Extrapolative Fiction for Sapient Earthlings
Consider that storytellers are responsible for guiding culture. When it comes to direction, there are three options: Backward, into madness. Inward, into stagnation, redundancy, and relentless self-destruction. Or forward and outward. Of those, only the last supports the survival of our species. It’s also the only option which provides job security for storytellers, and that is no coincidence.
Lately there’s been an alarming trend away from the logical path. A lot of cultural progress has been undermined by zealous ignorance, and recapturing lost momentum can be the work of generations. Fortunately, storytellers have a shortcut at their disposal.
Extrapolation is the wave of the future. While there’s value in reinterpreting, revamping, and remixing old stories, the impact of those expires faster after each pass through the cultural recycler. In fact, they’ve become ironic; some old stories now fuel the social destruction they originally opposed. People need something to look forward to. Extrapolation can always deliver those goods.
Today’s storytellers have another underused asset within easy reach; science. Yes, science and arts are commonly taught and applied with as much distance between them as possible. That’s not just proof of a failing education system, it’s also a casual disregard of history. Da Vinci had it right; creation and investigation belong together. It’s time to put that concept back into practice.
Researchers’ recent suggestion that dolphins be recognized as non-human persons is a prime example of a scientific idea ripe for storytellers’ extrapolation. Dolphins have brains very like ours and they apparently think much like we do. They also have complex societies and recognize themselves in mirrors. Sure, they lack opposable thumbs, but that hasn’t kept them from inventing tools and quickly teaching each other new skills.
The idea of Earth as home to more than one sapient species is rich with potential adversity and opportunity for dolphins and humans alike. While it’s unlikely that dolphins’ personhood will be universally recognized any time soon. If it ever happens, it’ll be a politically, morally and ethically charged occasion, to say the least. Religious humans will protest recognition on the grounds that dolphins weren’t made in the image of God. Then there are the challenges surrounding the ways humans use the oceans – for dumping, fishing, shipping, oil production, etc. – and our long history of mishandling property rights and the concept of ownership. Plus, we might be forced to confront our unresolved hypocrisy in regard to indigenous human populations, racism, gender inequality, and child welfare, just to name a few. Any of those arguably adverse consequences of recognizing dolphins as people could provide the basis for a great new story.
Dolphin personhood could be beneficial to humans, too. There’s an increased potential for discovery with the help of dolphin reconnaissance; they might already have a wealth of medical and energy information to share with us. Plus, reclaiming our trash from the oceans and processing it safely on land could create a lot of very secure jobs for humans. Then there’s the incredible opportunity to communicate with other sentient life without the inconvenience of first achieving faster-than-light space travel. Who knows? In the future, maybe whales, octopuses, and elephants might make the grade and join the conversation.
While it’s good to suggest broadly interesting concepts, it’s even better to give away specific story ideas:
- Human-dolphin relations grow strained when visiting aliens clearly favor one sapient earthling species.
- The humans and dolphins of the future war with each other, and the dolphins have the advantage.
- Wetsuit fashion sweeps the human world, even in landlocked areas.
- The first oceanic human-dolphin city becomes an overnight economic superpower.
- Dolphins successfully raise adopted human children, but the reverse is deemed a form of kidnapping.
- Human offshore oil interests are abandoned after dolphins reject all treaties.
- Interspecies Linguistics replaces Business as the number one college major.
- Development of the first prosthetic dolphin hand quickly leads to the first dolphin climbing Mount Everest and the first dolphin astronaut.
- Tensions grow between religious and secular nations when the former deny dolphins protected status.
- Interspecies romances develop, but remain taboo at large on both sides of the issue.
- Radical dolphin shipping saboteur achieves global infamy; bombs targets in every sea before capture.
Furthermore, extrapolation isn’t only valid for ‘hard’ science fiction. Great fantasy, horror, and unadorned literature can (and should be) influenced by the very same science. Respectively:
- Dolphins have known all along where to find Atlantis, and uncovering their secret puts everyone at risk.
- Apparently Earth is populated entirely by sapient species, including plants. Still, people must eat people.
- An abused girl runs away to live with dolphins, but learns that nowhere is life all music and fish dinners.
A little ingenuity goes a long way in fiction, and as in art, so in life. It’s absurd that storytellers would ignore any good opportunity to captivate their audience with something new when people are positively drowning in ‘the same old thing’. This isn’t just about dolphins and their pet humans; this is a fight for survival of the fiction. It’s time to seize culture and do science to it.
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacean_intelligence
http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2010/webprogram/Session1526.html
http://www.physorg.com/news181981904.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6973994.ece
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sapient
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sentient
Not to mention alarming links between dolphins and Cthulhu presented by Lovecraft, entirely too credible for the diver in me.
Good point. I always forget about Cthullu…
Beautifully said, and food for much thought.
Thank you!
This is why I really need to come up with a good story idea based on my graduate work in which I worked at the Space Life Sciences Lab at Kennedy Space Center. There has got to be a story there -somewhere-
It seems very likely that there would be many ideas for fiction hidden within an experience like that. Good luck!
Years ago, Michael Crichton created an example of this type of thinking by postulating (in Andromeda Strain) that rocks were alive, but we simply couldn’t see that because their rate of metabolism was just too slow for us to notice. Similarly we know that plants can communicate, with single trees warning the rest of the forest that giraffes are eating leaves, causing other trees to secrete sour liquids that cause the giraffes to move on.
