News Maybe the rosetta stone for dolphin language has been found

[Topper]

In this morning, I watched a very intersting documentation on ARTE (A french / german TV channel) about the communication of animals. The most intersting part was that a scinetest said that dolphins are communicateing using a "picture language". They are able to send a 3D picture of an object transmitted by sound from one dolphin to another one.

The story is available in French
http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/045880-000/operation-dolittle

...and German:
http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/045880-000/operation-dolittle

And here is an English article:
http://www.speakdolphin.com/ResearchItems.cfm?ID=6

If this is true, then it's incredible!

 

[Urwumpe]

Sounds rather fantastic... you mean they makes noises, like they hear for some objects... but by which sound do they sound them then? Dolphins have multiple kinds of "sonar pings".

 

[Topper]

Sounds rather fantastic... you mean they makes noises, like they hear for some objects... but by which sound do they sound them then? Dolphins have multiple kinds of "sonar pings".

Yep, that is what they said in the article I posted:

There is growing evidence that dolphins can take a sonic 'snap shot' of an object and send it to other dolphins, using sound as the transmission medium. We can therefore hypothesize that the dolphin's primary method of communication is picture based. Thus, the picture-based imaging method, employed by Reid and Kassewitz, seems entirely plausible."

 

[Artlav]

Makes a lot of sense - dolphins can "see" by hearing echos, so they could be able to say the "image".

If that's how alien the language of our neighbours on the planet is, then how silly it is to expect the extraterrestrials to speak english or make sounds at all.

 

[T.Neo]

Many organisms on Earth produce sounds (including dolphins and other cetaceans), so it isn't illogical to assume that organisms elsewhere might do so as well. Of course, the types of sound produced, how they are produced and how they are used to communicate could vary widely. For example, various insects produce sounds via [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stridulation"]stridulation[/ame]; rubbing parts of their bodies together to produce sound. This is quite different to the manner in which birds or humans (for instance) vocalise...

 

[Topper]

Many organisms on Earth produce sounds (including dolphins and other cetaceans), so it isn't illogical to assume that organisms elsewhere might do so as well. Of course, the types of sound produced, how they are produced and how they are used to communicate could vary widely. For example, various insects produce sounds via stridulation; rubbing parts of their bodies together to produce sound. This is quite different to the manner in which birds or humans (for instance) vocalise...

Sure, but the point is, that if it's true what they said, then the "dolphin language" is superior to the human form of communication (and of other animals), because this is an "universal language". So every dolphin could be able to understand each other dolphin. And maybe, this is the usual form of communication between intelligent lifeforms...

 

[orb]

And maybe, this is the usual form of communication between intelligent lifeforms...

Well, it sounded like humen are unintelligent life forms, because they don't use the universal language, but for example a German dog barking at a Russian dog are more intelligent life forms, because they most likely both understand what the other one was saying. :lol:

 

[Topper]

Well, it sounded like humen are unintelligent life forms, because they don't use the universal language,

No thats not what I want to say... Just their form of communication seems to be superior to the human form of communication.
Because the human form of communication is:

Picture (assoziation) in brain ==> Translating into language (Speaking person) ==> Translateting into picture (Hearing Person) ==> Picture (assoziation) in brain

And for dolphins:
Picture (assoziation) in brain ==> sound transmittion ==> Picture (assoziation) in brain

So they don't realy need words for everything...

 

[marooder86]

... the "dolphin language" is superior to the human form of communication (and of other animals), because this is an "universal language". So every dolphin could be able to understand each other dolphin.

Human also use universal language, it's "body language" combined with emotions. Sure it's quite basic and cannot carry many inormations but it's pretty much universal. No matter what's color of your skin or what verbal language you speak of, I can tell whether you're happy, sad, surprised, shocked or mad can't I.

 

[Topper]

Human also use universal language, it's "body language" combined with emotions. Sure it's quite basic and cannot carry many inormations but it's pretty much universal. No matter what's color of your skin or what verbal language you speak of, I can tell whether you're happy, sad, surprised, shocked or mad can't I.

Sure, but you can't create a specific picture of something in my brain with words or with body language. Words are just symbols and maybe you can assoziate a word with a picture in your brain, but when I say "bread" you have another picture of bread in your brain than I have or someone else has... And the word sound different in different languages... And if a cat wags with it's tail it's a different meaning than if a dog wags with it's tail...

The dolphins form of communication is more like transmitting pictures by telepathy from one brain to another one just using sound as medium... (But maybe not only, mabye they have also verbs but I don't know)

 

[Ghostrider]

Sure, but the point is, that if it's true what they said, then the "dolphin language" is superior to the human form of communication (and of other animals), because this is an "universal language".

Remember that humans have a *LOT* of concepts - both abstract and not - to express and which vary in expression and value from culture to culture. A "universal language" does not prove any "superiority" over the current variety of human languages. If you're not convinced, find me a body of literature written in Esperanto that can rival the production of any non-universal languages on Earth.

 

[Topper]

Remember that humans have a *LOT* of concepts - both abstract and not - to express and which vary in expression and value from culture to culture. A "universal language" does not prove any "superiority" over the current variety of human languages. If you're not convinced, find me a body of literature written in Esperanto that can rival the production of any non-universal languages on Earth.

Noone can understand me ... I should talk in dolphin language :lol:

The point is, it's necessary to learn esperanto before you can understand it. I don't believe that Aliens are able to understand esperanto also?

Of course, you can not have a complex conversation by using only pictures. But using pictures could be the basic and could be always the first step for communication between dolphins...

 

[Artlav]

It might be superior if the sound is the dolphin's primary sense.

