***** Vol.3 Chap.24 Trouble with words *****
Seeing that the next session was about to begin, From the conference schedule, two sessions were scheduled: one on marine life and the other on the anthropology of humanity with five speakers scheduled. Frank gravitated to the marine life session as he was curious about what Kristin’s work.
By the time he found the room, the first speaker just finished the presentation. The next talk was Kristin’s. She got to the front and put her transparencies on the overhead projector.
“Thank you for coming to this talk. Today, I like to report some findings and observations of the research results that I conducted with dolphins over the past two years.”
“Before I start on the report, I wanted to say that I am fascinated with dolphins. They are magnificent, intelligent, and, most of all, peaceful creatures. Personally, I feel that there is much that we as a human race can learn from them.”
“Using our human terms, the dolphins are extremely ecologically and socially conscious. They do not damage the environment. They derived their existence entirely from groups. Within each group, there is no observable aggressive behavior. In short, they are everything that we hoped for regarding humanity. Let me explain.”
The audience seemed spellbound, though Frank could sense a fair amount of skepticism in the room.
“For the past two years, I had designed, developed, built, and deployed over a hundred of these recording devices, called DRDs. Here is an example.”
Kristin held up a DRD device and waved it in front of the audience.
“A significant amount of data can be collected by these DRDs. Here is a block diagram of the DRD.”
She put a transparency up with all kinds of square blocks. The chart was so busy that the entire audience instinctively lean forward trying to get a better look. A few disgruntled noises could be heard at the back of the room from those who could not see well.
“An important data collection aspect is vocalization. We are interested in both the sounds that the subject dolphin makes and the sounds that the dolphin hears. We are interested in two-way communication; hence, we are interested in what the dolphin says, as well as what the dolphin hears. We want to record the entire conversation.”
“I have a deep conviction that the dolphins are carrying on intelligent conversations among themselves. In time, I hope to build a translator and understand what they are saying to one another.”
Frank heard a couple of snickers at the back of the room. Admittedly, that was a wild idea because there is no way to verify what the true meaning of a conversation without getting inside the brain and consciousness of a dolphin.
“Another aspect of this data collection is to get a sense of community among the dolphins. To me, this is the most interesting aspect of this research. Often, we only collect data on a single individual, but dolphins are a gregarious species. To understand the dolphins and their actions, one must understand their actions in the context of the community.”
“When collecting data, we like to know where the dolphin is oriented spatially with respect to the other dolphins. Hence, we equipped the DRDs with several ultrasonic sensors that provide a coarse mapping of the space immediately surrounding the dolphin. This way, we would have collected enough information to reconstruct the dolphin family in action together.”
“We deployed over a hundred of these DRDs for the past two years. Currently, two-thirds of these DRDs are working in full capacity. The data from these DRDs were uploaded into the computer at NASA and the activities of these dolphins are being reconstructed in pain-staking details. Of all DRDs that were deployed, we can conclude that data clearly show five different communities. This was intended by design because we choose five communities to deploy these DRDs.”
“Through computer simulation, we can reconstruct the behavior of each of these five communities. Right before I come to this conference, my workers told me we completed the simulation for one community. If we can dim the lights, here is a short video of the computer simulation.”
Kristin showed a short 1-minute video complete with sound. The video traced one dolphin that she named Traci, meandering around the ocean surface with a partner, that she called Tony. Most of the vocalizations seemed to be between Traci and Tony, although occasionally, both Traci and Tony seemed to repeat the same vocalization in synchrony, apparently to other dolphins in the vicinity.
The audience was mesmerized by the computer simulation seeing red and black dots moving around in synchrony. The red dots represented the dolphins that were being tracked while the black dots were presumably the dolphins detected by the proximity ultrasonic sensors.
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The dots as a group moved forward in a waving pattern. No clear evidence suggested if any of the dolphins was a leader with the rest followed. They all moved together as a group. However, each dolphin appeared to always swim close to its partner.
After the video, Kristin asked for the lights.
“I see my time is up.” Kristin noticed the session chair giving her the one-minute wrap up signal.
“We had hardly processed the collected data. I wanted to report the preliminary findings on the data collected so far in this conference. In the months ahead, we plan to thoroughly and completely analyze the collective behavior of these dolphin families.”
“We also like to categorize the vocalizations in context so that perhaps we can understand these vocalizations. If there is a linguist among us, please talk to me after the conference. Thank you very much for your attention during this presentation. I will be happy to answer any questions.”
A few hands shot up, asking questions regarding the data collection procedure. Kristin answered them readily. After that, the session chair stood up to introduce the next speakers.
