Customer Reviews

Communication Between Man and Dolphin

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was written in the 1950's and I suppose that these were different times because allot of the trial and error research Lilly does is disturbing. I have only read the first three chapters and i felt the need to talk about it on amazon. In his first experiments on the dolphins he is given five to test the brain patterns by directly simulating the brain. And instead of learning more about dolphins and carefully experimenting on anesthetic for the animail, he instead runs headlong into the operating room and kills two dolphins on the table before he realizes that somthing isnt working. He then is able to revive one after it has not breathed for 10 min and elects to put it back in the water half brain dead to "see if it was still able to swim" . It wasnt. So he then elects to scrach the whole experiment of studing the brain alive so he instead kills all five dolphins to get "good brain specimens". He then finishes the chapter talking about how its strange that dolphins have all the equipment to hurt man but never does even when provoked. Wow real good deductions Lilly. (sarcasim) So the only reason i gave it two stars is because the conclusions he finally (after needlessly killing) draws are well thought (even if his experiment are not) and the basic theisis is intriging.

The first serious look at the attempts by humans to communicate with dolphins. Lilly breaks new ground with his coverage of expirements to date.
Most work in this field has been only written up before in classified military projects. Reluctantly I had passed my copy on to a student majoring in marine biology.
This review is written from memory as I came here seeking to buy another copy. I liked it enough to buy it twice. My recommendation that you buy it once is happily tendered.

John Lilly (1915-2001) was an American physician, psychoanalyst, and philosopher. He was also the inventor of the "sensory deprivation" tank, and---most important for this review---a pioneer scientific researcher in attempting to communicate with dolphins. (See also his Lilly on Dolphins.)

This book was published in 1978; Lilly states in the Preface, "In 1955 I began scientific research with the bottle-nosed dolphin Tursiops truncatus. In 1968 this research program was terminated. In the intervening years, several major discoveries about dolphins were made. From 1968 to 1976 my efforts were put into research on myself and other humans. This work was subsequently published in depth in a book (The Deep Self: Consciousness Exploration in the Isolation Tank (Consciousness Classics)). During the completion of this work I reviewed the dolphin research literature from 1968 to 1976. I found that practically no research based on the 1955-1968 work had been done along the lines of communication between dolphins and humans and among dolphins themselves... This review of the literature convinced me that it was timely for me to resume my research with the dolphins."

He states that after he gave a 1958 talk at the American Psychoanalytic and American Psychiatric meetings in San Francisco, "I was surprised to find that there was an immediate interest and an overwhelming response to my saying that the work to date showed that the dolphins were probably quite intelligent as man but in a strange and alien way, as a consequence of their life in the sea... This view, which apparently hadn't been suggested before by any scientist, became very popular."

In the final chapter, "The Dolphins Revisited," he writes, "As I stated in Center of the Cyclone: Looking into Inner Space, I closed the dolphin laboratory because I did not want to continue to run a concentration camp for my friends, the dolphins. I have not attacked publicly the oceanaria for keeping dolphins restrained in what they call a 'controlled environment' for the following reasons. The oceanaria have done a very great service for the dolphins and killer whales in acquainting literally hundreds of thousands of humans with their existence and with their capabilities in a circus way. The dolphins and whales are indebted to the oceanaria for educating the human species. This has been a costly education for the species, however... If it weren't for the oceanaria, I would not have been able to do my initial work with the dolphins."

The first serious look at the attempts by humans to communicate with dolphins. Lilly breaks new ground with his coverage of expirements to date.
Most work in this field has been only written up before in classified military projects. Reluctantly I had passed my copy on to a student majoring in marine biology.
This review is written from memory as I came here seeking to buy another copy. I liked it enough to buy it twice. My recommendation that you buy it once is happily tendered.