Sentient life-forms are all around us, if we could but listen. It requires little to include them, and recognition of their feelings provides rich soil for those seeking to expand our literary world.
Living rocks… Given enough time, I won’t be surprised if science reexplores the definition of life and looks at rocks. After all, science is takeing a new, more comprehensive look at water, right now.
There are also some very interesting similarities between sharks and human being which are the basis for some fine legends in Oceania and the Caribbeans.
I am not surprised to hear that. As top-of-food-chain creatures go, I can see we’ve much in common with sharks. And it’s true I left sharks out of all the various extrapolations I included in this post. Hm. Interesting oversight, and perhaps worth playing with in a follow-up post. Thanks!
It’s only a matter of time before the first teenage human/sparkly dolphin love story.
Fascinating stuff!
At least humans aren’t normally dolphin-food. I wish I could say the reverse was also true…
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by sandykidd: I like a little Science in My Fiction (the secret blog)! http://bit.ly/dzNHBr #science #sff…
Aren’t intelligent dolphin stories a bit 1990s? David Brin used the idea throughout his Uplift novels – it was humanity who “uplifted” the dolphins to sentience, in fact. And, IIRC, Alexander Jablokov’s A Deeper Sea was about intelligent dolphins .
Well, Kay never suggested that intelligent dolphin stories had never been done. Heck, the Simpsons had such a story in one of their Halloween specials. But recent research has suggested that there’s tons of room to rethink the concept.
And if you can find a new way to use a concept in a story, who cares if it’s been done before? No new ideas, right?
You make a good point. It’s true that smart dolphins have been done, However, they’re rarely represented as equals to humans.
And I think a more interesting angle in ‘smart dolphin’ stories is the human angle. Humanity is always struggling with itself, but how would that struggle change in the face of adapting to sharing the planet with a second dominant species? What parts of human society must fall by the wayside to allow sharing? And knowing humans, those aspects won’t fall without a fight…
Plenty of new in the ‘smart dolphin’ stories, if we look right.
Stories: everything has been done indeed. The question is, how uniquely and/or how well it has been done (either in style or content). For example, dolphins as competitors would be a novel angle.
Rocks: there I have to differ. They aren’t alive by one crucial parameter: they don’t contain instructions for propagation that retains form and function. Trees are alive by that definition, though relatively low in the conscious scale.
Water: are you referring to the old theory that it retains memory of objects in it? That’s invalid. However, water is unique as a solvent for at least two reasons (its solid form is less dense than its liquid one, and it’s the best solvent in terms of solute compound range).
Aha, I thought you’d pick up on that. Wordplay.
I do expect science to reevaluate the definitions of life now and then. It’s good exercise. And I expect them to look at rocks when they do. Rocks may not have a life code of their own, but they still make decent record-keepers. (I never actually said they’d declare rocks living. Could be fun, though. To turn the rules upside-down for a day?)
The thing that has scientists taking another look at water isn’t a question of its ‘memory’ but rather some molecular complexities that in the past they could never see closely enough to prove. I try to find that link again, although I wouldn’t be schocked to learn that you’ve read it already.
Here is the link I was thinking of Re: Re-examining water molecules and the ‘secrets of life’: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100227215943.htm
Thank you for the link! Most of what the article says is not new. It also contains a temptation into which biophysicists fall all too often: proteins don’t fold in water. They fold in the highly specialized environment of the nucleus, and fold in local domains as they are being extruded from the ribosome.
The “high improbability” of protein folding is a red herring, because proteins don’t have all the statistically available conformations to them. The reason I bring this up is that this point is often used by creationists to argue intelligent design or divine agency. But it’s bad science, in that it’s artifactual.
Artifactual. That term is underused in the vocabulary at large, but particularly in the context of understanding of science by laypeople. Going to use it until it sticks.
One story I read quite recently had humanity discovering that wasps and hornets were sentient hive minds and having to adapt to their personhood…. I wish I could remember more about it! (I think the hive insects swarmed into a robot and animated it at one point…?)
That sounds vaguely familiar. I’ll add it to my search list. Thanks!
Wasp sentience sounds like Neil Asher’s Polity novels (in which, if memory serves, dolphins were found to be somewhat less intelligent than guinea pigs). Asher’s books place humans squarely in the middle of a continuum of intelligence that features AIs way off in the distance.
It seems to me that the question of sentience is very different to the question of intelligence. Sentience is a threshold, intelligence is a continuum.
I’ll admit that “it’s been done” was my initial reaction too. I’ve read a lot of dolphin stories. And I think it’s compounded by some people attributing semi-mystical (and very non-scientific) qualities to dolphins.
But just because there have been many science fiction stories featuring dolphins doesn’t mean that a new good story can’t be written. It’s like the zillion retellings of Romeo and Juliet – it might be the same story but the difference is in the details and execution. And as you point out there are lots of aspects of possible human-dolphin interaction that could be explored.
I think I must have missed most of the stories featuring smart dolphins. It’s true that, even as a child, I tended to avoid stories that relied on a human connection with an animal, but failed to show the violence inherent in that system. Humans subjugate all other animals. Period. The Lassies and Flippers? I’ve always seen those as cautionary tales: That is the sort of weird stuff that happens in an unbalanced system.
