INTERSPECIES COMMUNICATION

In E.O Wilson's book "Consilience" he defines musical talent as a mix between "manual dexterity, creativity, emotive expression, focus, attention span and control of pitch, rhythm and tambre."

Humpback vocalizations seem to reveal many of these qualities including control over pitch, a well-defined sense of rhythm, structuring of notes, variations upon given themes and a capacity to memorize great lengths of acoustic patterns over substantial amounts of time. They also display elements that seem similar to poetry.

Although it is tempting to parallel our system of understanding onto theirs, it is important to realize that our acoustic systems arose due to unique environmental, physical and cognitive factors that aren't mirrored in the ocean's environment. While there are some commonalties between the two systems that allow us to perceive and draw analogies, the differences are quite marked. This is not an insurmountable barrier to those hopeful for interspecies communication but it puts the onus on ourselves to be adaptable and willing to explore alternate means of communication, modes of expression and avenues of perception.

The variables that allow us to create and understand language are uniquely human and rely on a confluence of physical, cognitive and environmental factors. Our ability to speak and write is as dependent on our physical characteristics as it is to our mind's development: If we didn't have a larynx or fingers we could neither speak nor write. The brain would still be able to create symbolic relationships and interpret words but the outward sign of these abilities would be missing.

As much as language enables us to communicate with each other, it is only of use with those who perceive in the same frequency bandwidth, understand our system of symbolism and have the ability to communicate/enunciate in return.

METHODS OF COMMUICATION
Various methods have been employed over the last few decades in an attempt to bridge the communications gap. In the 1960's Dr. John Lilly conducted experiments with captive dolphins in an attempt to teach them different words for objects. Although he met with limited success, the difficulty for a dolphin to enunciate words through the blowhole proved to be too great a stumbling block for any advanced communication to occur.

Today, Dr. Peter Beamish, a Canadian scientist working with east coast Humpbacks, is currently exploring communication methods with signals both species can interpret using what he calls "Rhythm Based Time". He believes that this system, which uses flexible user-defined rhythms, has the potential to open up communication with not only cetaceans, but plants and other animals.

The rhythmic approach is interesting as there seems to be quite a defined relationship between rhythm and mating behavior in both Humpback and human society. Our nightclubs, jammed pack with bodies synchronously moving to loud, beat-driven music attests to our own instinctual urge to associate particular rhythmic patterns and beats per minute with mating behavior.

When we look to rhythm as a universal means of communication, however, it is important to realize that the divisions of time which are at the basis of our rhythms are subjective, and relate to our own particular sampling rate. A day, to us, equals the time the sun is in the sky and a night the time the sky is dark. We have made lesser and greater divisions of these diurnal rhythms, dividing days into hours, minutes and seconds and extrapolating months into seasons, years, decades, and centuries. What may seem rhythmic to us may or may not be interpreted likewise by a species who has awareness of minute quantities of time nor to a creature whose rhythmic definition is based on alternate internal cues.

Music also holds potential for crossing the species boundary and has found favor with musicians such as Jim Nollman, author of Dolphin Dreamtime and The Charged Border, who has been experimenting with call and response techniques with Orcas, dolphins and a whole other range of species.This approach may find resonance within certain species such as the Humpback whose understanding of patterns, phrasing, rhythm and frequency may lie within the same spectrum as our own.

While we may be in a position with our tools and technology to gather all the scientific details of whale sounds and their purpose, it still remains a mystery of how the whales themselves perceive their environment, how they conceive of the waters in which they swim.

How can we relate to an animal, such as a dolphin or Orca who hears through objects? Who can visualize not only the body contours but the internal composition of muscle, bone and flesh by use of sound? How would we begin to speak with a creature who can send out six signals simultaneously - three on each side of its body?

Whether approached scientifically or artistically, past experiments in interspecies communication have mostly relied on bringing the whale the human experience. Perhaps this should be reversed. Perhaps it would be more effective to experiencing the whales' environment and learn how to communicate on their terms within the depths, distances and dynamics of the underwater world.

As Joan McIntyre eloquently writes in Mind in the Waters:

		I think the way to enter the mind of the whale is to enter the water... When a human enters the water, what becomes apparent is the integral connection between mind and body that the sea forces on her creatures.
		Without the alienating presence of objects and equipment, with only the naked body encasing the floating mind, the two, split by technological culture, are one again. The mind enters a different modality, where time, weight, and one's self are experienced holistically....

It's just a theory but perhaps our desire to connect with the whale is a reflection of our desire to connect with a deeper part of ourselves. Perhaps deep within our memory is the liquid environment of the womb - before we experienced gravity to its full extent, before we comprehended language, before we comprehended sight, when the world of water, movement, rhythm and sound came into us through our ears and through our bodies.

While many land-based animals offer the same intelligence and complex social and acoustic systems, it is not to those creatures that we want to reach out to and connect with. It's not those animals that we try and save from slaughter. It's not those animals that adorn our t-shirts, mugs and a host of other paraphernalia. Thus it's not just the fact that whales are large and intelligent animals, but that they posses some other quality or attribute that we are invariably drawn to and want to communicate with.

If we do possess memories of a liquid environment, perhaps these experiences could be brought to light and help provide some clues as to how to create a communication bridge between the two species.

The resulting system might be similar to language but employ an alternate set of rules or base constructs. It may be similar to music but follow a different phrasing logic or sense or rhythm. The result may be a hybrid of both musical and linguistic capabilities or could turn out to be a movement-based vocabulary.

While there is no simple solution to the quest of interspecies communication, there is another question we should be asking, and that is "should we"?

Whales live in a world that is in constant infringement by our species. Noise pollution, over-fishing, marine traffic, scientific experiments, Navy sonar, underwater explosions, and nuclear contaminants affect all the inhabitants of the ocean and especially the whale population. Whale vocalizations have been shown to be malleable and open to change. At the moment we have a pure system that the whales have constructed by themselves, unaffected by our ideas of how or what they should sing. Perhaps its best to keep these systems wild and natural by keeping our desires to reach out and communicate in check.