Dolphin and human brain comparison. How smart are dolphins really? Scientists have compared the intelligence of dolphins and other animals: rats, pigs, elephants and even raccoons. The smartest orangutans

(Published in Proceedings, THE 5TH WORLD MULTICONFERENCE ON SYSTEMICS, CYBERNETICS AND INFORMATICS SCI "2001,)
PROSPECTS FOR INFORMATION
INTEGRATION OF HUMAN AND DOLPHIN INTELLIGENTS

A. G. Yushchenko

E-mail: [email protected]

Dolphin's brain (fig.L. Kruger and A. Bretnach) Human brain (fig.R. Kopp)
/ A.G. Tomilin, "Dolphins serve man", Moscow: Nauka, 1969, 248s. /

Introduction. State of the art the global "human anthill" could be clearly characterized by a picture depicting a builder who erects a grandiose structure, taking out blocks from its foundation. Here we will not analyze the causes of the "dinosaur syndrome" in our anthropochovinistic species, since this was done by many researchers (our contribution to this movement is the work "Ethics of living matter as the basis of human ethics"), but we will proceed from the fact that the thinking majority will be imbued with the spirit of the Vancouver Declaration, which announced on behalf of 24 leading experts of the world back in 1989 that "the preservation of life on Earth is one of the main challenges facing humanity." In this study, we will try to define, from a pantheistic point of view, the logic of spatio-temporal megasynthesis not only at the level of human individuals, but also at the level of the most cephalized forms of life, to which some species of dolphins must be attributed. The need for such interspecies cooperation is understood as a natural step in the integration of the superconsciousness of the noosphere.

1. Information and intelligence in the modern world

Our modern world, unlike previous historical epochs, manages to change significantly during a separate human life. The key role in transforming the world belongs to the so-called " information technology". Building a developed information society, in which the web of computer networks will entwine almost all spheres of human life, is a priority task for the EU. In general, information is a kind of microstructure associated by a certain law with the corresponding macroevent. Information relieves us of the need for personal presence and observation of all events; possessing information, we have the opportunity to see them as many times and at a convenient time in our imagination or on a computer screen. The Internet phenomenon is easiest for us to explain from an evolutionary and biological point of view. Modern views on information allow us to conclude that it is the basis of all evolutionary processes known to us at various levels of structural organization: biological, mental, virtual.For the subject of our research, it will be important to consider the role of information exchange in social insects: ants, bees and termites, which have established communicative yazi long before the appearance of man. Matching role nervous system in multicellular organisms by synchronization life cycles individual organs and the language of social insects, we can conclude that they perform identical functions, and therefore, consider the latter as a kind of exotic form of a single organism, consisting of relatively isolated moving parts. Obviously, language and communication in other species, including humans, serve the same purpose at different levels of their association. Thus, the development of the Internet represents the formation of a "nervous system" in the global human anthill. Intellectual and cultural integration, due to the democratic nature of computer technology, is becoming available to an increasing number of people; individual consciousness the latter, together with more and more sophisticated artificial intelligence systems, tend to form a single biotechnological superconsciousness of the planet. Having understood the logic of the modern phase of megasynthesis, we must ask ourselves about the possibility of such integration among other biological species. The tool for such consideration should be the results of the analysis of the evolutionary causes of the emergence and formation of human intelligence.
It is important to note that the condition for the spiritual and moral integration of a person with other higher forms of life is his acceptance of the modern bioethical concept, set forth, for example, in his work.