But I may be the only one who looks at them that way.
What I found most interesting and inviting about the recent suggestion that dolphins be recognised as non-human persons was the real possibility of exposing the imbalance between humans and everything else, and seeing what stories might develop out of that. What will human society have to give up in order to accept a non-human peer? What will humans learn from it?
And it wouldn’t make sense to ask the same questions about dolphins; I don’t suppose they doubt human intelligence (but I wouldn’t be surprised if they think most of us are jerks). More importantly, they’re not the ones responsible for the imbalance, and as a human, I should probably not pretend I speak for any species of which I’m not a member.
ktholt: ” I tended to avoid stories that relied on a human connection with an animal, but failed to show the violence inherent in that system. Humans subjugate all other animals. Period. The Lassies and Flippers? I’ve always seen those as cautionary tales: That is the sort of weird stuff that happens in an unbalanced system.”
As opposed to what system? Nature, as it has been said, is “red in tooth and claw”. With a few rare exceptions, animals don’t have the capacity to subjugate anything, but all other animals and plants (so far as we know) will expand, dominate, and devour as much as they possibly can. The difference is that humans have become much more capable at adaptation and expansion. We’ve domesticated the cow, chicken, and pig– you can call that subjugation. But any other carnivore equally capable at expanding would have eaten them nearly to extinction instead. Sure we don’t always use our power wisely, but the fact that we consider anything at all besides the primal drive to expand indicates an important difference humans and everything else.
Dolphin stories would be a great way to examine some of our assumptions about how society is even structured, or how different species relate to each other & the planet.
For example, Kay asked above, but how would that struggle change in the face of adapting to sharing the planet with a second dominant species? And that made me think — well, would the dolphins think of themselves as “dominant”? Maybe they’d ask us why we like to think of ourselves (humans) as “dominant.” How would their different perspective — as ocean-dwellers, as having no hands, as having built-in-radar, etc. etc. — lead us to change our perspectives?
What would a dolphin cultural critic think of Startide Rising? Or “Flipper”?
Would it be possible for a dolphin to become a Christian? A Buddhist? Do dolphins even have religion? What does it look like? Can a human join?
My questions are, “WHY would a dolphin wish to follow human religion, especially Christianity, in which they are animals and therefore ‘empty vessels’?” And, “If it turns out dolphins are innately non-theists, what does that say about humans?”
The back-and-forth potential in these conversations is vast.
Tremendous questions. Human religions are specific to our brains. Different brains, different thought processes… different worldviews. Like Blish’s classic, A Case of Conscience.
That’s the point I was reaching for, I think — thanks for making it! Not only human religions, but also human styles of government, politics, war, community, childraising, sexual & gender politics & behavior… etc. — all products of human ways of thinking & being.
So what would any of those things be for dolphins? Some of them might not even exist as concepts for dolphins. We have in common with dolphins that we’re social beings — which is as much a product of our biology as anything — but given the vast range of differences in how human societies organize themselves, I would reckon that dolphin society is even more different. So even to the extent that we could hope to learn dolphin language(s), and they ours, there’s vast potential for misunderstanding.
And of course, human wars are often products of simple misunderstanding. Are dolphins the same? If we started a “war” with dolphins, would they understand it as “war”? Is that a concept they even have? If they do, how do they conduct it? How would they conduct it against humans?
Oops, sorry, I meant to keep that in the same thread but obviously failed!
If we started a “war” with dolphins, would they understand it as “war”? Is that a concept they even have?
Humans are great at interpreting animal (and other human) behavior through the lens of their own experiences and assumptions.
If dolphins started a “war” with humans, how long would it take us to figure out? And would some humans refuse to accept the possibility because of their image of dolphins as human- and peace-loving creatures?
how long would it take us to figure out?
It’s ‘So long and thanks for all the fish’, again, right? I suspect that if we ever do rocognise dolphins as people and do any kind of decent decoding of their languages (there are bound to be several, right?), we will probably be blown away by the things that are simple and obvious to dolphins. And there will probably always be gaps between us that we just can’t bridge – they possess at least one sense that we never evolved.
Regardless of what humans learn about and from dolphins, we will probably always impose upon them to meet us more than half way. And most of the time we will probably be oblivious about all the little ways we make them adapt to our ways of thinking and doing. The question is, will humans ever learn to jump through hoops set for us by another species? If so, will we even realize that’s what we’re doing?
While we’re busy looking at everything through human-lenses, can we even see ourselves clearly? Fun!
I felt the need to add this to the conversation:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/augustbattiston/archives/dolphin_cartoon.gif
You could also think about the ongoing vicious war between dolphins and harbour porpoises! With their beaks dolphins definitely have the upper hand (as many who have seen the bodies of porpoises washed up on the beach can attest!). I’m sure the sharks would side with the porpoises as well…
Dolphins as the tyrants of the seas!!!
Good points. Dolphins and porpoises are cousins, so are they like humans and apes? We tend to think of dolphins as fairly gregarious, but maybe they’d be just as obnoxious to the species they dominate as we are if they could be. Those smiles aren’t really smiles, after all. And maybe they’re only agreeable to humans because they recognise us as a force to be reckoned with. Could be interesting to hear it from them.
