Friday, May 25, 2012

SETI Contact Conference 2012 Talk


SETI Contact Conference 2012
March 31
Sunnyvale California

Good Afternoon!  And ALOHA!
Dr. John C. Lilly’s book, Communication Between  Man & Dolphin fell into my hands while living on Maui in 1978.  Reading it decided my career.  I knew I wanted to talk with dolphins!
I am learning to communicate with inhabitants of Planet Ocean – with a species in so many ways completely different than ours, no hands, no legs, not speaking nor breathing from the mouth, living in a weightless 3D environment – and yet, CETACEANS, particularly dolphins, are extremely relatable.
In 1980, John Lilly opened a lab at Marine World/Africa USA, in Redwood City, not far from where I was living in Cupertino.  At Marine World, I found that Lilly had yet to get his dolphins, but there was a petting pool open to the public.  I returned every weekend, played with the three dolphins, and made friends with Terry, Gordo, & Spray.          
Terry especially allowed an amazing level of play.  I held her tail and we danced—I stretched and spun and plunged her from over the tank wall.  We embraced, I kissed and licked her skin. 
   
Terry taught me grace in dancing with a dolphin.  She offered me amazing trust, with complete surrender to my touch and moves. I hated leaving at night, felt she never belonged in captivity, and wished to take her away to the sea.

A research  team began studies and the pool was closed to public interaction.  I was dismayed, but the lead investigator immediately asked me to join her work on a bi-lateral communication study.

As a volunteer, I worked with my own research subject, Terry.  I would come early and stay late to enjoy free play with the dolphins once again.  Terry continued to teach me what it meant to be a dolphin.
At Contact 2010, the title to my talk was Who’s Testing Whom?  I told the story of “20 Wrongs in a Row” in which Terry found out what was acceptable as touching the target -- by almost touching the target 20x’s in a row. Various parts of her body came very close without touching, she even tried squirting water at the target, but my response was No Touch/ Incorrect.  Terry tested my perceptions and definition of “Touch” and "Correct."
 
I became a diver for the park, cleaning all the tanks, including the show tank.  There I met the alpha female Shiloh, the punk Bayou, shy Schooner, sweet Stormy, and the 20' pilot whale Koko.  The show dolphins tested my trust of them over and over, in mean-girl games.  They rewarded me for trusting them not to hurt me, although they did battle with the divers quite often. 
    
Trust is an important issue in dolphin relations.

