John Cunningham Lilly

“ For the last three years in the Communication Research Institute [23] we have been pursuing an investigative path in this new science with the pair “man and bottlenose dolphin.” We have encouraged and pursued studies in classical sciences such as neurophysiology, animal psychology, anatomy, biophysics, and zoology. We have also initiated and pursued this new science of the man and dolphin relation; these “homo-delphic” studies, if you will, are triply demanding: we must not only know our animal objectively but we must know man objectively, and ourselves subjectively. ”

“ Our best knowledge of ourselves as a species, as humans, is in the humanities and in the budding, growing sciences of man. In pursuit of understanding of the whales, dolphins, and porpoises, we need, at least at the beginning, a large view which is in the human sciences and in the humanities. ”

“ In pursuing possible measures of intellectual and intelligent capacity, what line should one pursue? I explored this question somewhat in Man and Dolphin, but wish to summarize and extend it here in this discussion. The invariants that we are seeking somehow do not seem to be as concrete as “tool-making and tool-using ability” by means of the hands which has been one of the major alleged criteria for human adaptation and success. The chimpanzee and the gorilla have the hands but they do not have the brains to back up the use of the hands. Man has both the hands and the brain. ”

“ We know, in the case of our own species, that if the brain fails to develop, intelligence also fails to develop.
How do we judge in our own species that intelligence develops or fails to develop? We work with the child and carefully observe its performances of common tasks and carefully measure its acquisition of speech quantitatively. We measure (among other factors) size of word vocabulary, adequacy of pronunciation, lengths of phrases and sentences, appropriateness of use, levels of abstraction achieved, and the quality of the logical processes used. ”

“ How does all of this relate to modern dolphins, porpoises, and whales? From the vast array of scientific facts and theories about our own species, a few of those which I feel are useful in approaching another species to evaluate its intelligence are discussed above. But before I make connections there, let us attenuate some interfering attitudes and points of view, some myths not so modern; these interfering presumptions can be stated as follows:
(1) No animal has a language comparable to a human language. (2) No animal is as intelligent as man. ”

“ What they all have in common is the friendliness of the dolphin for human beings, their rescue of them when they were thrown into the sea, their playfulness, especially with children, and their interest in almost any sort of sound. ”

“ This seems to be one of the basic factors in our being able to elicit humanoid emissions. The vocal transactions are started by a human shouting some words over the water of the tank in which the animal is residing. A single word may be used or many words—it makes little difference. Eventually the animal in the tank will raise his blowhole out of water and make some sort of a humanoid emission or whistle or clicks in a delphinese fashion. If the human immediately replies with some word or words, the animal may immediately respond, the human answers, and a vocal transaction is under way. ”

“ The usual behavioral criteria used in evaluation of intelligence of other animals are obviously inapplicable to a mammal living in the sea. As McBride and Hebb [8] so clearly stated, they cannot place the dolphin in any sort of intellectual comparative intelligence scale; they did not know the appropriate experimental questions to ask in order to compare the dolphins with the chimpanzees, for example. Comparing a handed-mammal with a flippered-mammal, each of which lives in an entirely separate and distinctive environment, is a very difficult intellectual task even for Homo sapiens. ”

“ As the child ages and grows, the exchanges lengthen, and the time during which each member of the dyad is quiet while the other speaks becomes longer, until finally for a half hour or so, I am lecturing and you are at least quiet, if not listening. ”

“ We cannot fight shy of involving ourselves in the investigation as objects also. In this science man, and hence one’s own self, are part of the system under investigation. This is not an easy discipline. One must guard quite as rigorously (or even more so) against the pitfalls of wishful thinking and sensational fantasy as in other scientific endeavors. This field requires a self-candor, an inner honesty, and a humility quite difficult to acquire. But I maintain that good science can be done here, that the field is a proper one for properly trained and properly motivated investigators. ”

“ None of these exist in any known modern whale or dolphin or porpoise. All modern whales, dolphins, and porpoises have two teats, at the genital slit only, which are long and narrow, not hemispherical; the blowhole slits are flush with the skin at the true forehead; the relatively small eyes are at the posterior angle of the jaw; baleen whales have no teeth; large toothed whales have only a few teeth; no “facial” expression is detectable on whales, dolphins, or porpoises; the tale flukes of all species are smooth skinned, not rayed like a fish. ”

“ In regard to communication between individual whales, Scammon in 1874 wrote the following: “It is said that the Cachalots [Sperm Whales] are endowed with the faculty of communicating with each other in times of danger, when miles ... distant. If this be true, the mode of communication rests instinctively within their own contracted brains.” [5] Let us not forget that Scammon was talking about the mammal with the largest known brain on this planet. Instinct as the sole cause of communication with a brain this size seems rather improbable. This brain is not any longer considered “contracted.” ”

“ In other words, the dolphin may say one word or a syllable-like emission, or many, one right after the other, as may the humans. If the human says one word, the dolphin may say one, two, three, or four, and if the human says one, two, three, or four, the dolphin may say one. There is no necessary master-slave kind of relationship in the delphinic emissions. ”