2. Tursiops Truncatus and Homo Sapiens

Over the past decades, no animal has attracted as much attention from scientists and the public as a dolphin. For a long time it was believed that Telemachus, the son of the legendary Odysseus, was the "first mortal" to befriend his rescued dolphin. Stylized drawings of a man swimming next to a dolphin, relatively recently discovered in caves in South Africa, turned out to be much older. It is interesting to compare these findings with the original and well-reasoned hypothesis about the decisive role of the "water phase" in the formation of Homo sapiens on the islands near Africa. Then it is quite possible to assume that the friendship of our ancestors with dolphins could be counted for thousands of years, and maybe millions of years ...
The family of dolphins has about 50 species, among them the bottlenose dolphin or bottlenose dolphin enjoys the greatest fame due to its quick-wittedness, friendly meek disposition, and not frightening human size, unlike, for example, a seven-meter killer whale. A man and a dolphin turned out to have a lot in common: a similar brain structure (see figure), an unexpected appearance in the fossil record, a love of play and imitative behavior, an altruistic love of offspring, etc. Ancient Greek and Roman scientists described cases of cooperative fishing by people and dolphins, the last rescuing drowning people (among them was the famous singer Arion), protection from sharks, known to them; recent history fully confirmed the accuracy of such information.
The last decades have brought another surprise - the miraculous ability of dolphins to have a beneficial effect on the nervous system of people during joint swimming sessions was discovered. The nature of the unique healing effect has not yet been disclosed, despite the many advanced models from biofield to biosonar (the dolphin sonar frequency range is from several Hertz to two hundred MHz at a power of up to 8 W / cm), which does not interfere with its long-term use in different countries of the world: USA, Denmark, Cuba, Japan, etc. Ukraine is also one of the pioneers in this field thanks to the work carried out in the Research Center "State Oceanarium" of the Ministry of Defense and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Sevastopol, created in 1966 by order Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy, Admiral Gorshkov). For several decades, dolphins have been training instructors of the US Navy to search for sunken military objects, naval protection of bases, etc. Such work was carried out in the former USSR... In general, it seems that the achievements in this interspecific cooperation are impressive, but what are their prospects in the light of the ideas that excited the world community at one time? Let us briefly dwell on the most striking of these ideas, which were expressed by John Lilly and Igor Charkovsky, head of the General Research of the Cerebral Cortex Department of the National Institute of Mental Health (USA). In the book "Man and the Dolphin" (1962), relying on his own research and assessments of the level of structural development of the brain of higher mammals, Dr. Lilly predicted that "in the next 10 to 20 years, humanity will establish communication with representatives of other biological species." He considered the bottlenose dolphin the most suitable partner for a number of reasons. The idea of \u200b\u200bIgor Charkovsky is purely bio-evolutionary: a technocratic civilization will inevitably lead to an ecological catastrophe on land, and people will be forced to flee in the ocean. Together with dolphins, they will create a new civilization, the end product of which will be a more perfect creature "homo-dolphinus". Charkovsky's followers are said to be able to sleep on water and find food in the sea; that they made special, apparently telepathic contacts with the dolphins. At least in Charkovsky's group, there are children safely born in the water under the supervision of dolphins. Well, such a development of events, with the uncontrolled overpopulation of our planet and ignoring environmental issues - quite possible. However, will the ocean then still be suitable for the survival of higher mammals? At the same time, until now no one has managed to establish a verbal contact with a dolphin, which significantly increases the already huge number of skeptics of this exciting prospect. And yet there is reason to believe that Lilly's bold predictions have partly come true within five years! This was demonstrated by the famous chimpanzee Washoe, when in 1967 she first asked for a "tasty treat" in the language of the deaf and dumb North America - "Amslene", i.e. in human language. Note that later a whole colony of chimpanzees was organized, using this language (up to a hundred words) both for intraspecific communication and for communication with humans. Chimpanzee brains are about three times smaller than human brains and less structurally developed; the bottlenose dolphin's brain is heavier than a human's and even surpasses structurally in some parameters. So why are elementary intelligent contacts established with chimpanzees and not with dolphins? Further we will try to answer this question.
Homo sapiens and higher dolphin species, including Tursiops truncatus (bottlenose dolphins), are the most cephalized life forms in terrestrial and aquatic environments, respectively, which determines the fundamental feature of their interspecific position. There is still no strictly scientific explanation of the reasons for the evolutionary necessity in higher dolphins of such a complex and large brain, just as there is no clear evidence of the presence of highly developed speech and higher forms of rational activity in them. However, the widespread belief that such outstanding development of the dolphin brain is due mainly to its orientation and location abilities is refuted by the fact that bat "an extremely weakly cephalized brain and in terms of the differentiation of the temporal lobes, it is in one of the last places among mammals", despite its known echolocation abilities. It seems to us that the emergence of such a perfect brain in dolphins could be due in their evolution to the information function aimed at socialization. The presence of information exchange between dolphins is confirmed by the consistency of their actions, both during group hunting and in extreme situations, as well as experiments on the exchange of information (via an acoustic channel) between dolphins in isolated pools, conducted by scientists from the American and Soviet naval departments. However, a clear correlation between frequency-modulated signals and dolphin behavior has not yet been established. Scientists of the Research Center “State Oceanarium” have recently discovered the fine harmonic composition of communication signals and substantiated the position on the informational significance of multiple higher harmonics, which had not been previously studied. The results of their work allow us to conclude that dolphins use test information signals to communicate in the near-surface non-stationary marine environment. In this case, according to the test signal, it becomes possible to determine the law of distortion of multiple harmonics in each specific traffic and, by applying the reverse transformation to the distorted information signal (which requires a highly developed brain), to restore it quite completely. Note that the Research Center "GO" has also developed the design of a modernized transposition device that converts the harmonic spectrum of dolphin signals into the frequency range perceived by humans. In general, it seems that modern telecommunication technologies make it possible to overcome the technical problem of a significant difference between the natural communication systems of humans and dolphins. However, this is not the only problem. It is very important to understand that the formation of the intelligence of an individual human individual in a specific historical phase is organically linked to the corresponding level of culture, conditioned by the state of scientific and technological progress of the entire human community. The institution of the family serves to form the intelligence of a person in human society, and a multi-stage education system has been created, which actually plays the role of a replicator of the cultural mimofund. Special attention should be paid to the fact that the ability to form a person's intelligence is fundamentally dependent on his age. We know of numerous cases of long-term parenting outside human society, for example, in a family of wolves, show that they, returning back to humans, are practically not amenable to training. Apparently, neurons in their brain lose the ability to establish additional connections. Fundamental experiments conducted by Mark Rosenzweig showed that “in rats raised in“ enriched ”laboratory conditions (that is, in spacious cages, where they were kept together with other rats and had many different objects for play), the cerebral cortex was developed better than rats raised in empty and cramped cages. physical experience leads to greater development of the nervous system, and thanks to this, rats solve various problems faster and better, for example, problems with a labyrinth. "In other words, the intelligence of highly organized animals depends to a large extent on upbringing and learning, that is, on their information environment. that the higher the biological organization of the brain, the more important the environment acquires in its active formation, which means that a person's intelligence is replicated by a certain "social operator" due to the age plasticity of his brain, since "the human nervous system must develop under the conditions of human life in order to generate human consciousness "". The age plasticity of the mammalian brain is a fundamental fact, the significance of which, it seems, has not yet been sufficiently understood. Here is an example: in a person who has "severe damage to the left side of the brain ... the brain turns out to be plastic enough to transfer control of speech to the intact left hemisphere. In an adult, this plasticity is not preserved." (emphasis added). In essence, our goal is to come to an understanding of the fact that in relation to the most cephalized species of dolphins, it is correct to set the task not of assessing the level of their intelligence, as has been done so far, but of finding methods for its active age formation, in a sense, simulating replication functions. social institutions of the human community!
The main expected results in the case of successful implementation of the project of such a study could be:
(1) confirmation of the fundamental possibility of intellectual development of higher species of dolphins, corresponding to the “outstanding neocortex value” of their highly differentiated brain to the information perception of the achievements of human culture and, based on it -
(2) new form interspecies cooperation in practical and spiritual spheres, corresponding to the evolutionary trend of the formation of planetary superconsciousness.
Naturally, only further research can determine the true physiological capabilities of the dolphin brain and their readiness to perceive the achievements of human intelligence. Of course, a priori, we can not say anything about the mechanism of the dolphin's thinking; sometimes it is predominantly left-brain (speech) or right-brain (figurative) in humans. In this regard, it would be appropriate to recall Norbert Wiener, who "noted that he happens to think both with words and without words," and Albert Einstein, who remarked on this occasion: "Words written or spoken do not, apparently, play the slightest role in the mechanism of my thinking. The mental elements of thinking are some, more or less clear, signs or images that can be "at will" reproduced and combined. "

