7 ms·

Dolphins are exactly why I feel SETI is such a misguided (in a sweet way) effort. Here we are, searching for extraterrestrial intelligence while we can't even

by mtrimpe 14y ago

Dolphins are exactly why I feel SETI is such a misguided (in a sweet way) effort. Here we are, searching for extraterrestrial intelligence while we can't even communicate with the other intelligent species on our own planet. Glad to see we're making progress though!

ceejayoz 14y ago
We communicate with dolphins, gorillas, elephants, etc. all the time. SETI is looking for technological species.
yareally 14y ago
Parrots call each other by names as well[1] and crows have been shown to speak in two different dialects depending if they are with a group or among individuals[2]. In the same link about crows, they have also been seen using tools in the wild and in experiments using "meta tools", something that only primates have been observed doing (using one tool to reach another tool that will be used for their end goal [generally food]). It's quite amazing how much we take the animals around us for granted sometimes since all of this, like the dolphins is really new research that has only hit the tip of the iceberg. The documentary about crows from PBS is quite insightful (full episode is at the link below if your region allows it). I was never much of a fan of crows and considered them kind of an annoyance. However, after watching it, I gained much more respect for their intelligence and complexity. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9A4HPdXgQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9A4HPdXgQ [2] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/full-episode/5977/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/fu... edit: the OP link actually mentions those particular crows and their tool usage in one of the slides.
- Catalina 14y ago
  Modern culture is filled with prejudices towards non-human forms of life. Not only are animals taken for granted and exploited for the well-being of the human species, which is wrongfully considered a "superior" life form, but life itself is taken for granted. Realizing just "now" that non-human life forms are more complex than we thought is simply because our ability to even be open minded about that possibility was completely suffocated by the hubris of humanity.
  - yareally 14y ago
    Indeed. I'd say a mixture of people having more time to study such things as well as people getting over the idea that we have nothing to learn from animals. I study animal intelligence as sort of a hobby in my free time and have focused on birds lately since they seem to get less recognition for intelligence than mammals or other animals that dominate television shows. Everyone knows parrots can mimic, but little mainstream news goes beyond that. Corvids (jays[1], crows[2], starlings, etc) can actually mimic in a similar manner. Birds in general are quite misrepresented and phrases like "eat like a bird" or "bird brained" are quite incorrect. We all come from the same basic building blocks through evolution, so it would be quite weird to say that we don't share traits with our fellow animals. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T6pUxthClw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T6pUxthClw [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgTCoTD3BWI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgTCoTD3BWI
  - shmageggy 14y ago
    Not just modern culture, but really for the history of civilization. In fact, discoveries like these are starting to make us more empathetic, finally. During the 18th century, not only were all non-humans considered mindless automatons, many humans were too. The early descriptions of indigenous people by the European whites are pretty appalling.
    - mjmahone17 14y ago
      It's ironic in its own way, given how many (not all, but many) of the indigineous groups treated animals and their ecosystems with more respect than they were given by other humans. In a lot of ways, it seems like we're having to relearn a lot of the values that cultures with longer histories have known for hundreds of years.
      - ekianjo 14y ago
        Let's be careful about "values from cultures with longer histories". They may have had good values but that did not prevent them from slaughtering each other all the same. Some american indians were known to be very violent yet very much in harmony with nature. So, what good does it do in the end?
- pyre 14y ago
