than ours. From that it seems way overly confident to state that all failure on our part to recognize depth is because of a lack of it.
- lrem 5y agoThere's been some research on coyotes or similar animals, can't remember. They managed to figure out about 30 "words". Interestingly one of that tiny budget was for a human and another one for a human with a gun.
- crooked-v 5y agoYou may be interested in this Youtube channel, wherein a dog owner has been teaching the dog to use a gradually expanding set of talking buttons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXy7NTGHAyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXy7NTGHAyQ There's another channel where someone's been doing the same with some measure of success with a cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooCEYMaNL8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooCEYMaNL8I
- matz1 5y agoNot sure why my morality has to change, doesn't matter if pig turn out to have conscious experience like mine, I will still eat it.
- jonathanlb 5y agoOk, I’ll bite (no pun intended): if it were socially acceptable to eat people, would you?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- matz1 5y agoI wouldn't, like I wouldn't eat dog/monkey even though its socially acceptable in certain place, in my mind its disgusting. Pig on the other hand its delicious.
- spaetzleesser 5y agoThat’s what I don’t get. Why are some animals acceptable to eat and some are aren’t? I know people who get totally outraged over dog or horse meat at but have no problem with beef or pork. Pigs are very intelligent and emotional. Way more than horses who aren’t that smart in comparison.
- matz1 5y agoI can only speak for myself. I don't eat dog/monkey i think it because my upbringing/culture thus it create disgusting feeling in my brain. I have no problem with pigs because I've used to it since childhood and i find it delicious. It has nothing to do with it being intelligent/emotional.
- Larrikin 5y agoI find it hypocritical too, but there are some animals that also just don't taste that great compared to what is "common". Whale meat for instance resembles beef, in kind of the way alligator resembles chicken. But whale and gator are pretty terrible in comparison to the more common animal so they just aren't worth it to eat.
- gizmo686 5y agoThere are a lot of components needed for civilization. In the case of humans, agriculture was a big one, as it led to the feasibility of cities and specialization of labor. Absent specific adaptations to agriculture, tool making is essential for it. Advanced civilization is greatly helped by written communication (although human history shows we can get pretty far without it), which again depends on tool making. Without the ability to make tools there is only so far a species can get. Human superiority also depended on non-intelligent traits. Without evolving the ability to sweat, we might never have had the opportunity to develop civilization. Regarding brain size, larger animals need larger brains just control their bodily functions, so looking at brain size without controling for body size does not tell you much. If you look at brain:body ratio, humans are pretty high up, but not a crazy outlier [0] (figure 7.13), and not the best [1]. A simple ratio probably not the best test, and seems to favor small animals. A more advanced measure exists [2], but suffers from a bit of a fine tuning problem. There is also an implicit assumption that "intelligence" is a single dimensional value, which is simply not the case. For instance, beyond being a tool for communication, language seems to be a tool for thinking as well, but is clearly not a result of a general "intelligence" we have. Our overall intelligence is likely the result of a bunch of specialized systems within the brain [0] https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/cosmic_evolution/docs/text/text_cult_3.html https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/cosmic_evolution/do... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio#Comparisons_between_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio#Compa... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient
- jamesgreenleaf 5y agoEnvironmental conditions are a big factor as well. We've existed as humans for ~300k years, but it was only ~10k years ago that we learned agriculture and civilization-building. That coincided with the beginning of the Holocene Epoch, when the world got warmer, the glaciers melted, and the sea level rose by 400 feet. We must have had those capabilities all along, but it was only when the conditions were right that they were able to be fully expressed.
- rand0mx1 5y agoRegarding your brain-body ratio https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/18/eabe2101 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/18/eabe2101
- bmitc 5y ago> It seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. How do you know all that? There is ample evidence that whales, and in particular orcas, have complex intelligence and communication. If you can't understand what a whale is talking about, I'm not sure how you can make these claims.