CONCLUSION

The moral basis of the study proposed here of the possibilities of assimilation by the intellect of the most cephalized species of dolphins of the historical achievements of human culture is the person's awareness of himself as a creation created by the evolutionary thought process and, therefore, the need for ethical compliance of his activities with the logic of general planetary development, from which it follows that scientific and technical as well as the spiritual achievements of mankind belong to the general phenomenon of life on Earth. Let us note that the concept we have substantiated about the homology of the psychology of creativity of consciousness and nature allows us to interpret evolution as a reflective thought process. The scientific substantiation of the possibility of such a form of intellectual cooperation is as a fundamental property of the "plasticity" of mammalian nervous tissue, which is the anatomical basis historical development human civilization, and the highly developed brain of the most cephalized dolphin species. Technical support the design of a communication channel for the practical implementation of the noted interspecies cooperation are outstanding achievements of modern telecommunication technologies in coding, transmission and processing of information signals, as well as in the recognition of complex patterns.
Unfortunately, the plasticity of the nervous tissue of humans and dolphins can be used for inhumane purposes to ensure the selfish corporate interests of influential structures of the human community. Therefore, I would like to draw the attention of the democratic community to this problem, and in particular, altruistic organizations in terms of monitoring compliance with both ethical standards in the field of education and mass communication, and bioethical - in the field of scientific research.
The obvious fact that human practical activity and the still lingering probability of a nuclear catastrophe have created a real threat to the existence of life in its modern highly developed forms deprives a person of the right to consider himself superior to other harmless living organisms. Most likely, the main reason for the genetically determined aggressiveness of man is that the main driving force in his creation was the Malthusian natural selection "due to overpopulation": numerous close relatives of a person were killed, and in many cases even eaten. At the same time, whales and dolphins are the highest achievement of selection due to "ever-increasing adaptation" to the environment. One who possesses an elementary aesthetic sense of beauty cannot but admire their perfection in relation to the environment; this last is 2/3 of the surface of our planet, which should therefore be called the Ocean, where life originated. Indeed, the exclusive morphological feature of cetaceans is the "general reduction of limbic structures", which "possibly determines the pronounced" meek "character of dolphins."
Whether an aggressive and self-righteous person is a mistake in the evolutionary thought process, our next generations will already know. In general, it seems that the ethical rule of survival modern man is sensual integration with all forms of life through the acceptance of the ethics of living matter and, probably, logically complementing its intellectual integration with the rest of the most cephalized creations of the earthly mind.