“Researchers’ recent suggestion that dolphins be recognized as non-human persons is a prime example of a scientific idea ripe for storytellers’ extrapolation. Dolphins have brains very like ours and they apparently think much like we do.”
I’m all for the idea of more science in fiction, or even for more logical and consistent extrapolation… but this doesn’t’ seem to be a very promising example.
You’ve started with a oversimplified or debatable premise. Sure dolphins are smart compared with non-human animals, but none of these links (or any science that i’m aware of) indicates that dolphin intelligence is really comparable to human intelligence. Based on what we actually know, If we did define them as non-human “persons” that would be a lowering of the bar to entry. It wouldn’t magically apply all the traits of human person-hood to dolphins.
“Then there’s the incredible opportunity to communicate with other sentient life…”
But let’s assume that dolphins are indeed humanities equals– how could this be debatable? Apparently because dolphins think in quite different ways than we do. Sure we can communicate is rather complex ways compared to other animals. Most of the extrapolation assumes that rich, high content communication with dolphins will be possible: politics, religion, ownership, and thus economics. I don’t think there’s any evidence that the dolphin brain can process these concepts. Even if they can, it’s a huge a assumption that we can find some way to communicate on that level of abstraction with an alien mind.
Naively assuming that other animals are essentially people that think just like humans is a staple of mythology and fantasy going back to the oldest stories. If your going to have even a little science in this exploration you need to at least mention the problem of communication with non-human minds.
So, great idea for a blog. Sorry my first post is so critical– I would really like to see this idea succeed.
But please, i’d like to have a little science in “I like a little science in my fiction.”
But please, i’d like to have a little science in “I like a little science in my fiction.”
Don’t worry, there will be plenty of science. We have three scientist bloggers and they are free to get as technical as they please. Beyond that, there are a few things worth remembering about SiMF, that I think might not have been communicated adequately to you.
#1 I intend the blog to be playful and explorative, not particularly rigid or strict. The idea is to engage people, and ultimately to encourage greater application of science in fiction. Nobody will read the blog if it’s too pedantic, and few writers will jump on this pro-science bandwagon if we dictate how they must apply science and invalidate their work if they step out of line. Sure, there will be critiques of fiction in this blog, but the consistent perspective will be that there’s always room for progress.
#2 Some of the bloggers teach science, but SiMF isn’t a teaching blog. I’m game for debate and critique and even semantics, but you probably shouldn’t read SiMF expecting instruction. As in this post, many future posts will introduce a piece of science news and then extrapolate from it. Not all ideas will be equally inspiring to all readers, but hopefully some people will be moved to write new stories with more science in them.
Moving on.
You’ve started with a oversimplified or debatable premise.
That was purposeful. Personhood is a touchy subject, especially when you account for the fact that across human cultures, not even all humans are regarded as people. Questions and human implications of dolphin personhood would probably make for the best stories out of all the ideas I extrapolated in the post, and in fact, all the ideas were born from that one. Some were more serious than others. Debate is healthy and inevitable.
…lowering of the bar to entry.
For a given definition of ‘lower’, yes, it might ‘lower’ the bar. Or, we might have to come to grips with the idea that human intelligence is too subjective and variable to use as the standard for personhood. At the very least, it would make for a valuable exercise in perspecitve (I dare not hope for humility) for we arrogant humans. We might even be forced to cease imagining ourselves as singularly elevated above other animals. That would be incredible.
It wouldn’t magically apply all the traits of human person-hood to dolphins…
Who said anything about human personhood? Dolphins as people doesn’t mean dolphins as humans. I agree, that would be mystical and weird. And it would miss the point. The idea of dolphins as people should be calling into question human definitions of of personhood. Recognizing the status of dolphins as people wouldn’t make them any more human than they are now, but it should result in the exploration of their rights as people, as well as disrupt the systems of human subjugation that persist in our own cultures.
Most of the extrapolation assumes that rich, high content communication with dolphins will be possible…it’s a huge a assumption that we can find some way to communicate on that level of abstraction with an alien mind.
But wouldn’t it be exciting to try? And if those efforts fail, imagine everything learned by trying. Even if all we discover are ways in which our assumptions about dolphins and the oceans are wrong, that would be invaluable.
Naively assuming that other animals are essentially people that think just like humans…
I didn’t. But what is true is that humans incorrigibly impose ourselves upon other species. Literally, in the case of dolphins, we make them jump through hoops. As it turns out, dolphins are particularly adept at figuring out what we want from them, and remarkably cooperative. First, I question whether many humans would be as successful in alien captivity. Second, and by extension, I posite that perhaps dolphins are better at recognizing personhood than humans are. And therefore, in fundamental ways, perhaps better communicators.
…at least mention the problem of communication with non-human minds.
I’d hoped that was implicit, and I regret that it wasn’t.
I don’t mind critique in the least. It’s been wonderful to take this conversation into deeper places. I look forward to your reply.
Who said anything about human personhood? Dolphins as people doesn’t mean dolphins as humans. I agree, that would be mystical and weird. And it would miss the point. The idea of dolphins as people should be calling into question human definitions of of personhood.
Oh yeah. Exactly.
Or maybe… which human definition of personhood applies — since all definitions we use are our (human) definitions.