  A Murder Of Crows was done in concert w/ CBC, though they may have done their own post-production work (I've only watched the PBS version). Canadians should probably look to the CBC[1] to watch it. There's also an interesting blurb from the director here[2]. [1]: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderofcrows/ http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderof... [2]: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderofcrows/director.html http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderof...
  - yareally 14y ago
    Wow, that second link was a really good article. Thanks for sharing. I didn't realize crows were that camera shy or observant that people were watching them back. Makes sense though they they would be paranoid when someone or some thing is paying them too much attention as 99% of the time it means something bad will come next.
    - nealabq 14y ago
      Once I cornered a rabbit in my ally. The usual way out was blocked, and the rabbit was frantically searching the far wall for another escape while I watched. After a bit I was momentarily distracted, and the rabbit choose that moment to dash past me. Apparently the rabbit knew my attention had turned. As would a crow. They don't need our special mental abilities -- language and lambdas -- to model the mental states of those around them. (In other words, even the rabbits could tell last Saturday's party sucked as soon as they entered the room. Which is why none of them stayed.:)
      - yareally 14y ago
        I guess what just surprised me was crows would be that alert when they really have the advantage on us when it comes to escaping and being aware from having the high ground and ability to fly (well unless a person is hunting them, which is unlikely in a city). That combined with their communication with each other of potential threats. I grew up on a farm around lots of wild animals and you're correct about rabbits though from my times of trying to catch them or saving baby bunnies from the cats. They're very observant, but I always figured they had much more reason to be from being alone and also limited to the ground without the ability to climb trees. I've seen some birds that have little awareness (mourning doves and some sparrows). Sometimes they don't even realize you're almost on top of them until you're right next to them and then they freak out and fly away.
jlgreco 14y ago
SETI isn't about communication though, at least not the conversational type; the speed of light is a cruel mistress.
weavejester 14y ago
SETI is about finding alien signals, not necessarily understanding them. However, it's likely that any extraterrestrial intelligence capable of sending out signals powerful enough to reach us, will have an understanding of science and mathematics, which is more than we have in common with dolphins.
- yesbabyyes 14y ago
  That sounds very intriguing. However, it's likely that any extraterrestrial intelligence capable of maintaining life on it's home planet, will have an understanding of their fellow life forms, which is more than we have.
  - weavejester 14y ago
    What makes you say that? It doesn't take too much knowledge to maintain a biosphere, otherwise it would have collapsed long before humans arrived on Earth. It seems more to do with how cautious you want to be, how far a race is willing to push the environment in return for faster progress. I also suspect that any extraterrestrial intelligence capable of making a signal detectable by our equipment would have given up its biological roots a long time ago, as life as we know it is badly adapted for space travel.
    - scotty79 14y ago
      > It doesn't take too much knowledge to maintain a biosphere, otherwise it would have collapsed long before humans arrived on Earth. Well. It did. Multiple times.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event It's just that things tend do kick back in if you give them few millions of years.
  - ceejayoz 14y ago
    > However, it's likely that any extraterrestrial intelligence capable of maintaining life on it's home planet, will have an understanding of their fellow life forms, which is more than we have. That's quite the assumption. Right now, our sample size of one shows the opposite.
2muchcoffeeman 14y ago
There's no reason we can't pursue multiple lines of research in parallel. It's probably more efficient too.
bitwize 14y ago
