And so I use my CF-19 to train dolphins...

SpeakDolphin - Research Projects > Panasonic Helps Dolphin Research

w00t! Makes for a new avatar too

 

This is a nice PR bit/Tax Writeoff for Panasonic; however the "Research" involved is entirely derivative; in fact, it's a cyclical phenomenon.

Every 5-10 years, some DIFFERENT group of researchers decide to try and prove what John Lilly already proved in the 60s-80s with his research into developing a hybrid Human-Cetacean language. Between his physiological studies (he discovered that they breath voluntarily and that they have a larger, more complex brain than humans, amongst many other things) and his work up to and including the JANUS project, he proved empirically, in at least a dozen different ways, that dolphins CAN make the necessary abstract representational associations necessary for language.

Yet EVERY TIME a group of researchers embark on this path they start by asking the SAME QUESTIONS. Can they SYMBOLIZE? YES. Do they understand the difference between an object and characteristics common between that object and other objects? YES. Can they understand complex instructions? YES. By the time the researchers get past that point, just like the dozens before them, they've exhausted their funding and it's time to go home.

YAWN.

Personally, I think they've all got it backwards; I suspect it's the researchers who are being trained to bring fish.

mnem
What none of these researchers HAVE been able to prove, however, is that the dolphins actually give a d@mn about what we have to say...

 

PSSSST - JB... Is that Miss September he's ogling on the screen there? :wink:

mnem
Where do I sign up?

 

And so we have another "And so we/I" post...

 

Yes...... 10 characters