37. Whale Lexicons: A Language of the Deep — with David Gruber and César Rodríguez-Garavito

What does it actually mean to translate a language that has never been written down or spoken in air, whose holders are ancient ocean denizens, and may not even carry concepts we'd recognize as our own? That's the question sitting at the center of this episode, and those answering it have formed one of the more radical partnerships in science today: Project CETI and MOTH. CETI is a collective of fifty-plus scientists attempting to listen to and translate the communication of sperm whales.MOTH is a legal collective working to bring that science before courts, in the hope that whales might be granted something like legal standing and rights. In a barn in the English countryside, David Gruber and César Rodríguez-Garavito walk us through what it takes to listen this closely to another species, and whether this new convergence of human, animal, and machine intelligence could spark a watershed moment for conservation and consciousness.What we'll cover:The sperm whale's anatomy of perception, acoustic vision, and what it's like to navigate a world of inky darkness through soundThe deep evolutionary kinship between humans and whales, and what their convergent vowel-like sounds suggest about the origins of languageHow Project CETI uses machine learning to find phonetic structure and contextual meaning in whale codasThe legal arguments emerging from this research, from the right not to suffer to the right to a cultural lifeA remarkable multi-whale birth event — and what it reveals about coordination, kinship, and social roles among whalesThe ethical guardrails (NACT) proposed for AI-assisted animal communication technology, and the risks of getting this wrongWhether this new convergence of human, animal, and machine intelligence could spark a watershed moment for conservation and consciousness Episode Website Link: https://www.lifeworld.earth/episodes-blog/whalelexiconscetiLinks:Project CETIMore-Than-Human Life (MOTH) Program at NYUNature: Description of a collaborative sperm whale birth and shifts in coda vocal styles during key eventsWhat if We Understood what Animals are Saying? The Legal Impact of AI-assisted Studies of Animal Communication.”He Whakaputanga Moana: The first Declaration recognizing whales as sentient beings with inherent rightsFrom Orbit to IntimacyThe Crimson: Are Whales Trying to Tell Us Something?Time: Researchers are Using AI to Understand what Animals are SayingLifeworlds Episode: The Sounds of Life: Bioacoustics, A.I. and Ethics – with Karen BakkerLewis Mumford: Tecnics and CivilisationFrom Orbit to IntimacyListening to whales: input requested!!Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes.Credits: Sperm Whale Sound (Project CETI); Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock, Ellie Kidd & The Rising by Tryad CCPL.&nbsp