- hellbannedguy 5y agoActually, I think many animals might communicate better than humans, but we don't know how they do it. I wouldn't completely suprise me if their are certain animals using telepathic thought? Or, some way if communicitating we haven't a clue existed. (And yes I know telepathic thought has been completely debunked in humans. Actually, there's a million sitting stomewhere if any person can successfully pass a institutes telepathic ability test. To date the money is still there, or a higher amount? My point is we know so little about other species.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jamiek88 5y agoWell whales can communicate across thousands of miles without satellites so there’s one example! :)
- Matumio 5y agoA major distinction of humans is that we are a cultural species. We have evolved to pass down large amounts of knowledge to the next generation. Being good at communication (and motivated to use it for teaching) kind of follows from this. We are not game-changing smart at figuring out new tools. But we are excellent at copying innovations from others, remembering them and fine-tuning them over generations. On this I highly recommend Joseph Henrich's book: "The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter".
- jobigoud 5y ago> only real difference between most animals and humans But if I'm not mistaken this is not true of early humans, even "anatomically modern" humans. We don't really know when language evolved but it's probable that early humans did not "speak" for a long while.
- haecceity 5y agoI guess the emphasis is on tried
- IronWolve 5y agoDon't forget Koko the Gorilla. She was able to sign, understand english and recount stories of her past. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4QQ8Mfjb_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4QQ8Mfjb_g
- axiolite 5y agoNot as clear as case as we've been led to believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYWSXRUGxDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYWSXRUGxDQ
- tomerico 5y agoInteresting watch. TL;DW - Apes like Koko were raised by trainers who did not perform rigorous scientific measurements and were prone to bias. Research on Apes became immoral over time, hence less recent examples exist. The most recent and rigorous study is on a bonobo, where communication is done using touchscreen with buttons saying words (lexigrams). Even in this case interaction seems to be limited to “give me an item” or “put item in box”.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago> Research on Apes became immoral over time Teaching apes sign language became viewed as immoral?
- ReaLNero 5y agoRaising them only by interacting with a single person (not of their species!) would be immoral for a human baby, and depending on your views of ethics, also immoral for a gorilla.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoOh, I didn't realize that was somehow required to teach them sign language.
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- system2 5y agoIsn't there a single video of it?
- tempestn 5y agoThere's an audio recording in the story.
- ComputerGuru 5y agoAudio: https://m.soundcloud.com/smithsonianmag/noc-the-beluga-whale https://m.soundcloud.com/smithsonianmag/noc-the-beluga-whale
- suifbwish 5y agoWorst mobile webpage of all time. Cant read anything because it constantly jumps around loading ads and pop ups. I would expect this from the daily news not something like the smithsonian.
- a3n 5y agoUse an ad blocker. It viewed just fine for me. Your poor experience is justification enough for blocking. I await the day when internet ads are not resource sucking, malware vectoring, PII leaking surveillance systems. Until then, I block. Online venues say they need ads to survive. I say they need benign ads to survive much longer. It could even be a form of competition, like Volvo marketing themselves as "safe." EDIT: Cut to child reading a tablet with, er, childlike wonder, and two parents giving each other a visual "whew!"
- masswerk 5y agoWhat I find fascinating about this is that there are various species which have tackled human speech with at least some success (both actively and passively), while, conversely, we are apparently rather bad at participating in their communicative acts (like, imitating utterances in a meaningful way). Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? Edit, regarding "something else": Apparently, we are able to recognize individuals of other primate species by face at a very early age, but lose this ability soon (even before we acquire speech), probably in favor of other social abilities. Which may be an indication for a high degree of intraspecies specialication regarding our communicative abilities.
- jimmaswell 5y agoWe can do some bird calls decently.
- FridayoLeary 5y agoMaybe a bit off-topic, but here are some examples of humans communicating with animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
- 867-5309 5y agothose are quite specific and questionable cases, usually involving neglect perhaps more pertinent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93animal_communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93animal_communica... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_animal#Possibility_of_animal_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_animal#Possibility_of_...
- loopz 5y agoYou can do dog language. Many people do. It's not about barking or asserting dominance.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Igelau 5y agoPha loves Pa.