I’ve been on a kick about this ever since I learned that the Finnish word for person, henkilö, has as its basis henki which means breath, wind, spirit. The linguist Tim Ingold points out that our word person derives from the Latin per sona, “sounding through”, after the masks worn by Greek and Roman actors, but “the henki, the root of the Finnish concept, is a kind of inner essence or vital force, the breath of life that flies away when you die.”
So one word has connotations about the masks we wear — our social roles — & another that harks to our vital essence. Which of those is actually what we are? Well, I guess I think we’re both. And then I think about dolphins: they certainly have a vital breath or essence, they too lose their breaths when they die. So I can easily jump to dolphins having the henkilö kind of personhood. But then I also observe that, like us, dolphins are social animals. So that argues to me that they also have the per sona “social role” kind of personhood. But beyond that… I look to the Latin again: it means “sounding through” like through a mask — acting. Acting brings in ideas of pretense, which can be play, which can be deception. So then I wonder, how do dolphins relate to one another socially? Do they deceive each other?
For me, those kinds of questions to come closer to figuring out what “personhood” is than looking at things like law or history or etc. I think of the original coiners of words to be philosophers of sorts, so I often go to the roots/origins of words. And heck, we have no choice, being human, but to use human concepts expressed in human words, even in trying to understand alien minds. I have no doubt that any living creature that breathes literally has henki (breath), so is on some level is a henkilö (dunno what to say about anaerobic bacteria at this point though). Social personhood though? Well, dolphins certainly have it. Self-awareness too. So does my cat & my kid’s dog. I don’t need them to have opposable thumbs or systems of law, politics, government, religion, economics to regard them as persons. It’s enough for me to know that they have their own self-hoods.
But then the question remains: how do we accommodate these non-human personhoods/selfhoods in our own way of thinking & being? What “rights” do they get? What “rights” do we give up, because they unethically trample on the personhood of the other? I guess I think that anthropocentrism & the assumption of human superiority is just another form of bigotry.
But what is true is that humans incorrigibly impose ourselves upon other species.
Just so. I’m with Aldo Leopold: humans as “plain citizens” of the planet, along with every other critter & plant. I think all of us as a biospheric community would be a lot better off if we acted that way.
As soon as the snow melts off a bit, I’ll go hug a tree.
Damn… forgot the closing tag on the link… sorry.
ktholt: “…Nobody will read the blog if it’s too pedantic, and few writers will jump on this pro-science bandwagon if we dictate how they must apply science and invalidate their work if they step out of line.”
Sure, i understand that. I love a lot of sci-fi that includes stuff that’s I believe is impossible. I’m not trying to set up absolute scientific accuracy as a standard.
I’ll try to express my complaint better about the “oversimplified premise”, and lack of science. The idea that “dolphins are really smart”, or that “dolphins are people too” is *already* common in pop culture. A writer doesn’t need to turn to science to find that idea. Now if the topic went into greater detail than is common knowledge about how dolphins think (or scientist’s best guess), now that would be IMHO adding science into the discussion. I wasn’t expecting in-depth analysis of dolphin psychology… just a little more science on dolphins, from which to extrapolate.
ktholt: “That was purposeful. Personhood is a touchy subject, especially when you account for the fact that across human cultures, not even all humans are regarded as people. Questions and human implications of dolphin personhood would probably make for the best stories out of all the ideas I extrapolated in the post, and in fact, all the ideas were born from that one. Some were more serious than others”
“Personhood” is one of those concepts, like “art”, “IQ”, “sci-fi”, or “species”, that has been given so many different definitions, that there’s probably little point in using them in anything but a vague, general way.
It could certainly make an interesting story to compare/contrast dolphin and human qualifications for any given definition of “person.” But if we define dolphins as “people” that wouldn’t *lead* to a reexamination of our beliefs, that would be the *result* of changing beliefs. Unless there was some truly astounding breakthrough in dolphin/human communications that suddenly forced us to consider them “people”. That’s what i’d think it would take for a widespread, serious adoption of dolphins as something like “people”, they would have to be able to pass something like a “Turing test” that forces people to say, “Hey, there’s really a substantial mind behind these words.”
jwbjerk: “Most of the extrapolation assumes that rich, high content communication with dolphins will be possible…it’s a huge a assumption that we can find some way to communicate on that level of abstraction with an alien mind.”
ktholt: “But wouldn’t it be exciting to try? And if those efforts fail, imagine everything learned by trying. Even if all we discover are ways in which our assumptions about dolphins and the oceans are wrong, that would be invaluable.”
Um, but people *are* trying to talk to dolphins, chimps etc. And while i think that’s pretty interesting, i don’t think we’re likely to learn anything invaluable. If they have anything “deep” to say chances are our minds are too different to communicate and understand it. I would give an awful lot to understand what the world looks like to a genuine non-human mind, but that desire too often seems to cause the projection of human attributes onto the other mind.
ktholt: “…Second, and by extension, I posite that perhaps dolphins are better at recognizing personhood than humans are. And therefore, in fundamental ways, perhaps better communicators.”
“Posit”, as in “i think this would make a cool story”, or as in “i think this is true?” “Personhood” is a remarkably abstract concept that dolphins probable wouldn’t comprehend even if they were fully sapient. I’d guess dolphins cooperativeness in hoop-jumping more likely stems from the fact that they are inquisitive and like novelty and showing off, and humans think up some really fascinating and challenging games!
P.S. I see some nice italic in some people’s posts. What’s the format for that?