LITERATURE

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Already in Ancient Greece these marine predators were treated with great respect. But are they as smart as we think? Justin Gregg conducts an investigation.

As soon as the American neurophysiologist John Lilly opened the dolphin's skull, a bulging pink mass was revealed. He immediately realized that he had made an important discovery. The animal's brain was huge: even larger than a human. It was 1955. After examining the brains of five euthanized bottlenose dolphins, Lilly concluded that these fish-like aquatic mammals certainly have intelligence. Perhaps superior to human intelligence.

When Lilly made his discovery, the link between intelligence and brain size seemed simple: the larger the brain, the smarter the animal. We, with our huge brains stuffed into our swollen skulls, by this logic, naturally, turned out to be the smartest species. Consequently, the dolphins also had to be those clever ones. But research conducted since then has shown that dolphins' claim to the highest intelligence (other than humans) is not all that well founded. Crows, octopuses, and even insects exhibit mind power comparable to that of a dolphin, even though they don't even have nearly as much gray matter.

Are dolphins as smart as we think they are?

CE test

Encephalization coefficient (EC) is a measure of the relative brain size, calculated as the ratio of the actual brain size to the average predicted value for a mammal given size... According to some measurements, the highest CE (7) is in humans, since our brains are 7 times larger than expected. Dolphins are in second place, for example, in large-toothed dolphins, the EC is approximately 5.
However, when it comes to comparing CE with intelligent animal behavior, the results are mixed. Large CEs correlate with the ability to adapt to new environment or to change their behavior, but not with the ability to use tools or imitate. The matter is further complicated by the growing last years criticism of the very principle of calculating FE. Depending on the data entered into the model, humans may have normal brains in relation to their bodies, while gorillas and orangutans have incredibly large bodies compared to a standard brain.

Gray matter

Having a large brain - or a large CE - does not in itself guarantee that an animal will be smart. But it wasn't just the size of the brain that intrigued Lilly. Inside the dolphin's skull, he found the outer layer of brain tissue, which, just like a human brain, was curled up like crumpled paper shoved into a thimble.
The outer layer of the mammalian brain, called the cerebral cortex, is involved in complex cognitive processes in humans, including our ability to speak as well as self-awareness. It turns out that the dolphin has a larger cerebral cortex than a human. What does this mean?

In many species that have passed self-awareness tests (such as the mirror test), a relatively large part of the cerebral cortex is located in front. It is this frontal cortex that appears to be responsible for the ability of chimpanzees, gorillas and elephants to recognize themselves in the mirror. Dolphins also passed this test successfully. But here's the catch: they don't have a frontal cortex. Their enlarged cerebral cortex is squeezed into the area on the sides of the skull. The front of the brain remains oddly sunken. And since the magpies, who also recognize themselves in the mirror, have no cortex at all, we have to scratch our heads in an attempt to figure out which parts of the brain in dolphins and magpies are responsible for self-awareness. Perhaps dolphins, like magpies, do not use their cerebral cortex to recognize themselves in a mirror. What exactly does the dolphin's cerebral cortex do and why it is so large, so far remains a mystery.

Name that whistle

This is not the only mystery surrounding dolphin intelligence. The controversy over the years over the mismatch between dolphins' brains and their behavior was so fierce that Canadian marine mammal specialist Lance Barrett-Lennard was forced to declare: the fact that their life is arranged in a complex way and highly social. "

Lilly could oppose the comment about the walnut. But with the idea that dolphins are socially complex creatures, he would agree. While conducting some rather unpleasant invasive experiments on the brains of living dolphins, he noticed that they often call each other (with the help of whistles) and seek comfort from each other. He considered this to be proof of the theory that dolphins are socially developed animals and that their communication system can be as complex as human language.

Fifteen years later, evidence emerged that Lilly was not very far from the truth. During experiments, when it comes to understanding the meaning of signs and their combinations in sentences, dolphins cope with tasks in much the same way as great apes. Establishing two-way communication with dolphins is as good as with great apes, so far failed. But dolphins' ability to understand signs in laboratory research is amazing.