SETI is not misguided. We've known for a long time that Earth was hospitable to intelligent life (us). That there are other species with similar levels of intelligent just makes Earth more awesome. But it would be a complete mindfuck if we found other intelligent life in space, where before there were mainly only stars, rocks, and interesting formations of liquid and gas somewhere in between. It would change everything.
- mtrimpe 14y ago
  I'd say having a meaningful conversation with a dolphin would be a much bigger mindfuck. For all we know we could be discussing how the transition to Kantian philosophy played out slightly different for them in a few years.
  - bitwize 14y ago
    Dr. Irene Pepperberg has had meaningful conversations with an African Grey parrot. It was pretty cool. It gives me hope for a future of being part of a society with other sapient species in it. But it wouldn't be quite the "whoa, on large enough scales the universe _really is_ the same, everywhere" type feeling that humans having meaningful conversations with, say, Fookin' Prawns would.
- seldo 14y ago
  The thing about SETI is that it is not really a search for intelligent life, it's a search for "intelligent life that broadcasts radio waves of a frequency and power that we can detect in a pattern and on a timescale similar enough to our own communications that we can recognize it". Fermi's paradox basically boils down to: if intelligent life is at all common, it should be everywhere we look, and yet we don't see any. The traditional position is that therefore if we don't see intelligent life, it must be because it's too rare, or communication across interstellar distances is impossible. But the other possible answer is that intelligent life is everywhere, and we just don't understand or even recognize it as such. The fact that we've been living with dolphins for millions of years and actively studying them for decades and have only just worked out a pretty basic fact -- they have names for each other -- despite the fact that they share most of their genes with us and live under the same environmental conditions exactly, suggests that we are probably really really bad at recognizing intelligent life that isn't exactly like our own.
tsieling 14y ago
SETI isn't about communicating with alien lifeforms, it's about detecting signs of other intelligences than ourselves. Studying these aspects of dolphins is actually the same endeavour, just looking in different places.
leoh 14y ago
I feel the same way about projects looking into habitation of foreign planets. The science and the engineering behind the endeavor is interesting, but why seriously not start thinking about and practicing sustainability in places like Antarctica?
- s-v 14y ago
  Colonizing another planet is a hedge against a destructive event (asteroid, bomb, etc) completely extinguishing the human species.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Colonizing another planet would be a speciating event. Alpha Centurians would become a different species anyway, just like a population of birds that gets stranded on a remote island becomes a different species.
eri 14y ago
I think what really excites most people about SETI is not just the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, but extraterrestrial life that's more advanced than we are. Not sure what 'advanced' means though :)
jasonzemos 14y ago
This is a healthy sentiment that shows respect for the otherness of the other. I do think SETI is still necessary only because the empirical platform that all life shares is universal -- the radio spectrum, physics -- it's the same for all species. But this thread still clearly deserves some quotes from Stanislaw Lem: "We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos." "We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds."
InclinedPlane 14y ago
An intelligent species is different from a technological one, by a huge magnitude. That's not to say that dolphins aren't worthwhile to communicate with but there will never be a dolphin shakespeare, or pythagoras, or einstein, or da vinci. The options for being able to communicate with a technological species are astronomically greater than with a non-technological intelligent species.
martingoodson 14y ago
SETI are one of the biggest supporters of research into dolphin vocalisations. Laurance Doyle, who is at SETI, is one of the pioneers of the field. http://www.tusker.com/tusker-trips/eclipse-trips/archaeo/art.SetiNews.cfm http://www.tusker.com/tusker-trips/eclipse-trips/archaeo/art...

