Dolphins at popular spot miss tourists and keep leaving 'gifts' on shore

https://youtu.be/Bsp_JTtE3-w

People say that about pets too, but those people usually don't own pets. Why can't animals have similar social instincts to humans? Maybe they just want to hang out too.

“I don’t believe parents actually love their children and vice-versa. Parents are merely delivery vehicles of food for children. Children are delivery vehicles of future care for parents. Humans are probably projecting their fantasies about themselves being fundamentally better than they are in reality.”

We don’t directly perceive that dolphins project their fantasies about humans, but like with our fellow humans, it doesn’t mean they aren’t doing that.

It's the same with any healthy human relationship. Can you imagine how sad it would be to make extraordinary efforts for a person who did absolutely nothing for you? We reward those who provide us something of value -- security, affection, a sympathetic ear -- with our sacrifices.

Which actually seems more plausible to me than food motivation. Dolphins are one of the most intelligent, social, and oftentimes pointlessly cruel animals we know of. All this points to an animal with a cognitive level capable of having been interested in humans and now being bored due to their absence. And in that boredom, having not much better to do with their time than go looking for “gifts”. It’s also possible they’re just motivated by the food of course, but ultimately I feel like a Dolphin’s mental complexity is high enough that it’s hard for us to say exactly what motivates them in complex situations.

Sharing food between mammals generally leads to bonding. Like, all mammals.

The projection here would solely be: "people are social animals and we miss seeing the dolphins; dolphins are social animals and they could miss us too"

That's a much smaller leap than you're suggesting people are making. The other way also seems to risk erring on the "people are special and unique compared to animals" side.

I don’t know that, of course, but I’m only assuming dolphin social tendencies can bridge the species gap in a similar way that human social tendencies do (and for cats, and dogs, and horses, and lions, etc.)

I’ve recently taken to the idea that intellectual stances and embodied experiences are not derivable from one another. Each toolkit is separate, and weird things happen when you try to extend one into the other.

For example, I felt it emotively when reading your comment, that the intellect is extraordinarily good at reducing everything into nothing, because it is a core presupposition that we must view things mechanically, to have mechanical proficiency.

Similarly, to have emotional proficiency, we must make our emotional presuppositions. This is not the obsolete definition of “myth” as stories we make up to make us feel good, because that’s again a framing of a reductionist intellect.

What I’m trying to limn is not anti-intellectualism, but that there is no common framework to contain both of these separate modalities. Don’t let the stomach cannibalize the liver, we need both.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/08/the-dolp...

It starts with the least costly (waiting), then higher cost (text nd $$ sn)... but dolphins don't text.

I think your perspective is from a lack of personal experiences and relationships with non-human animals, or you would feel different.

I've had many relationships with all kinds of animals, and while food is often the initial connect (just as it often is with human), there is also much recognition, affection, comfort, attachment, appreciation of each other's company.

I've experienced this with cats, dogs a sparrow, a pigeon, and many other animals, so to think that dolphins, some of the smartest animals we know, would miss the company, play, etc. of humans does not seem that far-fetched to me, personally.

Good times.

He basically found that dolphins language follow the Zipf law and Shannon information theory.

Baby dolphins also have a babbling periode like humans in the same timespan. It is interesting talk all the way through. Maybe you can contact him.

https://youtu.be/H30NipTkA5s https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law

What we do know is that they produce a variety of signals, some very complex and their communication is super fast, which is another obstacle for possible "communication". For example, we cannot generate a burst pulse with our current technology, we can only record theirs and play it back.

But many research groups are trying. We are starting Dolphin Chat citizen science project on Zooniverse in a month or so, to classify and prepare a large dataset of bottlenose dolphins' vocalizations for out deep learning model. You can check it out and even participate, it will definitely help to appreciate how complex their vocal repertoire is (and how "chatty" they are).

And their budgets require visitors. Worldwide all zoos are in a state of crisis.

Now wondering about these sea mammals too.

Bronx Zoo Tiger Is Sick With the Coronavirus - The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/nyregion/bronx-zoo-tiger-...

Zoo May Feed Animals to Animals as Funds Dry Up in Pandemic https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/world/europe/germany-zoo-...

Also agreed, much better link.