However, Lilly's suggestion that dolphins' communication systems are as complex as ours is likely not true. For the sake of fairness, it must be said that scientists generally understand practically nothing about how dolphins communicate. But they managed to find out that dolphins have a feature that is not inherent in the rest of the animal world (with the exception of humans). Among some species of dolphins, each member of the species has its own special whistle, which it uses throughout its life and which serves as its "name".

We know that dolphins can remember the whistles of their relatives and playmates; they even remember whistles that they have not heard for 20 years. Dolphins respond when they hear their own whistles from others, according to new research, suggesting that dolphins call each other by name from time to time.

Lilly, of course, could not have known this. But he may well have witnessed just such behavior during his experiments half a century ago.

How a dolphin learns

Since dolphins are trying to attract the attention of congeners by calling them by name, it means that to some extent they realize that they have consciousness. Unlike most great apes, dolphins seem to immediately understand human pointing gestures. This suggests that they are able to correlate mental states, such as looking or pointing, with people making these pointing gestures. As an animal that does not have hands, it is able to understand human pointing gestures is just a mystery. Although there is no evidence that dolphins are fully capable of understanding the thoughts and beliefs of others (some call this "the model of consciousness"), they, wanting to draw people's attention to an object, point their head at it.

Some awareness of their own thought processes (and the thought processes of other creatures), apparently, allows dolphins to solve complex problems, as it happened in the laboratory. In the wild, a female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin was caught removing the skeleton of a cuttlefish to make it easier to eat. And this is a long process that requires planning.

When hunting, there can be no less ingenuity. Wild bottlenose dolphins at Shark Bay in Australia use sea sponges to chase fish out of their shelter, a skill that has been passed down from generation to generation. Many dolphin populations learn hunting techniques from their peers. The bottlenose dolphins of South Carolina, USA, gather off the exposed shore at low tide to trap fish, and killer whales in Antarctica form groups to create waves and wash seals off the ice.

This "social learning" is an integral part of the theory of animal culture, defined as knowledge that is passed from animal to animal. This is probably the best explanation for how young killer whales learn their family dialect.
One hypothesis about why dolphins have such large brains might rehabilitate Lilly's original ideas: she assumes a kind of social intelligence in dolphins that makes problem solving, culture and identity possible for them. Many dolphin species live in complex societies with intricate and ever-changing alliances, and relationships between groups of males in Shark Bay are reminiscent of a soap opera story. Life in a society permeated with political intrigue requires considerable thinking skills, because you have to remember who owes you and who you can rely on. The leading theory is that dolphins developed such large brains because they needed additional "cognitive muscles" to remember these complex social connections. This is the so-called social brain hypothesis.

Brainstorms

This may explain why other animals with difficult social life, also a large brain (for example, in chimpanzees, ravens and humans). But do not write off the owners of a small brain with a small CE completely for now. Many examples of complex behavior that we see in dolphins are observed in species outside of complex social groups... The Border Collie Chaser knows over 1000 signs for objects - a "dictionary" the size of which would make dolphins and apes blush under similar conditions. Octopuses use coconut shells to protect themselves from predators. Goats know how to follow human pointing gestures. Fish are able to acquire a range of skills through communication with each other, including protection from predators and foraging. And the ants exhibit a behavior called "tandem running" - this is probably best example learning not from humans.

Lars Chittka, an insect behavioral scientist, is a staunch supporter of the idea that insects with small brains are much smarter than we think. He asks: "If these insects with such a small brain are able to do this, then who needs a big brain?"

The more we learn about neuroscience, the more we realize that the link between brain size and intelligence is negligible at best. Dolphins undoubtedly display a rich range of intelligence. But what exactly this overgrown nut does in the dolphin's skull is even more mysterious than before.

Justin Gregg is a member of the Dolphin Communication Research Project and author of the book Are dolphins really smart? (Are Dolphins Really Smart)

Recent research by biologists has led to a sensational conclusion: dolphins are the most intelligent creatures on the planet.

Dolphin is an intelligent animal. New arguments in favor of this hypothesis were provided by recent studies by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania. For quite a long time, experts have been studying the language of dolphins and have received truly amazing results. As known, sound signals arise in the nasal canal of dolphins at the moment air passes through it. It was possible to establish that animals use sixty basic signals and five levels of their combination. Dolphins are capable of creating a 1012 "dictionary"! Dolphins hardly use so many "words", but the volume of their active "vocabulary" is impressive - about 14 thousand signals! For comparison: the same number of words is the average human vocabulary. And in everyday life people get by with 800-1000 words.

The dolphin signal, if translated into human language, is something like a hieroglyph, which means more than a single word. The fact that dolphins have a language that is more complex than that of humans is a real sensation.

