I’m imagining a timeline where dolphins have accepted long ago that humans are intelligent because of our external manifestations of technology, and consequentially have developed much more sophisticated philosophy than humans based on having to understand paradigms well outside of their personal experiences.

Soon, we will find out through dolphin-Gemma that they have been talking to aliens for centuries, since the aliens tried to talk to us but failed due to our, and their, philosophical myopia… but the dolphins, with their non-circular philosophical understanding recognized alien communications and started the conversation before we finished the pyramids.