I find it frustrating that we don't give animals more focus in this whole discussion. Like, I get it, aliens are cool, if we ever find some, and we want to be broadcasting to those potential aliens. But it kind of feels like a bad joke when we can't even properly communicate with creatures living right in our houses.
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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Digital Bioacoustics
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Welcome to c/DigitalBioacoustics, a unique niche in the vast universe of online forums and digital communities. At its core, bioacoustics is the study of sound in and from living organisms, an intriguing intersection of biology and acoustics. Digital bioacoustics, an extension of this field, involves using technology to capture, analyze, and interpret these biological sounds. This community is dedicated to exploring these fascinating aspects of nature through a digital lens.
As you delve into c/DigitalBioacoustics, you'll notice it's not just another technical forum. This space transcends the usual drone of server rooms or the monotonous tap-tap of keyboards. Here, members engage in a unique fusion of natural wonders and technological prowess. Imagine a world where the rustling of leaves, the chirping of birds, and the mysterious calls of nocturnal creatures meet the precision of digital recording and analysis.
Within this domain, we, the participants, become both observers and participants in an intricate dance. Our mission is to unravel the mysteries of nature's soundtrack, decoding the language of the wild through the lens of science. This journey is not just about data and graphs; it's about connecting with the primal rhythm of life itself.
As you venture deeper, the poetic essence of our community unfolds. Nature's raw concert, from the powerful songs of mating calls to the subtle whispers of predator and prey, creates a tapestry of sounds. We juxtapose these organic melodies with the mechanical beeps and buzzes of our equipment, a reminder of the constant interplay between the natural world and our quest to understand it.
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There may be more people working on it than you realize. The International Bioacpustics Conference (IBAC 2023) just ended a couple days ago. It was my first time attending, and I was blown away by how many people are tackling this exact issue from such a wide range of angles. The potential breakthroughs that may be just around the corner thanks to machine learning is what inspired me to start this community. I am constantly amazed by the things that have already been discovered in this field.
Yeah, I guess, I was also specifically complaining that they're not put into the limelight as much, so that folks from outside the field (like me) hear much about it. It always feels like I have to actively research to know what state-of-the-art is. Meanwhile, this news outlet is apparently doing an alien week.
I guess, I'm mostly just tired from how much limelight aliens are getting. But I also guess, broadcasting is basically the only useful thing we can do with potential aliens, so maybe this is the wrong tree to be barking up...
The barrier with animals is having an actual vocabulary. They can convey their current demeanor - like it's generally not hard to tell the difference between a dog wanting cuddles vs wanting to rip your face off. Some of them can even get a little more advanced with things like ringing a bell to tell you that want to be let outside, or bringing you an empty food bowl to tell you they're hungry, but that's kinda it. They don't have a specific bark-word for "Food bowl" or w/e for us to be able to translate.
Couple of exceptions though:
Some of the smarter breeds of parrots can develop a limited working vocabulary. You might be interested in Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a researcher who did a lot of work with parrots. It's pretty well established that you can train a parrot to say "green!" when you point to something green, but Irene wanted to show whether they actually understand that that color IS green, or if they just know they can a treat for saying "green" when their owner points at something that happens to be green. And it's the former - she was able to show they actually understand the concept of color + words that represent specific colors.
I think similar work has been done with apes by teaching them some sign language.
But even with the couple examples of animals being able to learn an actual vocabulary, you still wouldn't be able to have any kind of conversation with them outside of those super basic exchange like "What color?" "Green!" "Good boy!" *treat*.
So back to aliens - specifically aliens capable of space travel - it's a pretty safe assumption that they'd have some kind of language as advanced as our own, if not moreso. The societal development that would need to happen before them achieving space travel would absolutely require language.
Sure, but I do think, there's quite a number of animals with some form of vocabulary, like songbirds, whales, dolphins. To some degree, we do understand these, but there's still huge amounts of vocabulary we haven't deciphered, nor can actually respond to/with.
And even if those are basic exchanges, I feel like we could learn a ton about the different forms of communications and where our limitations are. Like, ants communicate with pheromones and bees with dances. Ultimately, we'd likely still send out EM-waves, simply because they travel quite well through space, but maybe a bee/alien would think our attempt at an obvious encoding is just background noise.
we don't give animals more focus in this whole discussion.
Sir, do you think dogs, cats, mouses, dolphins or whatever have a potential to invent such technology that would allow space travel? Or is your point that rat's IQ is basically the same as human's IQ?
No, my point is that we're struggling with simplistic communication with readily available creatures. Maybe we should practise more with those, before we try to communicate arbitrarily complex ideas with creatures no one has ever seen.
I'd say if there's a will there's a way. Establish common points of reference and go from there, it probably wouldn't even be THAT hard is my guess.
Sure, concepts like dignity, time and hygge are super easy to translate once you can show that you know how hydrogen vibrates.
We don't even know, what form of communication aliens might use. What timeframe they live in, what concept of reality, space, time, objects.