Rare abilities

Nature sometimes makes amazing mysteries. And one of these mysteries, no doubt, remains dolphins. Despite the fact that they often live in full view of humans, we know very little about them. But even the little that is known about these animals is startling. Dolphins have truly amazing abilities. So amazing that the American John Lilly, who studied brain physiology at the University of Pennsylvania, called dolphins a "parallel civilization."

First of all, scientists are surprised by the volume and structure of the dolphin brain. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania placed the animal in the womb of a magnetic resonance imaging scanner and saw that the structure of the nervous system in dolphins is so perfect that sometimes it seems as if it is better developed than in humans. "The brain of a bottlenose dolphin," says Professor Laela Sai, "weighs 1,700 grams, which is 350 grams more than that of an adult male. In its complexity, the brain of a dolphin is by no means inferior to the human brain: there are even more folds, bumps and convolutions in it." ... Total number nerve cells the dolphin is higher than the human. Scientists used to think that the dolphin's brain was so big because nerve cells were not as densely packed as in humans. However, we were convinced of the opposite: the brain in the cranium is located the same. True, outwardly, the dolphin's brain looks more like a sphere than the homo sapiens brain, which is slightly flattened. Dolphins have associative areas of the cortex that are identical to those of humans. "This fact indirectly indicates that dolphins can be intelligent," - say experts in marine biology.

The parietal, or motor, lobe of the dolphin's brain exceeds in area the parietal and frontal lobes of humans taken together. Why has nature endowed these creatures so? What is this - the result of centuries of evolution or, perhaps, the "legacy" of intelligent ancestors?

Interestingly, the occipital visual lobes in dolphins are extremely large, but they do not rely much on sight. Then what are they for? As you know, dolphins "see" with their ears to a greater extent, emitting ultrasounds. An acoustic lens on the dolphin's head focuses ultrasound, directing it to various objects. Thanks to this, the dolphin "sees" with its ears. He "feels" the underwater object, determining its shape.

The inhabitants of the deep sea have two hearing organs: one is normal, the other is ultrasonic, says researcher Mario Etty. - The external passage is sealed, which increases hearing capacity in the water. Receptors of another organ are located on the sides of the lower jaw, they perceive the slightest sound vibrations. The dolphin hears with its lower jaw much better than we do with our ears. The hearing of dolphins and killer whales is 400-1000 times sharper than humans. Due to the many cavities in the blowhole (nasal valve), acoustic vibrations arise that propagate over huge distances in the water. For example, blue whales and sperm whales can hear sounds made by their cousins \u200b\u200bthousands of kilometers away!

As already mentioned, dolphins masterfully master their speech apparatus. Blowing back and forth the same portion of air, they give rise to such a range of sounds that their variations and quantity far exceed the sounds made by humans. Moreover, each dolphin has an individual voice, its own tempo and timbre of speech, manner of expressing itself and "handwriting" of thinking.

It is quite curious that the organs of hearing and speech, working simultaneously, create an amazing richness of the sound palette. The capabilities of the mammalian brain are so high that it is able to analyze separately the spectra coming at a frequency of 3000 pulses per second! In this case, the time interval between pulses is only about 0.3 milliseconds! Therefore, for dolphins, human speech is a very slow process. They're talking at high speed. In addition, they know how to isolate in the speech of their fellows such details that people do not even suspect, since our ears cannot catch them.

But that's not all. Scientists have conducted a series of experiments proving that dolphins can exchange highly complex messages. Here is just one example. The dolphin was given a certain task, which his brother, who was in the next aviary, had to complete. Through the wall of the enclosure, one dolphin "told" the other what to do. For example, take a red triangle and give it to a person. Both dolphins received a small fish as a reward. However, it was clear that they did not work for remuneration, they were carried away by the very process of creative experimentation. Researchers conducted thousands of experiments, assignments were constantly changing, and the dolphins were never wrong. The only possible conclusion from this: dolphins perfectly understand everything that is happening and orient themselves in the world like people.

The biologists who conducted the experiments were surprised to notice that often the subjects themselves began to control the course of the experiment and its organizers - people ... The energy of creative search was transferred to the dolphins, and they suggested the experimenters to complicate and modify the task, while the scientists unexpectedly noticed that they were becoming an experimental model for dolphins who tried to switch roles with them. So who studied whom?

Cousins \u200b\u200bin mind?

One of the theories of the origin of dolphins says that they and other cetaceans evolved from ancient animals that left the land to the sea. The 20-meter basilosaurus and the fossil dorudon are named as possible ancestors. Neither one nor the other possessed as many brains as dolphins have today. Why did the animals that went to sea to live in need brains that are superior in structure to humans? After all, sharks calmly swim in the same water for hundreds of millions of years. They have a very small brain, and it is enough for them to catch prey.

