I just read Extraterrestrial Languages by Daniel Oberhaus and a comment about dolphins made me blink.
In 1961, a group of 10 scientists met to discuss communication with aliens. The conference
led to SETI – the continuing effort to search for extraterrestrial intelligence by listening for radio signals from stars
was opened by Frank Drake who presented the now-famous Drake equation – a framework for interrogating how many alien civilisations might be out there
and included John Lilly who was making an earnest attempt to communicate with dolphins.
From the book:
Lilly gained widespread recognition for his work through the publications of Man and Dolphin, in which he argued that dolphins may be as intelligent as humans and that communicating with them should be possible. Lilly ended up going to great lengths to speak to dolphins, including the questionable practice of injecting his cetacean subjects with LSD, but his attempts at interspecies communication were never successful.
This Guardian piece has more about Lilly’s work:
Man and Dolphin extrapolated Mary Lilly’s initial observations of dolphins mimicking human voices, right through to teaching them to speak English and on ultimately to a Cetacean Chair at the United Nations, where all marine mammals would have an enlightening input into world affairs, widening our perspectives on everything from science to history, economics and current affairs.
The above article focuses on the Lilly’s assistant, a young woman, and the distinctly unethical goings-on in the lab.
It sounds like the human/dolphin sexual encounters garnered some media attention, and - on top of Lilly’s already unusual work, and the connection with aliens - dolphin communication made its way into public consciousness.
Honestly I don’t know how I’ve missed John Lilly’s work.
It must have made a big impression. There’s often a throwaway comment in sci-fi of a certain era about a dolphin ambassador, or a “background colour” mention about a breakthrough in speaking with cetaceans. Of course this is the kind of thing that I recall reading but is impossible to google, so I’m looking over my bookshelf wondering what to pick up.
In Suzette Haden Elgin’s feminist/linguistics/science fiction novel Native Tongue (1984), which I’m now re-reading, one storyline includes language learning facilities (the “Interface”) clearly inspired by Lilly’s lab, and also the use of LSD.
The Embedding by Ian Watson (1973; here’s a long review) - which is excellent - is also filed on my shelves under: science fiction; linguistics; unethically dosing children with psychedelics. I can’t remember if dolphins feature, but I think I might read this one next.
Okay so let’s pretend we could speak with dolphins. What would that mean?
I mean, not everyone would be able to speak with dolphins. I imagine that, to me personally, speaking with a dolphin would not be particularly accessible. So all I would hear would be through magazine interviews, or TV, or reddit Ask Me Anythings. It would be about as distant as an interview with Elon Musk.
There would be a particular lobby that would want the dolphins to speak for the oceans, and there would be an environmental protection agenda. Would that make a difference? Knowing that there are (human) tribes in the Amazon doesn’t stop us from cutting it down.
But is that what the dolphins would say? Maybe they would want to share information about where to go for the best fish. Or make us laugh with dirty bubble limericks.
I think that, without anything to trade, we’d run out of things to talk about. Without necessarily supporting a human agenda, what they said wouldn’t be reported. We’d forget that we could speak with dolphins at all.
By analogy: there are people who have extreme empathy with cows, but we don’t ask them about cattle farming. To them, cows can speak. See this paper about Temple Grandin and cattle empathy: Grandin’s biographies credit her autism with providing privileged access to bovine subjectivity … but do we, as a culture, pro-actively seek out oracles like this, and consult them about beefburgers? Maybe we should. Maybe we shouldn’t. But we don’t.