by mtrimpe 14y ago

ceejayoz 14y ago

We communicate with dolphins, gorillas, elephants, etc. all the time. SETI is looking for technological species.

yareally 14y ago

Parrots call each other by names as well[1] and crows have been shown to speak in two different dialects depending if they are with a group or among individuals[2]. In the same link about crows, they have also been seen using tools in the wild and in experiments using "meta tools", something that only primates have been observed doing (using one tool to reach another tool that will be used for their end goal [generally food]). It's quite amazing how much we take the animals around us for granted sometimes since all of this, like the dolphins is really new research that has only hit the tip of the iceberg. The documentary about crows from PBS is quite insightful (full episode is at the link below if your region allows it). I was never much of a fan of crows and considered them kind of an annoyance. However, after watching it, I gained much more respect for their intelligence and complexity. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9A4HPdXgQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9A4HPdXgQ [2] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/full-episode/5977/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/fu... edit: the OP link actually mentions those particular crows and their tool usage in one of the slides.

Catalina 14y ago
Modern culture is filled with prejudices towards non-human forms of life. Not only are animals taken for granted and exploited for the well-being of the human species, which is wrongfully considered a "superior" life form, but life itself is taken for granted. Realizing just "now" that non-human life forms are more complex than we thought is simply because our ability to even be open minded about that possibility was completely suffocated by the hubris of humanity.
- yareally 14y ago
  Indeed. I'd say a mixture of people having more time to study such things as well as people getting over the idea that we have nothing to learn from animals. I study animal intelligence as sort of a hobby in my free time and have focused on birds lately since they seem to get less recognition for intelligence than mammals or other animals that dominate television shows. Everyone knows parrots can mimic, but little mainstream news goes beyond that. Corvids (jays[1], crows[2], starlings, etc) can actually mimic in a similar manner. Birds in general are quite misrepresented and phrases like "eat like a bird" or "bird brained" are quite incorrect. We all come from the same basic building blocks through evolution, so it would be quite weird to say that we don't share traits with our fellow animals. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T6pUxthClw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T6pUxthClw [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgTCoTD3BWI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgTCoTD3BWI
- shmageggy 14y ago
  Not just modern culture, but really for the history of civilization. In fact, discoveries like these are starting to make us more empathetic, finally. During the 18th century, not only were all non-humans considered mindless automatons, many humans were too. The early descriptions of indigenous people by the European whites are pretty appalling.
  - mjmahone17 14y ago
    It's ironic in its own way, given how many (not all, but many) of the indigineous groups treated animals and their ecosystems with more respect than they were given by other humans. In a lot of ways, it seems like we're having to relearn a lot of the values that cultures with longer histories have known for hundreds of years.
    - ekianjo 14y ago
      Let's be careful about "values from cultures with longer histories". They may have had good values but that did not prevent them from slaughtering each other all the same. Some american indians were known to be very violent yet very much in harmony with nature. So, what good does it do in the end?
pyre 14y ago
A Murder Of Crows was done in concert w/ CBC, though they may have done their own post-production work (I've only watched the PBS version). Canadians should probably look to the CBC[1] to watch it. There's also an interesting blurb from the director here[2]. [1]: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderofcrows/ http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderof... [2]: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderofcrows/director.html http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderof...
- yareally 14y ago
  Wow, that second link was a really good article. Thanks for sharing. I didn't realize crows were that camera shy or observant that people were watching them back. Makes sense though they they would be paranoid when someone or some thing is paying them too much attention as 99% of the time it means something bad will come next.
  - nealabq 14y ago
    Once I cornered a rabbit in my ally. The usual way out was blocked, and the rabbit was frantically searching the far wall for another escape while I watched. After a bit I was momentarily distracted, and the rabbit choose that moment to dash past me. Apparently the rabbit knew my attention had turned. As would a crow. They don't need our special mental abilities -- language and lambdas -- to model the mental states of those around them. (In other words, even the rabbits could tell last Saturday's party sucked as soon as they entered the room. Which is why none of them stayed.:)
    - yareally 14y ago
      I guess what just surprised me was crows would be that alert when they really have the advantage on us when it comes to escaping and being aware from having the high ground and ability to fly (well unless a person is hunting them, which is unlikely in a city). That combined with their communication with each other of potential threats. I grew up on a farm around lots of wild animals and you're correct about rabbits though from my times of trying to catch them or saving baby bunnies from the cats. They're very observant, but I always figured they had much more reason to be from being alone and also limited to the ground without the ability to climb trees. I've seen some birds that have little awareness (mourning doves and some sparrows). Sometimes they don't even realize you're almost on top of them until you're right next to them and then they freak out and fly away.

jlgreco 14y ago

SETI isn't about communication though, at least not the conversational type; the speed of light is a cruel mistress.

weavejester 14y ago

SETI is about finding alien signals, not necessarily understanding them. However, it's likely that any extraterrestrial intelligence capable of sending out signals powerful enough to reach us, will have an understanding of science and mathematics, which is more than we have in common with dolphins.

yesbabyyes 14y ago
That sounds very intriguing. However, it's likely that any extraterrestrial intelligence capable of maintaining life on it's home planet, will have an understanding of their fellow life forms, which is more than we have.
- weavejester 14y ago
  What makes you say that? It doesn't take too much knowledge to maintain a biosphere, otherwise it would have collapsed long before humans arrived on Earth. It seems more to do with how cautious you want to be, how far a race is willing to push the environment in return for faster progress. I also suspect that any extraterrestrial intelligence capable of making a signal detectable by our equipment would have given up its biological roots a long time ago, as life as we know it is badly adapted for space travel.
  - scotty79 14y ago
    > It doesn't take too much knowledge to maintain a biosphere, otherwise it would have collapsed long before humans arrived on Earth. Well. It did. Multiple times.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event It's just that things tend do kick back in if you give them few millions of years.
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  > However, it's likely that any extraterrestrial intelligence capable of maintaining life on it's home planet, will have an understanding of their fellow life forms, which is more than we have. That's quite the assumption. Right now, our sample size of one shows the opposite.

