like whales?

patrick bateman · Post by **patrick bateman** » Sun Jul 04, 2010 12:11 pm

From the Faeroe Island this weekend. 17 whales..

oblioblioblio · Post by **oblioblioblio** » Sun Jul 04, 2010 1:24 pm

infernal.techno wrote: By the way, there is plenty of science dedicated to the understanding of how sea creatures live. Marine biology?

Yeah but none of that work really respects their intelligence. It seems to be more lifeless, like to study their feeding patterns, or whatever.

I will refer people again to the work of John Lilly. He had is issues in life, as generally the most intelligent minds often do, and it is very easy for his work to be discredited by mainstream scientists, but I think he was a visionary human being, and his work was always valuable scientifically.

http://www.mavericksofthemind.com/lilly-int.htm

infernal.techno · Post by **infernal.techno** » Sun Jul 04, 2010 10:20 pm

oblioblioblio wrote:
infernal.techno wrote: By the way, there is plenty of science dedicated to the understanding of how sea creatures live. Marine biology?
Yeah but none of that work really respects their intelligence. It seems to be more lifeless, like to study their feeding patterns, or whatever.

maybe we should let the whales do their own research that respects their intelligence!

by the way, i liked the original article you posted from john lilly. i'm not exactly sure what we're even debating here. that whales and dolphins have a

level of intelligence way way beyond what humans are capable of.

?

Themis · Post by **Themis** » Sun Jul 04, 2010 10:59 pm

lol i hope not, i hope this sentence means

they have maybe another kind of intelligence which is not researched yet and for this reason its possible their intelligence is in a way amazing.

and for the record, we are humans and can only see the world through human eyes, its natural that we cant even imagine things which are beyond your intelligence. The intelligence of a whale is way beyond our intelligence, but not in the sense of higher or lower. we cant put ourself in the shoes of a whale .. cause we are humans. and because of that we should be careful with our judgement

our kind of intelligence is maybe not the only one in this universe

maybe you cant rate intelligence like you dont rate music

its maybe not so smart to say: if it cant speak and build a car then its a fucking dumb animal.

i also dont say if it does not sound like a villalobos record its sh!t !

oblioblioblio · Post by **oblioblioblio** » Sun Jul 04, 2010 11:38 pm

Sorry Infernal Techno, I wasn't aiming anyhing at you brining up John Lilly again, I just think he had/has some interesting views and evidence on the topic. And I think he's generally not very well respected for similar reasons to mainstream society having litle respect for alternative forms of intelligence.

Themis just summed up things very well. That human beings have no means to respect the intelligence of another species. That becuase it is not possible to understand it within our own intellectual/social framworks that is must be inferior.

I do think also that mankind suffers from arrogance, that becuase we are in control of technology and the planet, that somehow we are superior to others because of it. If you take certain things out of the equation, we are still apes. Like if you took away all previous technology, current mankind wouldnt be able to do much at all. All technological breakthroughs have some from slight modificaitons to previous research plus chance. Though that is not to say that our mind is an infinitely capable thing.

Probably the central point of this whole discussion is how man is now in control of the planet. And it's pretty easy that little things snowball and shape the future in major ways.

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Mon Jul 05, 2010 3:12 am

oblioblioblio wrote: If you take certain things out of the equation, we are still apes. Like if you took away all previous technology, current mankind wouldnt be able to do much at all. All technological breakthroughs have some from slight modificaitons to previous research plus chance. Though that is not to say that our mind is an infinitely capable thing.

you could say the same things for whales. if you took away all their knowledge and skills they wouldn't be able to do much either. thats why young whales die without their mothers because they don't have the skills to catch food. technology is part of human evolution, it's human intelligence.

oblioblioblio · Post by **oblioblioblio** » Mon Jul 05, 2010 3:28 am

tone-def wrote: you could say the same things for whales. if you took away all their knowledge and skills they wouldn't be able to do much either. thats why young whales die without their mothers because they don't have the skills to catch food. technology is part of human evolution, it's human intelligence.

first part is true.

second part i mostly agree with. i'm not saying that humans are stupid, just that we're not this magic species that has all the answers.

And I do believe that with technology it's easy for humans to see it as a representation of our talent. But if you look at any achievement, it's something that has been added to very slowly over time, with the occaisional breakthrough (often heavily inspired by chance).

We've definitely got advanced capabilities, but we're definitely not the only ones. And I think it's dangerous for us to overestimate ourselves.