Frank sat and listened through the entire session. He was not really listening to the rest of the speakers; rather, he was considering the implications of Kristin’s presentation, especially about the point that the homo sapiens as a species had much to learn from the dolphins. He was not sure about the claim that there was no aggressive behavior among the dolphins, but the evidence presented was certainly overwhelming.
At the end of the session, Frank maneuvered to Kristin and invited her to sit down for a chat. Heading to the refreshment table and fixing themselves some decaffeinated coffee, they found a nearby couch and sat down.
Kristin took a sip of the coffee and relaxed.
“That was a great talk, Kristin.”
“Thank you. There was so much more to talk or show, but the allocated time is too short.”
“Isn’t that the truth! They never give you enough time to say what you want to say.”
Frank continued, “I am quite interested in what you said about the lack of observable aggressive behavior among the dolphins.”
Frank took another sip of the coffee as well.
“Well, nothing that I could detect from the data collected.”
She is hedging because she did not know where Frank stood. Kristin had given her talk to many groups with varying results. Some were extremely skeptical, while others outright belligerent.
“I know nothing about marine life, much less about dolphins. Do you have any idea why the dolphins exhibit no aggressive behavior?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it is not in their genes.”
“May be the lack of natural predators?”
“Hardly. Dolphins have natural predators, humans, for one.”
“From your observations, what do dolphins do most of the time?”
“They hunt, they travel, they play, and they chat with one another.”
“That is interesting. Are they territorial?”
“Not really. They may be on a larger scale, but from my observations, they do travel and cover a significant amount of area. Hence, there is no reason there would be aggressive behavior arising from defending their territories.”
“You’ve read my mind precisely. What are their mating rituals?”
“Dolphins mate for life. Young dolphins would select someone from the same family and the two would stay together for life. In my limited data collection window, I could not pick up any of the mate selection activities. I would surmise that there may be some orderly mating rituals and the two would simply be ‘married’ and swim off as mates for life.”
“Are there any mating rituals reported by others?”
“Perhaps, but I am not aware of any at this point. That is one of my goals is to see firsthand a possible mating ritual. My plan is to first look for such possible behavior from my collected data so that I can understand when the ritual would take place. I will take my submersible down to the dolphin population so that I can see and video-tape the entire event. But keep this between you and me, please.”
“Your secret is safe with me. Do you think the dolphins are capable of any aggressive behavior?”
“Perhaps, but there are none seen so far. From the data collected, I can confidently say that there is no aggressive behavior at all.”
“I guess it is hard to tell. Are they capable of violent behavior?”
“No.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“First, a dolphin’s large body frame deters smaller predators. Second, the anatomy of a dolphin suggests a graceful swimmer. No powerful teeth like sharks to rip apart its victims. No powerful jaw like alligators and crocodiles to snap at victims. A dolphin’s body is shaped in a way to minimize water resistance. In other words, it is not built for fighting, but for swimming.”
“Perhaps there is no need for aggression?”
“Perhaps.”
“Can they be incited into aggressive behavior?”
“You are trying hard to get me to change my position, but you will fail. I love those dolphins.”
“You worshipped those dolphins.”
“You can say so.”
“What if, while being with these dolphins, you accidentally ram them with your submersible?”
“Why do I want to do that? What is the point?”
Kristin was tiring of the conversation. She shuffled her feet and downed the rest of her coffee.
“To see if they are capable of aggressive behavior.”
“Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“First, that is an outright provocation that is totally uncalled for. Second, the aim of the experiment is to observe them in their natural habitat, not an artificially created one. Third, I love those animals!” Kristin answered roughly.
“Are you sure they would not retaliate?”
Frank felt he was coming out a bit too strong, but the words came out in the heat of the argument and he had no way to take it back.
“You are really obsessed about aggression, Dr. Abdulcizi! I don’t appreciate what you are suggesting. Good day.”
Kristin stood up to leave.
“Please, Kristin, I don’t mean it that way!”
“Regardless of how it sounds, I don’t like the direction of this discussion. You are the aggressive one!”
She gathered all her stuff together.
“I’m sorry, Kristin. I really don’t mean it that way.”
“That is OK. You are not the first one that suggested the same thing. I am tired of people telling me what to do with my dolphins. Not that I know much about them, but I know they are lovely creatures. If I can even be one of them, I would.”
In a huff, Kristin stomped off.
“I bet you would.”
Frank said that though no one was listening, as he kicked himself in regret for not trusting what Kristin was saying.