2muchcoffeeman 14y ago

There's no reason we can't pursue multiple lines of research in parallel. It's probably more efficient too.

bitwize 14y ago

SETI is not misguided. We've known for a long time that Earth was hospitable to intelligent life (us). That there are other species with similar levels of intelligent just makes Earth more awesome. But it would be a complete mindfuck if we found other intelligent life in space, where before there were mainly only stars, rocks, and interesting formations of liquid and gas somewhere in between. It would change everything.

mtrimpe 14y ago
I'd say having a meaningful conversation with a dolphin would be a much bigger mindfuck. For all we know we could be discussing how the transition to Kantian philosophy played out slightly different for them in a few years.
- bitwize 14y ago
  Dr. Irene Pepperberg has had meaningful conversations with an African Grey parrot. It was pretty cool. It gives me hope for a future of being part of a society with other sapient species in it. But it wouldn't be quite the "whoa, on large enough scales the universe _really is_ the same, everywhere" type feeling that humans having meaningful conversations with, say, Fookin' Prawns would.
seldo 14y ago
The thing about SETI is that it is not really a search for intelligent life, it's a search for "intelligent life that broadcasts radio waves of a frequency and power that we can detect in a pattern and on a timescale similar enough to our own communications that we can recognize it". Fermi's paradox basically boils down to: if intelligent life is at all common, it should be everywhere we look, and yet we don't see any. The traditional position is that therefore if we don't see intelligent life, it must be because it's too rare, or communication across interstellar distances is impossible. But the other possible answer is that intelligent life is everywhere, and we just don't understand or even recognize it as such. The fact that we've been living with dolphins for millions of years and actively studying them for decades and have only just worked out a pretty basic fact -- they have names for each other -- despite the fact that they share most of their genes with us and live under the same environmental conditions exactly, suggests that we are probably really really bad at recognizing intelligent life that isn't exactly like our own.

tsieling 14y ago

SETI isn't about communicating with alien lifeforms, it's about detecting signs of other intelligences than ourselves. Studying these aspects of dolphins is actually the same endeavour, just looking in different places.

leoh 14y ago

I feel the same way about projects looking into habitation of foreign planets. The science and the engineering behind the endeavor is interesting, but why seriously not start thinking about and practicing sustainability in places like Antarctica?

s-v 14y ago
Colonizing another planet is a hedge against a destructive event (asteroid, bomb, etc) completely extinguishing the human species.
- philwelch 14y ago
  Colonizing another planet would be a speciating event. Alpha Centurians would become a different species anyway, just like a population of birds that gets stranded on a remote island becomes a different species.

eri 14y ago

I think what really excites most people about SETI is not just the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, but extraterrestrial life that's more advanced than we are. Not sure what 'advanced' means though :)

jasonzemos 14y ago

This is a healthy sentiment that shows respect for the otherness of the other. I do think SETI is still necessary only because the empirical platform that all life shares is universal -- the radio spectrum, physics -- it's the same for all species. But this thread still clearly deserves some quotes from Stanislaw Lem: "We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos." "We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds."

InclinedPlane 14y ago

An intelligent species is different from a technological one, by a huge magnitude. That's not to say that dolphins aren't worthwhile to communicate with but there will never be a dolphin shakespeare, or pythagoras, or einstein, or da vinci. The options for being able to communicate with a technological species are astronomically greater than with a non-technological intelligent species.

martingoodson 14y ago

SETI are one of the biggest supporters of research into dolphin vocalisations. Laurance Doyle, who is at SETI, is one of the pioneers of the field. http://www.tusker.com/tusker-trips/eclipse-trips/archaeo/art.SetiNews.cfm http://www.tusker.com/tusker-trips/eclipse-trips/archaeo/art...