There is another interesting hypothesis. Some scientists believe that in the process of evolution there was a period when the distant ancestors of man, for some reason, were forced to leave the land and live in water for some time. They had to get food by diving to great depths. Due to constant oxygen starvation, the brain volume of these creatures has increased markedly. Then, after another change in habitat conditions, our aquatic ancestors returned to land ... But maybe not all returned, but some branch remained in the ocean and evolved into dolphins? And the current inhabitants of the depths of the sea - our "cousins \u200b\u200bin mind"? Not so long ago, Japanese sailors discovered and brought to the shore an unusual bottlenose, which had an atavism - "hind limbs", very reminiscent of feet ...

Why do dolphins need such powerful intelligence? They don't build houses, they don't create communications, they don't have television and the Internet. However, it may be that they do not need it. They have had enough of the colossal opportunities that they have. Perhaps dolphins already live in the virtual world of their consciousness and they simply do not need external signs of comfort and all that we call the blessings of civilization. And they look at us, humans, from the height of their intellect as backward creatures, unable to understand them or be of any use to them, and besides, in many cases, they act barbarously towards other creatures. Their community is a real parallel civilization.

And therefore it may happen that humanity is looking for brothers in mind in the depths of the Universe in vain, while they are very close. You just need to take a closer look at them, and, perhaps, then all the wealth will open to a person. parallel worlds... Whole ant cities, bee cities and urban bird nests are located nearby. Isn't it outside worlds - with their own laws, daily routine, history? But it will be difficult for a person to come to terms with the fact that romantic parallel civilizations do not need to be sought, and all previous searches are empty efforts. Although from time to time astronomers record signals in the vastness of endless galaxies that resemble dolphins whistling.

Alexander Belov

OPINIONS

Brain work

Dr. Jerry Presley, Marine Fauna Specialist, Woodshole Oceanographic Institute (USA):

There are hypotheses that explain the evolution of the brain of mammals by their aquatic lifestyle. In this case, the brain is considered as a cybernetic system consisting of neuron elements, the reliability of which can be increased by increasing the number of spare elements. In other words, if there is a weak link, then it is better to duplicate it. The reason for the increase in the dolphin brain was oxygen starvation. Deep diving is an abnormal brain activity. And therefore the advantage is possessed by the one who can hold his breath and whose brain does not suffer. For example, a sperm whale has a larger brain than a blue whale because it dives to a depth of about a kilometer.

Olga Silaeva, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Leading Researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution. A. N. Severtsova:

It is believed that a person differs from animals by the presence language system... However, it is not. Language as a means of communication between individuals exists in almost all animals and insects. Dolphin vocabulary is about a thousand words. That is, dolphins have a highly developed speech culture.

If we compare animals in terms of intelligence, then the king of animals will not be a lion at all. The first place will be taken by dolphins, and the second - by elephants. The monkeys will get only fourth place. What explains this "arrangement" in the "hit parade" of abilities?

As you know, in monkeys, visual memory is better developed than auditory. For dolphins, everything is exactly the opposite. They are much better at remembering sounds than pictures. Thanks to this, dolphins distinguish each other by whistling. Each dolphin knows by the voices of individuals from its flock and has its own personal "name". With the help of whistles of different lengths, tonality and melodiousness, dolphins communicate with each other. One dolphin, not seeing the other, can "whistle" to him which pedal, right or left, must be pressed to get a fish. With the help of a whistle, you can describe to a friend the size of an obstacle that is invisible in troubled waters. And echolocation impulses will help the dolphin to recognize the obstacle - they play an even greater role in the life of dolphins than vision.

Dolphins are excellent onomatopoeics. They not only recognize sounds when listening, but they themselves imitate them. The creak of a rusty door, the gurgling of water, the ringing of bells, the chirping of birds - talented dolphins can depict this or that noise in such a way that with closed eyes it cannot be distinguished from the real one! They can even copy human speech or laughter. If you record such onomatopoeia on tape and then listen to it at a slow speed, the resemblance to a person's voice will clearly manifest itself.

These marine inhabitants are good at distinguishing shades of many colors, except for blue. Memorizing geometric shapes is also not difficult for them. Moreover, dolphins are distinguished from each other by flat and three-dimensional shapes. They will never confuse a paper circle or square with a ball or cube. IN soviet time this experiment was performed on dolphins. The coach showed the animal the ball, then hid the toy behind the screen. When the screen was pulled apart, the dolphin saw a flat shield and a volumetric box. A ball was hidden in one of the items. The dolphin only needed to pull on the loop connected to the desired object so that the ball fell out. So, even during the first experiment, the dolphins always chose the box and never tried to look for the ball inside the flat shield. So experience has shown that dolphins can distinguish between flat and volumetric objects.