For italics: opening tag is and closing tag is but without the spaces. Em stands for “emphasis” I guess. You can get bold with and .
Let me try that again… even with extra spaces it turned my examples into tags. For italics: opening tag is em inside angle brackets , closing tag is /em inside angle brackets. For bold, just replace em with strong.
Hope it works this time.
[em]thank[/em] [strong]you[/strong]
oops. apparently these “” are angle brackets.
ARG! The angle brackets are apparently those symbols you might call in a mathematical context “greater than” or “less than” symbols.
You’ve got it!
A whole slew of terrestrial organisms meet a significant proportion of even anthropocentrically defined definitions of intelligence: great apes, cetaceans, elephants, crows, parrots, cephalopods. They do any and all of the following: remember, recognize individuals even of other species, are curious, use tools, pass knowledge to their kin and descendants, engage in adult play and non-reproductive sex, mourn their dead. They also have distinct subcultures, just like humans do.
The issue is that humans have cut off the transition to intelligence of all other terrestrial species by their dominance and are killing off species that might become companions; these species give an excellent playing field for testing out the concept of communicating with aliens.
Monocultures are bad, no matter what. At various points in earth’s history, as Denver said, there were coeval humanoid species around (Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons being the best known example). It’s unclear why the former went extinct, but cultural first contacts amid cultures indicate that either passive or active aggression may have been one of the factors involved. If we cannot tolerate a rival intelligence, our prognosis for interacting with an extraterrestrial one is poor.
“A whole slew of terrestrial organisms meet a significant proportion of even anthropocentrically defined definitions of intelligence…”
True. But i take that to indicate the folly of using only a single test to define sapience, rather than an indication that we are surrounded by sapients. While some animals exhibit greater than average intelligence there’s still a vast gulf between average human use of language and tools, and the most complex tool or language use of any animal.
“The issue is that humans have cut off the transition to intelligence of all other terrestrial species by their dominance and are killing off species that might become companions…”
I don’t follow. Certainly an extinct species isn’t going to do anything, but i don’t see how human “dominance” is preventing other species from developing intelligence. On the contrary, some types of dogs are active bred for intelligence, which should give them a push. I.E. humans can be an environmental factor that favors intelligence. We also create extremely complex environments for non-domesticated species that manage to live along with us, another factor that favors intelligence. Then there are creatures like parrots who live in very large numbers mostly unaffected by humans.
“….these species give an excellent playing field for testing out the concept of communicating with aliens.”
That’s at least partially true. We learn a lot of things we didn’t expect, when we probe the limits of an animals intelligence and ability to communicate. And many animals think and live in more alien ways that most fictional aliens.
But we don’t know if any earth animal has anything much to say beyond “give me food”. Our failures to establish much more complex communications with them could be due to inadequate methods, or simply to the fact that they don’t have much else to say– or not much else that would have any meaning for us.
Just maybe a method that produced indifferent results with alex the parrot would be the perfect way to communicate with extraterrestrials.
What we have here is a failure to speculate.
First, remember the spirit of SiMF: Playful.
So here’s a game: Every time you want to reject a promising science-based extrapolation, pose a new piece of science-based extrapolation to replace it. The name of the game is “Yes, and…” The goal is to forward the action by always adding something new.
Alternatively, you could join the game already in play.
…i don’t see how human “dominance” is preventing other species from developing intelligence…humans can be an environmental factor that favors intelligence…
I am fascinated by your ability to suspend disbelief in human supremacy on Earth while simultaneously arguing that there is no evidence that any other animals have “anything much to say beyond ‘give me food’”. From there, I extrapolate a future in which we end world hunger, and human civilization crumbles in the absence of starvation. Then, with humans gone, other emergent intelligences rise to fill our empty niche. However, unlike humans, later sapients are comfortable sharing the throne. Dolphins and octopuses govern the seas, and on land, cats and dogs live together and study in Africa at Elephant University.
Or, more interestingly, I extrapolate a future in which humans finally embrace diversity of intellect and form. All species exhibiting sapient traits we’re able to recognize are declared non-human persons and protected from human use and interference. These decisions force us to develop technologies to clean up pollution and manage our waste and population sustainably. Accepting non-human persons (even if we can’t communicate effectively with them) also forces us to finally address our own social iniquities. Start to finish, it’s a process overrun by conflicts of ideas and faith, but committment to fostering animal intelligence transforms our own species.
Sure we don’t always use our power wisely, but the fact that we consider anything at all besides the primal drive to expand indicates an important difference humans and everything else.
I playfully extrapolate a future in which you give non-humans and nature’s systems a little more credit (their pressures contributed to human evolution, after all), and you consider that restraint is not humanity’s strong suit (~7 billion humans, climate change, mass extinctions, etc). In that future, we all have more fun playing the extrapolation game instead of the “red in tooth and claw” game.
“The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.” — Henry Beston, naturalist and author (1888-1968)
Isn’t that good?
Joe Haldeman
It’s wonderful, and perfectly timed. Thank you!
Fantastic quote! Thank you!
“…gifted with extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”
That brings up one of the points about non-human minds that i think is woefully underused in sci-fi– the idea of perceiving the world through a different set of senses. Sure you find it occasionally, but not too often.