Humans have the vision as the primary sense, so a lot of the thinking is image-oriented. Words being spoken go thru a translation layer or two to get to the actual thinking and back, along with a pattern compression/decompression layer. There is no one-to-one natural mapping between an image and a sound, so all our languages are artificial in one way or another.


Now, imagine that you had a screen on your forehead (or a projector in your mouth), that can make any image you can think of.
What would the communication be like?
Would there be any significant differences in languages around the world?

Any two people would be able to communicate basic ideas and actions - just by showing a picture or movie of it. No big language barriers.

There might be quite some differences in ways of expressing high-level concepts, but it's much less of a problem than what we have now.

---------- Post added at 23:46 ---------- Previous post was at 23:42 ----------

Of course, you can not have a complex conversation by using only pictures.

Oh, no, no. With the above assumption, you very well can. With the ability to compose any image by a thought, you can define syntax as spatial location and concepts as shapes - just like sounds do that by patterns and timing.

Even without it you can - look at Chinese "letters", which at one time were likely just sketchy images of things.

 

[Cairan]

I wouldn't be so quick, look at the writing styles of Japaneese and Chineese, ideograms... A dolphin could possibly do something like this with images:

Rocky Bottom Corals Crashing wave Solid metal plates Floating human Floating Human Shark Baby dolphin

could mean to them "Hey guys there's a bunch of people in the water near the coral reef and our friends the sharks seem interested in them, we should go protect them and fend off the finnies..."

Bottom line is, we have no idea how'd they'd communicate but even with pictures you can can construct complex ideas and concepts. We're just not used to thinking that way...

 

[Artlav]

Thinking further about it...
It might be an ontological, object-oriented language - there would be concept images for classes of things, like a sketchy of a tree, and instances, like an image of a specific tree from your memory - two things that are not separatable in our speech.

When you say cat, i think of my cat, or some cat i've seen the most, and you think of your cat or similar. But your cat might be a persian fur ball, while mine is a short trimmed russian blue. This pre-sets and biases the thinking that follow from the conversation, and opens up vast trapdoors of miscommunication to be stepped into.

The class "cat" and an instance of "cat" are mixed together implicitly.

In an image based communication such problem won't happen - there would be an explicit separation of the class and the instance.
The positive fallback of that alone on the quality of thinking and communication can be enormous.

 

[Topper]

Oh, no, no. With the above assumption, you very well can. With the ability to compose any image by a thought, you can define syntax as spatial location and concepts as shapes - just like sounds do that by patterns and timing.

Even without it you can - look at Chinese "letters", which at one time were likely just sketchy images of things.

What I mean is, that for some words also a picture is just a symbol. For example for verbs (walk). If you just see a walking person, you can interpret different meanings into this picture.

And also for mathematik: If you have a number, lets say 5, you can have a picture of it for sure, but if you don't know whats a "five" is it says you nothink. So also a picture of a "five" is just a symbol (and maybe not universal).

I hope you understand what I want to say ;-)

But maybe, dolphins are using the binary system :rofl:

 

[Cairan]

They'd have to have a need for numbers... Humans (and other primates) evolved counting capabilities because we needed to keep track of our resources and exchange between each other. In the dolphin world, would they need numbers? That concept could be very abstract to them, whereas to humans basic numbers are quite "natural" (up to a range where we don't use them in everyday life, like a quadrillion... ;P )

However, they might have concepts such as density or volume of objects which would emulate our conceptualization of numbers.

 

[marooder86]

Sure, but you can't create a specific picture of something in my brain with words or with body language.

That's true that's why I mentioned it carries only basic informations and is strickly tide up to emotions but it is universal for all humans.

Words are just symbols and maybe you can assoziate a word with a picture in your brain, but when I say "bread" you have another picture of bread in your brain than I have or someone else has... And the word sound different in different languages...

Yes that is also correct but I think it's not because we use words or what even worse different languages but because we went through different learning processes. For example if the "bread" as an eatable object was standarised meaning in every place on the earth it was made from the same ingridients and with the exact same recipe the end product would be the same everywere. Then if we as children went through learning process the picture of a "bread" whould be the same for me as for you although we might use diffrent words to describe it, kind of like different mediums but only on abstract level. The basic medium during verbal communication are still sound waves for us.

And if a cat wags with it's tail it's a different meaning than if a dog wags with it's tail...

I guess it's because they are different spiecies.

The dolphins form of communication is more like transmitting pictures by telepathy from one brain to another one just using sound as medium... (But maybe not only, mabye they have also verbs but I don't know)

I don't think there is a telepathy involved in dolphins communication but more like they use only one language instead of many as humans do. And dolphins have easier task since they don't manufacture objects or change the surrounding anvironment as we are but only interact with what's already in oceans.
And here's one questions that pops out for me(guilty of not reading the article carefully) do the dolphins has to go through a learning process like we do. For example if dolphin A sends to a dolphin B a picture of a hammer nose shark will the dolphin B be able to interpret this information correctly if it never seen such creature before or it will be minigless for it. Because if not then then I don't see any superiority in such form of communication it is much like ours but just one language.

 

[T.Neo]

Sure, but the point is, that if it's true what they said, then the "dolphin language" is superior to the human form of communication (and of other animals), because this is an "universal language". So every dolphin could be able to understand each other dolphin. And maybe, this is the usual form of communication between intelligent lifeforms...

Well, it wouldn't be 'universal' in an inter-species sense, as various other intelligent organisms on Earth lack organs similar to the ones dolphins use for echolocation.

 

[boogabooga]

Wow. Wow. Wow.

I wonder if in a few tens of millions of years, if it could be the descendants of the dolphins and not humans which will escape this planet and establish themselves as the representatives of earth in the cosmos?