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Comment by mrfusion | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered how we figure we'd communicate with aliens someday, or decode a future SETI message, if we can't even decode the language of a dolphins.

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Dolphins are not (so far as we know) actively trying to teach us their language. I would be exuberant to be corrected on this, but to my knowledge a dolphin has never put a fish in a human's hands and cried 'kreeeikaaa' to try to teach us the word. Whereas we do that endlessly with the dolphins, which is why they have learned a bit of our language.

I suspect (with no proof) that a human-level intelligence, bent on communicating, would have the intelligence to perform experiments and then structure a learning environment for the other life form to learn its language.

> Dolphins are not (so far as we know) actively trying to teach us their language.

Exactly. Cats actively try to teach us their language and you can ask any cat owner, he or she would be very fluent in their cat's language.

Hey, why the downvote? It wasn't just a witty remark, i was serious. I find it rather fascinating that in the case of pets, both parties mutually form a method of communication. And this method isn't exactly part of either species' natural language. Humans train pets to respond to certain gestures/words and the pet adopts certain behaviors which have the sole purpose of communicating a need or intention or request to the owner. I think it says something abuot the intelligence of BOTH species

There is some interesting behaviour so far as cat communication with humans. Cats will not meow to other cats unless it's a kitten / mother situation. Meowing with humans is pretty unique.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_communication#Meow

Wow, good point. Cats usually have this entirely different set of vocal and bodily language when communicating with other cats. Isn't that a sign of higher intelligence? To be able to learn multiple languages. Even if each is fairly small, it's rather fascinating ability to be able to classify your total known language into two distinct sets and knowing which set to use with whom

I'm not sure about dolphins, but I do know people who claim to be able to hear some bird talk and understand what they are talking about (where the predators are, how far away the rain is, etc). Some Native Americans claimed to use this trick to know when other people were approaching, up to a few miles away. As far as I know, this only included listening, not interacting though.

That said, I've tried to find references online to this stuff and haven't been able to. I've only heard from friends who have taken classes/trained under such people.

I think Solaris by Stanisław Lem is right about contact with aliens. Read it if you haven't - it's a great book about impossibility of understanding between real aliens.

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