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But for the few who could, it was surprising how attuned a human sense could become. Eugene Walker would rather be a Ping Jockey than do any other job in the Navy. Here, he could hear everything. Even on a boring night like this, he knew exactly what surrounded them as they slid silently through the dark waters.
Dolphins are the second smartest animal on the planet, and they are the only species besides humans that are self-aware. For example, when you put a mirror in the tank, dolphins will actually look at themselves and even examine their bodies. They understand the connection and the fact that there is a world around them, so the depth of exchange possible here is staggering.”
“We know dolphins have a complex language. But imagine…if they have the ability to pass information, not just to each other, but from generation to generation. We could be talking about a lineage, about a progressive cognition. That is culture!”
He rubbed his eyes held his phone up about a foot from his face, and read the message. “Oh my god!” he yelled. He quickly tried to get up but tumbled out and onto the floor along with his sheets. He desperately tried to kick them off and ran into the bathroom, dragging the top half of his bed behind him.
“Which means that when IMIS translates a word for the first time, it becomes permanent. It is learning.”
Even some human languages were so complex that the slightest variations in tone or inflection could make the language nearly impossible to learn. The Navajo language was a perfect example. Their system was so complicated that unless you were born into the language, you would never be able to fully grasp it as an adult. This was the reason it was so successful when used in World War II against the Japanese. Could the dolphin’s language be the same way? Could IMIS think it was translating something that it actually wasn’t?
The team listened for anything more, but the speakers fell silent. “They must be off.” Alison turned to Clay again. “Just to remind you, Mr. Clay, I don’t know how far or deep they will be able to search. Dolphins don’t go much deeper than 150 to 200 feet, so even if they can find it with their echolocation, they may only be able to point us to it.”
That’s coral.” He thought a moment. “This reminds me of the bundles of fiber optic cable that the telecommunications companies lay underwater, but this is much bigger.”
“If we invert the color…” the object suddenly turned black while the rest of the screen inverted to white. “…and we tell the computer to zoom out…we can have it use the current dimension to estimate what the overall shape is.”