“ Thus it is necessary, in order to evaluate the intelligence of even the dolphins, much less the whales, to know something of their abilities in the areas of phonation and other kinds of bodily gestures and manipulations 42 and hence in their abilities to communicate with one another. As I implied in Man and Dolphin, it is not possible to measure accurately the intelligence of any other being than that of a human being, mainly because we do not exchange ideas through any known communication mode with such beings. ”

“ After the discovery of man’s complicated and complex brain and the clinical correlation between brain injury and effects on man’s performance, the brain and mental factors began to be related to one another. As descriptions of man’s brain became more and more exact and clinical correlations increased sufficiently in numbers, new investigations on the relationships between brain size and intelligence in Homo sapiens were started. ”

“ Recently we have found that an emotionally upset animal threatens other animals and humans by productions of very large amounts of energy both in the sonic communication band and in the ultrasonic bands. Recently we have had the opportunity of working with an old bull of 450 pounds weight who is so old his teeth have been ground down flat. In terms of his skeleton, he is the most massive animal we have ever seen. When he is irritated, his “barks” have sizable amounts of energy from about 0.5 to at least 300 kilocycles. ”

“ But now that scientific interest in the dolphin has been aroused we are entering into a new era of delphinology, and with the confirmation of so many of the observations of the ancients already made, we may look forward with confidence to others. Dolphins have large brains; possibly they will some day be able to teach us what brains are really for. ”

“ On the biological side, modern neurology says the number of neurons in the human brain reaches maximum value before birth at about 13 billions. After this point, the increase in weight consists of increased numbers of fibers, increased connections, increased size of elements, and increased efficiency and selectivity of transmission. Thus the increase in weight of the human brain from about 400 to 1400 grams seems to be devoted to improving its internal (as well as external) communication, storage, and computation networks. ”

“ A bright child seems to seek and respond best to those persons who respond in kind, back and forth in exchanges of sounds and linked actions. For example, if one starts such a 50 transaction with a child of 22 months with a loud word, if he is ready, he may return his version of the word or a slight variant; if one replies with another variant the child replies with still a third, or even suddenly with a new word, and so on back and forth in a transactional vocal dance. ”

“ Recently the dolphin has become the focus of much scientific interest and investigation which have led to flattering pronouncements about its remarkable intelligence, amiability, and astonishing friendliness towards man. ”

“ It is far better to remain silent even at the risk of being taken for a fool or a rogue, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.
Aesop flourished about 600 B.C. His story suggests a considerable knowledge of the ways of dolphins, and this indicates that knowledge of the dolphin was already old in his time.
There are several variant Greek myths on the origin of the dolphin. All of them relate to Dionysos. In one version Dionysos is an adult, in another he is a child. The first group of legends represent the epiphany of Dionysos, symbolizing the battle between winter and summer. ”

“ Here I review the above points in more general terms, and develop a plea for a new science—a new discipline combining the best of science with the best of the humanities.
Several old questions should be revived and asked again with a new attitude, with more modern techniques of investigation and with more persistence. It may take twenty years or more to develop good answers; meanwhile the intellectual life of man will profit in the undertaking. ”

“ Whether the dolphin of classical antiquity is Delphinus or Tursiops is not usually determinable, although each undoubtedly 6 played its independent role in the stories told of dolphins. From the recorded evidence available to us it is clear that, except for the larger species, the whales, all dolphins appear to be characterized by playfulness and friendliness toward man. There are, however, differences which appear to express themselves mostly in captivity. At least, Tursiops adjusts much better to captivity than does Delphinus. ”

“ It is the seeking a new output, not necessarily instinctually tied in, and the radicalness of the change of output, plus the relating of many of the variables to one another thus generating the new output, that seems to be the hallmark of the large brain. ”

“ Fairholme, who described these events in 1856, writes, “For my part I cannot doubt that the understanding is real, and that the natives know these porpoises [actually the dolphin Tursiops catalania] , and that strange porpoises would not show so little fear of the natives. The oldest men of the tribe say that the same kind of fishing has always been carried on as long as they can remember. Porpoises abound in the bay, but in no other part do the natives fish with their assistance.” ”

“ If there is a task to be done, such as lifting a stone, whether in water or air, a given animal may turn it over with his foot, with his flipper, with his hand, with his tail, or with any other body part with which he could obtain a purchase on the stone. ”

“ As I have stated elsewhere (Man and Dolphin) , it is my impression that there exist critical threshold values in the brain’s growth pattern at which certain kinds of performance become possible. Complex speech acquisition seems related to brain weights of 800 to 1000 grams, but no smaller. This assumes, of course, numbers of neurons (1010) and numbers of connections and opportunities for learning and time to learn commonly found with humans.
The critical psychological factors in speech acquisition are slowly being dug out and described. ”

“ In 1902 G. Elliot Smith wrote of the brain of a species of dolphin called “Delphinus tursio” (which may be the modern Tursiops truncatus) : “This brain is larger and correspondingly richer in sulci than that of the porpoise: but the structure of the two organs is essentially the same.” ”