They Should Have Sent a Porpoise

February 25, 2024 1:19 AM

I asked Gruber himself what he would say to the whales. He said that he has been taking requests. Most people tell him that we should start by saying “Sorry,” for the bloody rampage that was industrial whaling. He agrees. “We pulled the oil out of these animals’ heads,” he said. “We used it to make lipstick.” Perhaps now we can atone. from How First Contact With Whale Civilization Could Unfold [The Atlantic; ungated]
posted by chavenet (18 comments total)

The notion that another species should be able to feel, think, plan, breed, hunt and socialise in a manner at least as sophisticated as us - but that the language they use to do this might operate with a palette of meaning totally incompatible with our own, is really interesting. We might be able to work out what they are saying but still find a conversation impossible.
posted by rongorongo at 2:08 AM on February 25 [4 favorites]

My favorite part of the article;

“ The animals that birthed our shared mammal lineage crawled out of the ocean 400 million years ago. About 50 million years ago, the four-legged ancestors of whales crawled back in, likely somewhere near present-day Pakistan. We don’t know what tempted them back to the sea, but whatever it was must have had a special pull for sperm whales, which have since become the great canyoneers of the mammalian class, the seekers of some of the deepest abysses. They spend most of their lives on long dives that frequently reach thousands of feet beneath the sea surface. When humans venture that far down, we’re often encased in a thick layer of titanium, lest our lungs and ear cavities collapse. Sperm whales do it naked.
How should we even approach these strange and beguiling creatures?”

If anyone has good sources to learn more about this, please do share with me!
posted by pridefulofbeing at 3:24 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

More about sperm whales
posted by chavenet at 3:47 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

Ask the bigger whales what they think of Orca's and the Orac's what they think of other whales.

Then tell them what humans do to each other.
posted by Comstar at 3:53 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

This is fascinating - forget alien civilizations, the most interesting planet we will ever meet is this one - but I'm also reminded of the Wittgenstein quote "If a lion could speak, we wouldn't be able to understand it."
posted by Termite at 4:16 AM on February 25 [4 favorites]

I imagine something like THIS
posted by lalochezia at 4:29 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

We should say "no, Dory, of course you can't speak Whale."

(butsrsly, I'm touched that we'd see other living beings on our planet as worthy of understanding, investment in learning their language and eventually culture,and seeing them as equals... I live in hope we humans are not all c_nts.)
posted by k3ninho at 4:49 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

they are not the hell your whales
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 5:14 AM on February 25 [15 favorites]

There are certain animals I think of as people. Not humans, but people.

Orcas, humpbacks, maybe some other cetaceans. Gorillas, chimps, orangutans, bonobos, geladas and maybe some other primates. Elephants, definitely. Possibly some octopodes?

I guess the (unscientific) criteria I'm applying are:

-- social structures
-- discernible relationships within the social structure
-- parenting
-- play
-- language (which may differ between different groups of the same species)
-- skills or tool use are learned and passed on (for example, the pod of dolphins that teach their young to use sponges to fish)

Anyway, I hope we do progress to seeing personhood in species other than our own. It would be a step in the right direction for our species.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:33 AM on February 25 [6 favorites]

Peter Watts & Laurie Channer have their own prognostication of what cooperation between apex primates and apex cetaceans might look like.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:59 AM on February 25 [5 favorites]

And the Corvids, Pallas Athena.
posted by k3ninho at 8:41 AM on February 25 [6 favorites]

fucking Peter Watts. I had not encountered Bulk Food before. oof. that is quite a read.
posted by supermedusa at 10:07 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

Just leave them alone. That's the best message you could send them.
posted by pracowity at 10:10 AM on February 25 [5 favorites]

There's a dark plotline about this in Extrapolations (for the 10 of us who saw it).
posted by doctornemo at 11:58 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

Real Science: The Insane Biology of the Sperm Whale
posted by polecat at 1:15 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

The idea of animal consciousness is a fascinating one but I'd offer the caveat that despite hundreds of years of intense research, we're not entirely certain how exactly the structures of the brain generate consciousness in humans, let alone determining if other species possess those structures.

There's still a gulf between evidence of behaviors in animals that seem to indicate self-awareness and consciousness, and proof of consciousness itself. And I don't think it is controversial to say that the gulf between the most intelligent whale, gorilla, octupus or raven and a reasonably bright eight year human is also vast.

Just leave them alone. That's the best message you could send them.

I have come to agree with this as I get older. We should leave these species in peace and work on improving the lives of humanity. Of course, even if no other animal species demonstrated any aspect of consciousness, it would still be morally wrong to engage in cruelty or mass killing of them.
posted by fortitude25 at 2:52 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

Just leave them alone. That's the best message you could send them.

If I recall, Ian Watson's The Jonah Kit involved a group attempting to communicate with whales. When they succeeded, whales started beaching themselves all over the world.
posted by rochrobbb at 3:33 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]

+1 for the Contact movie reference.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:17 PM on February 26