- ggm 5y ago"The day of the dolphins" is both nearer and further away.
- ComputerGuru 5y agoThe audio in question: https://m.soundcloud.com/smithsonianmag/noc-the-beluga-whale https://m.soundcloud.com/smithsonianmag/noc-the-beluga-whale
- Iv 5y agoThanks!
- a3n 5y agoFascinating, hopeful and yet saddening. I would like to have seen something about Inuit experience with Belugans speaking HSL, Human as a Second Language.
- ironmagma 5y agoThere are also recordings of orcas imitating human speech. https://youtu.be/hqB1jRVw7Bw https://youtu.be/hqB1jRVw7Bw
- j4ah4n 5y agoI stumbled across this related project a few months ago, really interesting initiative. https://github.com/earthspecies/project https://github.com/earthspecies/project
- neonological 5y agoLook up the story woman who lived with a dolphin in a house for the specific goal of teaching the dolphin English. Literally the house was made water proof and filled up to the waistline with water and the dolphin and the woman lived together. This wasn't a separate tank. The two developed sort of a one sided sexual relationship where the woman would stimulate the dolphins genitalia before the lessons could commence as the dolphin wouldn't be able to concentrate otherwise. Not even slightly joking. True story, the above actually happened. There's a podcast of it somewhere where they interviewed her.
- quattrofan 5y agoSea World should be shutdown, it's essentially torturing these animals. We would never accept this being done to humans and we shouldn't for such extraordinary and intelligent creatures.
- DyslexicAtheist 5y agoWe better not embrace whales trying to communicate with us. These finned "c!nts" are only interested in taking our jobs, our land, and even our women! Coming up here ... Onto our land ... With their barely developed lungs ... And their hopes and dreams "of a better tomorrow for whales". GET BACK in the SEA I say!! My name's Tucker Carlson from Fox news, and I say we need to ensure the brightest and best whales STAY IN THE SEA, and concentrate on making it aquatically prosperous, instead of coming up here, onto our land, and beginning the process of evolution that will eventually lead to all life on Earth after the humans. (apologies, this was paraphrased from Stewart Lee's comedy vehicle "comin over here" bit and is satire)
- pgcj_poster 5y agoThey should put the spectrograms of Noc's speech on the final exam of a phonetics class and tell students to identify the words without knowing that they were produced by a beluga. Then we'll know what he was saying.
- JoeDaDude 5y agoI am reminded of the case of Alex the Parrot [1]. We all know parrots can mimic human speech very well, but the case made for Alex is that he was using actual language to convey meaning and not just parroting (pun intended) what he heard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot) In my wild imagination, I imagine parrots being taught to communicate with humans, being let loose into the jungle, and the passing on human language to their offspring. Some years hence, people would venture into the jungle and would be able to ask the parrots for directions. :)
- pstuart 5y agoKind of like this: http://www.chitka.info/attention.html http://www.chitka.info/attention.html
- jobigoud 5y agoThere is also the case of these dogs that have grown up using sound boards to communicate with their humans (sound on): https://www.instagram.com/p/CMuXy3mBcVw/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CMuXy3mBcVw/
- Ancalagon 5y agoWow that is fascinating, thank you for sharing
- rotexo 5y agoOn a tangent: if humanity ever found themselves in a children of men-style situation, I think an excellent use of the final generation’s resources and effort would be building a system of fully automated luxury communism for the corvids and parrots of the world. Automated seed farms, drones that carry birds with broken wings to safety and treat their wounds, self-cleaning nesting boxes, etc.
- seg_lol 5y agoReminds me of a Twilight Zone episode where an earthling and an alien meet on a far off planet. The earthling isn't smart enough to learn the alien language, so she learns english. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_7,_Over_and_Out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_7,_Over_and_Out
- jobigoud 5y agoThere is also another Twilight Zone episode where common words gradually change meaning and the hero slowly lose his ability to communicate and has to fake understanding. Pretty scary one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordplay_(The_Twilight_Zone) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordplay_(The_Twilight_Zone)
- michael1999 5y agoA lonely Janissary.