Dolphins easily find objects that are attractive to them. If you show a dolphin, say, a fish or a ball, and then remove it behind the screen, the dolphin will easily guess where and how to look for the object. Dolphins have a good eye gauge - you just have to see how dexterously they jump over the hoop or throw the ball into the basket!

Dolphins are very emotional and this can influence the learning process. For example, in scientific experiments, an angry or annoyed dolphin makes more mistakes than a calm one. If a person hits or punishes a dolphin, the animal will refuse to perform its tasks and work with it in pairs. Therefore, when teaching and researching dolphins, they are encouraged with food, play, as well as affection and kindness.

Dolphins have well-developed imitative behavior. They quite easily remember and repeat the actions of other individuals. For example, off the coast of Australia in 2008, a flock of dolphins was seen, where the leader knew how to stand on his tail. Other members of the clan quickly adopted this ability, imitating the leader. It should be borne in mind that this was not a requirement of the hierarchy. The dolphins decided to repeat the leader's trick out of interest and curiosity.

Scientific articles describe a case when a female dolphin, having lived for some time in the dolphinarium, began to repeat the numbers after its inhabitants, although she was not specially prepared for this. After she was released into the wild, she taught her pack members to repeat these tricks.

But dolphins can imitate not only each other. There is a known case when two dolphins, who lived in the same pool with a fur seal, began to copy his actions. They slept in the same positions as the cat, adopted his manner of swimming, paddling their fins like flippers and keeping their tail motionless, although they did not have a strict need to repeat his actions. Dolphins have even learned to rub their belly, lying on their backs near the surface of the water, and to yawn, imitating a cat!

The dolphin's brain stores a large amount of information received different ways... But besides its accumulation, dolphins know how to use it. They are not alien to the research approach, and it manifests itself in them more often than passivity or caution. They quickly assess the situation and adjust their behavior to it, they are well oriented in what is happening.

Dolphins are the smartest mammals on earth. The dolphin's brain is similar in structure. Despite numerous studies, they remain the most mysterious mammals on earth.

Studies of the extraordinary capabilities of marine life have confirmed their intellectual abilities. By means of MRI diagnostics, scientists have found that the complexity of brain structures in dolphins is not inferior to the human center, but on the contrary, in comparison with humans, convolutions and nerve cells are even an order of magnitude larger.

The brain of the bottlenose dolphin has a weight of 1700 grams, only 350 grams. exceeding the weight of the central organ of the nervous system in an adult male. The external difference is only in the form: in mammals it has the shape of a sphere, the human brain is slightly flattened. The associative area of \u200b\u200bthe cortex is absolutely identical with humans, thus confirming the presence of intelligence in marine life.

The parietal lobe in dolphins is comparable in size to the parietal and frontal lobes in humans. The visual part of the brain (occipital) is very large in mammals.

Despite excellent vision and the ability to move the eyeballs in different directions, thus covering a radius of 300 degrees, mammals use ultrasound for vision - directing it to various objects. Pushing off, the sound returns, thereby the dolphin determines the shape and distance to the object.

Unlike humans, dolphin brains can go without sleep, which is fatal to humans. The peculiarity of these creatures is the ability to turn off one half of the center, while maintaining all reactions. One part of the brain takes over all the functions when the other is in a state of sleep - this is tantamount to having two centers.

Dolphins, like humans, have the ability to reproduce sound. Mammals can accurately replicate the various noises or trills of birds. Communication between congeners occurs through signals that are generated by the passage of air through the nasal passages.

Dolphin vocabulary:

• Basic sound signals (about 60);
• Five levels of their various combinations;
• 14 thousand different signals.

This is identical to the vocabulary of a person and if you translate the sound of mammals into words, it will look like a hieroglyph. Dolphins have good memory and mental capabilities, which allows, like a person, to pass on experience to generations.

A feature of the central apparatus, in cetaceans, is the presence of magnetic crystals that orientate in a wide area of \u200b\u200bthe ocean.

Who is smarter?

Numerous studies of cetacean brain structures confirm their evolutionary development and presence higher form reason (logic). Australian scientists have assigned dolphins to the closest human relatives, based on DNA analysis.

Perhaps this became the basis for the hypothesis - all cetaceans are the distant ancestors of man and they were forced to leave the land for good reasons. The size of the hemispheres is explained oxygen starvation and as a consequence - an increase in the organ.

Scientists - ichthyologists have proven that the mammalian brain is capable of expressing feelings: jealousy, resentment, love. This indicates the presence of long-term memory and intelligence close to the person.

Certain individuals of dolphins perceive complex linguistic constructions and are capable of analyzing the situation. Their intelligence level is similar to that of a preschool child.

Big brains in dolphins are not associated with great intelligence - there are too few neurons. Central authority marine life needed for orientation in space and heat regulation. On this basis, mammals occupy an honorable second place in intellectual development after humans.