SETI Talks: Whales, their song, their culture: another intelligence on Earth

[@JustinMcFly1980]

I've been saying it since the movie Orca came out, basically since I was a kid. We should give them there space and learn from them. Tribes an Society's of the Ocean. Love the research. Much appreciated Hello from North Dallas, and New Orleans

[@mrorange159]

just some ideas here, I'm not a marine biologist or anything but I have a strong IT background of 20 years. Maybe some of the sounds the whales are making aren't language at all but rather a retransmission of their surroundings to convey their experience to others. Sitting and attempting to think as a whale, I think if their whole navigation in the world is through echo location then it stands to reason that they might try and reproduce what they see to others around them to give them direction/advice. Just in the same way a person might express something through a painting to others only just through sound instead of paint. An example might be the sonar signature of a squid. They might reproduce perhaps a slowed down version of that sound to another whale to tell them there are squid in this area below. They may also be reproducing their environment as sounds. This could explain the deep curved sounds "weeeopp" etc, these could be underwater cliff faces etc. They maybe saying "hole there with fish in it, cliff face here with cool water" etc Naturally processing such a complex system of clicks and tones would take a lot of processing power so this might explain their brain size. Just a suggestion, not sure if others have already considered this? If I close my eyes and pretend to be a whale it's the first thing I'd think to do 😅 but not being a marine biologist I might be coming across as a bit naive. By the way I'm not suggesting they don't communicate in other ways as mentioned in the video, im just thinking it might pay to broaden our thoughts from these sounds just being "language" in the traditional sense. Conveying sonar imagery is almost like ESP which would be quite incredible if proven true. At 12:50 there is talk about nation wide song changes. Is it possible they are transmitting an updated map between each other of their world to date? A 30 min song that updates sounds like a map to me . They may be bouncing this map between each other and updating it when they realise there are differences. Incidentally this might explain why human sonars make them beach themselves because it messes with the map structure they've memorised. It might not only be a map of an area but also a route between places and everything they've encountered along the route. Rather than looking at the whale calls as "words" all the time maybe we can try and translate them in to a 3d image. I often here clicks that seem to increase or decrease in frequency which to me would suggest a variation of depth or distance and so this might be a starting point though some how I think I'm not the first person to consider this. Lastly, 15:02 there are some sound patterns. These probably wildly vary but in the example they to me remind me of the frequency of a ball dropping or more relevantly an object coming closer such as another whale. I guess I'm just saying the frequency might indicate Proximity.

[@hayvenforpeace]

“A retransmission of their surroundings to convey their experience to others” is fundamentally *what a language is* . Humans do this too-think about how much speech is dedicated to what is in our surroundings, and what thoughts we have related to our past and future surroundings. It’s nearly 100%. I doubt their language works the exact same as a human language, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a language or that they aren’t *speaking* - even if their speech includes echolocation and other senses that we don’t possess.

[@jyojin8941]

Your idea here was exactly the first thing I thought of when I heard of this project. Something like sending images or symbols that represent something. As you said, the "image" of a squid could mean "food" (or perhaps as detailed as "squid" specifically). Given their brain size combined with how they "see" the world around them, this does make sense to me. Like you admitted as well, I am not an expert on this sort of thing either, so I may very likely be incorrect... but it is an interesting concept we should consider. We are talking about communicating with what is possibly another intelligent life form: we call it "alien" for a reason. Unrelated: This whole thing reminds me of the opening lines from the movie Pacific Rim "I'd look up at the stars, wondering if there was life up there. Turns out, I was looking in the wrong direction".

[@Aengus42]

I've heard this proposed for dolphins too. Kind of "You'll never guess what I saw yesterday! Here. I'll show you..." and then the dolphin reproduces the echoes that came from whatever it is it saw. The only problem is the second dolphin would maybe have to know what was sent so it could work out just how the object changed the original pings. But that isn't insurmountable, it'd just need for both the initial pings AND the return echoes for the image to make any sense. It's a fascinating idea and it would make communication between whales, dolphins & porpoises incredibly rich if it were so.

[@mrorange159]

@Hayven Rakotoarimanana I think perhaps you may have overlooked my point which is just that we shouldn't necessarily be just looking for "words". Yes, I agree language can mean a lot of things, I'm just saying let's broaden our approach to the problem and not just be sitting with a dictionary trying to translate clicks and pops into English because I feel that's likely to be counter productive. Thank you for your perspective.

[@mrorange159]

@@Aengus42 our brains are capable of transforming waves of light in to imagery so it is possible to imagine dolphins doing the same thing with sound waves. I agree it is interesting. Thanks for your response.

[@stuartreed37]

Very excited to watch this! Thanks SETI for being awesome.

[@stuartreed37]

The part I'm stuck on is why do researchers think the humpback song is about mating? It's like hearing a human choir and going well that's obviously a mating ritual. How do you know? It doesn't seem like it to me. Where can the actual evidence be found and not just "well we think it's this way."