Dolphins would be a great example of this, and If i recall correctly, the Uplift series devoted some time to it. After all, they have natural sonar, which can (reportedly) see the unborn dolphins in the womb, as well as the arrangement of internal organs. The sonar can also be used as a stunning weapons.
… a lot of interesting possibilities in presenting a world perceived by organs that aren’t eyes.
Yes, one of the things I really liked about the Uplift series.
I’ve often thought of language/words as a sort of additional sense by which humans experience the world.
Yeah, imagine sculptures designed not to be seen from the surface, but by sonar-equipped beings, inside or outside.
Or paintings done by beings that see ultraviolet in addition to our visible colors– like many birds. Or by beings with vision like bees, that can see yellow and ultraviolet, but don’t see green, blue or purple. How odd and different-than-intended would our paintings look to them, and their paintings look to us. Even if our minds were similar enough that we would have some capacity to understand the art, we might simply be unable to see it.
Interesting discussion, but I do have two questions/issues, as both a writer (sometimes) and a critic:
[i]Consider that storytellers are responsible for guiding culture.[/i]
Are they? If that is indeed the case, then it seems to me that there are a lot of storytellers who appear to have missed the memo, going back several centuries. (And I shudder to think of Danielle Steele or Stephen King as “guiding culture”)
[i]When it comes to direction, there are three options: Backward, into madness. Inward, into stagnation, redundancy, and relentless self-destruction. Or forward and outward.[/i]
Maybe it’s the historian and (student-level) psych in me, but the first two “options” seem to be overly simplistic in their characterization.
The first (“backward”) seems like it would exclude, well, a good percentage of people like, for example, Turtledove or Tolkien who look to the past to see what could be seen differently or what we can learn from it. Or as was once famously said “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.”
The second (“inward”) appears to exclude storytellers such as Gilman, Hemmingway, Joyce, Cherryh (to some extent), Orwell, even some of Jack Williamson, Alfred Bester, or PKD’s work. Through looking inward, storytellers are often able to explore the culture from which they come, what it means to be human, or why we think, feel, and work the way we do.
Nor, indeed, are the three mutually exclusive. Take, for instance, Dan Simmons’ _Hyperion_ (as horribly written as it was): looking backward to Chaucer for structure and to the Norse for concepts (at which Simmons admittedly failed on both counts), looking inward at culture and theology, and looking forward to extrapolating how extra-solar society might work.
Gah, italicizing fail. My apologies.
John, you may be looking at this through specific cultural lenses. Storytellers have acted as guides — as powerful moral, social, political presences — and still do so “even” (quotes are for irony) in fully developed Westernized countries like Chile or Greece, my own natal context. The first thing that dictators do is round up satirists and poets, for good reason. The abdication of this role in contemporary US culture is the exception rather than the rule.
The conclusions about “backward” and “inward” depend a bit on definition. Certainly, re-examining the past in revisionist fashion can grant new insights. Tolkien looked back into the past not critically, but nostalgically. Also, I wouldn’t call Hemingway, Orwell or Cherryh “inward” by most consensus definitions.
Finally, I think that simplification is inevitable when someone is trying to make a soundbite statement that aims for sharp relief… and, of course, there are always exceptions and nuances to everything.
The first thing that dictators do is round up satirists and poets, for good reason. The abdication of this role in contemporary US culture is the exception rather than the rule.
I agree. It’s been awhile since I’ve really been following contemporary American poetry, but I don’t think it’s changed hugely since I was in the ’90s, when I was pursuing my MFA: American poetry is dominated by academic lyric poetry that gives a pass to the status quo, which has also made it largely irrelevant to the public. There are exceptions, but not many. One can’t easily imagine a Neruda in the U.S. these days.
(Personally, even though I went through an MFA program myself — I think the MFA-ization of poetry is partly at fault. But I was lucky at least in my own teacher.)
Kay: Consider that storytellers are responsible for guiding culture.
JohnL: Are they? If that is indeed the case, then it seems to me that there are a lot of storytellers who appear to have missed the memo, going back several centuries. (And I shudder to think of Danielle Steele or Stephen King as “guiding culture”)
Gah! That is scary.
But the really scary thing is — they are. Think of how many people are being guided by the crud they read in National Enquirer or watch in the latest reality TV show. Or think of any political narrative that you find scary — no matter which side of whatever political divide you happen to fall on — & think of how scary you find it that umpteen people are falling for it hook line & sinker.
Really, it’s a storytelling competition. We might not think usually think of politicians as being storytellers, but they are: they’re all putting out different narratives of why things are as they are, and trying to get us to believe them. I’ve been getting really smashed up inside by my anger at the political lies I see all around me, which makes it hard for me to want to engage directly in that world. I was blogging a lot about a couple of political issues last year. But now, as I return to focusing much more on writing, I am superconscious of the political role my SF/F storytelling might have — maybe to wrest a few people here & there away from their fixation on completely frakked up narratives that are leading us all over a cliff.
[...] yes! Check out that first blog post: there’s already a bunch of humans — playful as dolphins — riffing off [...]
I think a writer like Stephen King is following culture rather than guiding it. Following it accurately and reinforcing his audience’s tropisms. (I don’t think he has an agenda in this. Just a good nose for the Zeitgeist.)
Joe
Yeah, that’s a more accurate way of putting it. Thanks.