‘Yes, we’ll see them together some Saturday afternoon then,’ she said. ‘I won’t have any hand in your not going to Cathedral on Sunday morning. I suppose we must be getting back. What time was it when you looked at your watch just now?’ "In China and some other countries it is not considered necessary to give the girls any education; but in Japan it is not so. The girls are educated here, though not so much as the boys; and of late years they have established schools where they receive what we call the higher branches of instruction. Every year new schools for girls are opened; and a great many of the Japanese who formerly would not be seen in public with their wives have adopted the Western idea, and bring their wives into society. The marriage laws have been arranged so as to allow the different classes to marry among[Pg 258] each other, and the government is doing all it can to improve the condition of the women. They were better off before than the women of any other Eastern country; and if things go on as they are now going, they will be still better in a few years. The world moves. "Frank and Fred." She whispered something to herself in horrified dismay; but then she looked at me with her eyes very blue and said "You'll see him about it, won't you? You must help unravel this tangle, Richard; and if you do I'll--I'll dance at your wedding; yours and--somebody's we know!" Her eyes began forewith. Lawrence laughed silently. He seemed to be intensely amused about something. He took a flat brown paper parcel from his pocket. making a notable addition to American literature. I did truly. "Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might have been men who would have remembered that Mrs. Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate. "I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train." "Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got." "Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—" "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." RE: Fruyling's World "MACDONALD'S GATE" "Read me some of it." "Well, I want something better than that." HoME大香蕉第一时间
ENTER NUMBET 0016lucoqn.com.cn lunhong.com.cn www.ifsrin.com.cn www.haztcm.org.cn www.wbzmkb.com.cn smeita.org.cn www.titceb.com.cn qhtq.com.cn ufnews.com.cn www.xerpdd.com.cn
I just read Extraterrestrial Languages by Daniel Oberhaus and a comment about dolphins made me blink.
In 1961, a group of 10 scientists met to discuss communication with aliens. The conference
From the book:
This Guardian piece has more about Lilly’s work:
The above article focuses on the Lilly’s assistant, a young woman, and the distinctly unethical goings-on in the lab.
It sounds like the human/dolphin sexual encounters garnered some media attention, and - on top of Lilly’s already unusual work, and the connection with aliens - dolphin communication made its way into public consciousness.
Honestly I don’t know how I’ve missed John Lilly’s work.
It must have made a big impression. There’s often a throwaway comment in sci-fi of a certain era about a dolphin ambassador, or a “background colour” mention about a breakthrough in speaking with cetaceans. Of course this is the kind of thing that I recall reading but is impossible to google, so I’m looking over my bookshelf wondering what to pick up.
In Suzette Haden Elgin’s feminist/linguistics/science fiction novel Native Tongue (1984), which I’m now re-reading, one storyline includes language learning facilities (the “Interface”) clearly inspired by Lilly’s lab, and also the use of LSD.
The Embedding by Ian Watson (1973; here’s a long review) - which is excellent - is also filed on my shelves under: science fiction; linguistics; unethically dosing children with psychedelics. I can’t remember if dolphins feature, but I think I might read this one next.
Okay so let’s pretend we could speak with dolphins. What would that mean?
I mean, not everyone would be able to speak with dolphins. I imagine that, to me personally, speaking with a dolphin would not be particularly accessible. So all I would hear would be through magazine interviews, or TV, or reddit Ask Me Anythings. It would be about as distant as an interview with Elon Musk.
There would be a particular lobby that would want the dolphins to speak for the oceans, and there would be an environmental protection agenda. Would that make a difference? Knowing that there are (human) tribes in the Amazon doesn’t stop us from cutting it down.
But is that what the dolphins would say? Maybe they would want to share information about where to go for the best fish. Or make us laugh with dirty bubble limericks.
I think that, without anything to trade, we’d run out of things to talk about. Without necessarily supporting a human agenda, what they said wouldn’t be reported. We’d forget that we could speak with dolphins at all.
By analogy: there are people who have extreme empathy with cows, but we don’t ask them about cattle farming. To them, cows can speak. See this paper about Temple Grandin and cattle empathy: … but do we, as a culture, pro-actively seek out oracles like this, and consult them about beefburgers? Maybe we should. Maybe we shouldn’t. But we don’t.
Anyway.