[@jeremywu508]

Interesting research. Thank you for sharing the knowledge!

[@therferwarn]

Great talks! Congrats!

[@timmcdraw7568]

I love this so much. But question: why is it, or actually, how is it that you can talk about such an exciting fascinating topic like this, which is mind blowing and moving, an literally every single interviewer ever about literally anything is like “can you talk a little about how you became interested in this?” Like, who cares? Talk about what THIS is! Leave the bio for whatever future biography lol.

[@TheMatrixofMeaning]

I absolutely hate when people talk AROUND a subject generally rather than ABOUT something specific and interesting within it. I don't want to know what you were thinking when you made this video, I want to know about the thing I came here for 😅

[@smith023023]

I've been wondering about this for a long time but I do have a question how do the wales react to researchers replicating the clan/family sound to those who it relates too?

[@hayvenforpeace]

I’m not entirely sure, and I wish they discussed it more. Probably they’d see it the way we see someone struggling to speak a foreign language, with a thick accent and errors in grammar. They’d also wonder why the human was claiming to be someone else, and maybe assign the researcher his/her/their own name in their language.

[@mizubiart6230]

@@hayvenforpeace wolves have been reported to listen and even reply to human calls but quickly realise we don’t understand what they’re saying. So I think they might listen to us, but I think they’ll realise we don’t speak a language but imitate sounds. But, cetaceans have clocked our language and can learn to articulate words that sound like ours. Not through training, but comprehension.

[@karimshaker5009]

Thank you! shouts from Madrid

[@RickySupriyadi]

how's LLMs translation in whale do? any new developments?

[@motogirlzero5890]

I have always wondered if the Gabon forest Elephants, that travel to the beaches, and the whales in nearby waters can hear or understand each other in some manner, . Since their types of low long traveling frequencies of communications seem somewhat similar to me . I am not a scientist just a curios learning observer . I have wondered how either species would react to hearing the other's language.

[@minalitalreja]

Nice content

[@eugenenciu902]

Thank you!

[@meetontheledge1380]

Dec. 12, 2023. SETI broadcasts a greeting to ''Twain''. For about 20 minutes, he seems to ''answer'' back. This was a wonderful ''Christmas present'' and some joyful news that we all need. It is also reassuring that this breakthrough was so freely shared, as some of us always worry that the gov./military might be inclined to seize such advancements. This is uplifting news! Liked and subbed. 🐳 kzbin.info/www/bejne/g4rRdox5g5eeiJI

[@Hispanortodoxo]

Sperm whales are my favourite animals and I consuder them basically non human sea people along with other cetaceans

[@seanmccall7277]

We need to know whether their communication is anything other than of the 4 F's. I hate to say this, but no one cares what they're saying if it's just a baroque version of the 4F's. I don't care about whale soap operas and cetacean gossip. 😂 But.... if they are doing more than that, it would be super important and incredible. 🐋 Thank you

[@rhoddryice5412]

Welsh certainly got larger brains than others. ;)

[@phillipgreene2564]

Well.... absolutely awesome to consider what we might share with these magnificent animals that together we start from sperm and egg while our forms develop through billions and billions of cells across a time so differently We should find our survival shares a common need to communicate.... Communication is a truely fascinating feature of life. The fact that I'm able to mindlessly communicate with my body; that I can look at my finger and consciously move it in the direction of my choosing is oft a simple action that is taken for granted At the atomic scale this is highly curious activity, but if you'd momentarily settle your attention on the communication at the cellular scale and be so kind to indulge me in this little experiment: Place your right hand on the table; look at your finger nest to Your pinky; move it up and down once OK Was it Your brain tissue communicating with your right index finger? or Was it My brain tissue communicating with your finger? Now... I dont mean to appear mad but imagine what would we gain if the small wad of tissue in a human brain could (pending the whales approval) humanely access the mass of tissue of another intelligent species like that withing the sperm whale brain with a Nuralink and is it reasonable to assume that this study would improve our understanding of internal and external interspecies communication and in doing so improve our understanding of Human communication? or our ability to decipher communication of ore advanced lifeforms? Central California

[@vwbusguy]

Functional mri. Spatial and temporal mapping against males ability to teach females where best to get food from past year, large brain ,,large memory,,,better breeding partner if they can remember a rout to areas in a time period

[@LBTennis]

Did you just say www.?

[@wordzfailmebro]

OCTOPUS COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH THIS HYPOTHESIS. 👽

[@michaeld9379]

I talk to my cat the same way

[@watcherofthewest8597]

What do you mean you wouldn't have questions for the whales? If have thousands...and they'd have thousands for us...that's how conversations works...come on

[@ApolonsApolons]

1.00 14.40

[@jameskps]

Ceti with a C