True. Authors like Stephen King, Dan Brown, Danielle Steele, Stephanie Meyer gauge, reproduce and reinforce the Zeitgeist. That’s why they write runaway bestsellers — until the Zeitgeist shifts. Then their tried-n-true recipes tank, until/unless they adjust accordingly.
Check these out.
The 1973 film The Day of the Dolphin directed by Mike Nichols from a story called Un Animal Doué de Raison (A Sentient Animal), by French writer Robert Merle, where a scientist teaches a dolphin to speak English. “Pha loves Pa.” Another dolphin was trained for nefarious purposes.
The novel Clickwhistle by William Jon Watkins shows dolphins with their own brand of re-incarnation. Excellent cold war novel, not just of the political super-powers but also between cetaceans and shark.
I’ll look those up, thank you!
I am not sure that interspecies romance would be possible. Very few mammals mate for life and I don’t think dolphins are one of them. Sex between humans and dolphins I could believe, considering that dolphins are one of the few animals that engage in sex for non-reproductive purposes and I think some have exhibited sexual behavior towards humans.
Wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin#Reproduction_and_sexuality
Romance is doubtful, though infatuation is possible. A few other species besides dolphins clearly engage in non-reproductive sex — bonobos, our closest cousins are the most prominent example. Generally, playful species tend to have high cognitive indices: cetaceans, elephants, crows… Interesting to consider if there’s a real biological correlative there!
Romance may not have been the best word, but I wouldn’t be shocked if in time we learn that those other playful animals try communicating with us in our terms. I personally hope it’s the crows who reach us first, because I’m especially fond of the way they move, but I think octopus have a real shot at getting through. With their incredible and intimate spacial sense, they may develop math we might understand (if only they can figure out how to deliver it to us).
Vonda McIntyre’s novel Superluminal portrays all cetaceans as sentient (orcas, blue whales, the lot). They pair with chosen humans modified to allow them to live a semi-aquatic life. And there’s tension between the land and sea lobbies. I thought that was a thought-provoking take.
*adds it to her list* One post in to this fab experiment and I’m already shopping for new shelves.
ktholt: “What we have here is a failure to speculate.
First, remember the spirit of SiMF: Playful.
So here’s a game: Every time you want to reject a promising science-based extrapolation, pose a new piece of science-based extrapolation to replace it. The name of the game is “Yes, and…” The goal is to forward the action by always adding something new.
Alternatively, you could join the game already in play.”
Point taken — your overarching goal is to generate good story ideas.
Catching the proper “tone” is a bit problematic right now since there’s no history laid down yet. I hope i’m not coming off as mean-spirited, or trying to shut people up. I’m finding the conversation a lot of fun.
I wouldn’t reject any “what if” scenario. I’m not saying “don’t extrapolate from this idea.” Logically extrapolating from ideas, even absurd ones, is a game i can play… I just didn’t realize you were playing it already.
The things that i’m disagreeing with (civilly i hope), are opinions about the facts– or at least that’s how i understand them. But if we’re doing “science-based” extrapolation, a discussion of what the science actually indicates should be part of the discussion, right?
In the rest or your post you make the distinction clear using obvious phrasing like “I playfully extrapolate…” I think making that distinction clear will go a long way to prevent right and left brain types from talking past, and thus annoying each other.
Speaking of playful comments, there’s some pretty funny ones over at io9′s write-up on SIMF. My favorite (from someone called BullfightOnAcid) –
This used to be a great neighborhood until all those dolphins moved in – cans of tuna everywhere, high pitched squeaking at all times of the night and they’re always smiling at our women.
In a more serious speculative vein, I really like this one by Mathos:
I can’t help wondering whether the fact that they have so much brain capacity devoted to sonar would lead to different ways to “visualize” problems and ideas and to interesting insights.
That one has clear racial overtones. I’m sure it was intentional – not in a racist way, but in a darkly satirical “This is what we’d do” way. And they’re probably right.
Oh yeah, I read it as satire. There were a number of comments over there that referred to how being recognized as “persons” wouldn’t necessarily lead to any improvement in human treatment of dolphins, given that so many of us treat other humans so badly.
Oh & this one!(from The Curse of Millhaven):
Soylent blue is Dolphins! It’s Doooolphiiins!
just resently read Karel ?apek,s war with the newts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts
its relly the story you are asking for.. just whitoute dolphins.
dolphins sucks
Thank you for the book recommendation, but don’t be a troll.
One of the things that I like to do when I’m at the book store is to pick up a few art/writing magazines as well as the science ones. It is incredibly interesting to see what is going on in each of their respective worlds, as well as see where parallels or perpendiculars are occurring. Sometimes one field will lead or have significant influence on the other.
Well, all of that… plus they are all really interesting topics
Yay periodicals!
[...] There are four posts up so far, which have spurred some great discussions – everything from dolphins-as-persons to quantum mechanics to the significance of water in spec-fic writing. Go take a read, and join the [...]
[...] the otherwise cool new blog Science In My Fiction rekindled my dolphin-rage with their debut post. They propose: Researchers’ recent suggestion that dolphins be recognized as non-human persons is a prime [...]
[...] recognize some SiMF contributors: Peggy Kolm, Calvin Johnson and yours truly. The first post is Extrapolative Fiction for Sapient Earthlings by Kay Holt. Posts will initially appear twice weekly and may increase to thrice weekly once the [...]