Dolphins in the wild also test our perceptions and play trust games.
Working with dolphins over a wall taught me much in very intimate encounters.  But I longed to swim with them.  As a diver I entered their environment, on their  terms. Lilly's dolphins, Joe and Rosie were now at his research lab in the back of the park.  As a diver, I enjoyed an open invitation to swim with Joe and Rose.  I cleaned their tanks on weekends, the least desirable diver job as Joe and Rose were the most violent and unpredictable dolphins at the park. 
In 1984 I began work in earnest with Lilly’s Human Dolphin Foundation. 
I designed a work scholar program and became Research Director with Joe and Rose. 
I designed and conducted sessions, and did one experiment after another!  Joe and Rose taught me much about the flexibility of dolphin minds.  In 2010, I told the story of how Joe and Rose performed the Janus program 100% correct and in a single trial they began performing 100% incorrect!  The secret was in the setup! Quick success came from their tendency to test boundaries and definitions.  With a modification in my setup, they went right back to the old Janus behaviors when I needed them to perform for a tv crew.
Concurrent sessions in Improvisation had Joe and Rose performing novel behaviors for every single fish.  Lilly loved this one, “Marvelous!” he said. Joe and Rose didn’t stop while snagging the fish I threw them before heading off to the next innovation.  Their improv included mutually coordinated behavior.
Thomas White’s book, In Defense of Dolphins, builds a case for accepting dolphins as persons through stories like mine.
  • Dolphins express a rich emotional life.
  • Dolphins are capable of abstract thought.
  • Dolphins deliberate & restrain themselves from harmful actions towards humans.
  • Dolphins demonstrate innovative Behaviors. 
  • Joe seemed to have a better imagination than Rose – he would create a wave in the tank and then ride the wave with his tail out of the water, parallel to the wave about 2 inches above it while surfing!  I rewarded him for this everytime!
  • Joe and Rose experienced Creative Inspiration.                                       As Project Janus wound down, they stopped showing up for sessions, getting time outs, not eating, and aborting sessions.  Under my new program, they were enthusiastically performing novel behaviors.
  • Joe and Rose showed Cognitive Flexibility & Problem Solving abilities.
A student and I created an experiment teaching Joe and Rose “Yes & No”.  I held up a fish and asked them “Is this a fish?”  The computer operator generated the whistle designated for "fish." With a target, I elicited a nod from the dolphins.  I held up a basket, the computer whistled, “fish”.  “Is this a fish?”  Following the target, the dolphins shook their heads, NO.  A fish, nod, any other object, shake.  But without cuing them with the target, Joe and Rose were rather random at shaking their heads to foreign objects. 
I tied strings on each object.  New session.  "Is this a fish?" I asked holding up a fish.  "Yes" they nod.  I toss them the fish.  "Is this a fish" I ask as I hold up a basket.  Yes, they nod.  I toss them the basket just like I would a fish.  They duck and the object lands on the water over their heads.  "No" I say, not a fish.  I reel in the object.  Try again, with a shoe, "Is this a fish?"  They nod and I toss it to them.  "NO, not a fish."   After one cue to remind them at the next trial, they are shaking their heads, while ducking, "NO!" Good!  It didn’t take but a couple days for Rose to perform 100% correct on Yes and No.
I had hopes to continue Yes and No with other objects – is this a ring? ball?  But the Human Dolphin Foundation received the funding to move Joe and Rose to seapens in Florida in preparation for their release.  I was the director through the move and at our new location at Dolphins Plus in Key Largo.  I continued experiments while Lilly and I set up a long term readaptation program in Sarasota Bay, on Jewfish Key. A dream was coming true!  -- to demonstrate and document readaptation of captive dolphins back to a natural environment.
One such facility:  Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary.          
I had been untraining Joe and Rose from the compulsions of 4 years of training in Project Janus.  I was allowing them to think for themselves and rewarding them for novelty.  They stationed my my windsurf board to be fed.  The seapen was divided by a chain link fence from a canal which led on both ends to the Atlantic Ocean.  The next step was for them to begin navigating the canal.
During one swim with Joe and Rose, I pulled up on the bottom of the fence.  It bent upwards quite easily.  The dolphins were interested, right beside me, sonaring through the empty space at the bottom of the pen. “Do you want to go through?”  They looked like they might, but I needed a more secure way to keep the hole in the fence open. 
Next time I brought a bungee cord.  I showed them the cord and as I got into the pen, immediately Rose hooked my hand with her dorsal fin and brought me down to the bottom of the fence.  I snapped on the bungee, folded the fence and tied it up.  The dolphins, transfixed at the bottom, looking through the hole, wouldn’t go any further.  Go!  Go on out!  I held my breath.  The furthest Rose would go under was half of her body length.  Before leaving the enclosure, I unhooked the bungee, letting the fence close, and hid the bungee under a rock in the middle of their pen.
The next time I entered the water, Rose picked me up and took me straight down to the rock, putting her rostrum right on it. Pointing.  I pulled out the bungee and the dolphins flew to the fence.  After a breath, I dove to the bottom and attached the bungee so the fence was open.  Excited, they raced around and looked through.  We played.  I asked them to go under the wire.  They didn’t.
The next time, I left the bungee on overnight.  The apparently didn’t go out, but a parrot fish came in.  In the morning we found the remains of the first fish they caught and killed.
When Dr. Lilly and I went to Sarasota for the weekend, I foolishly left the bungee on.  It was found, of course, and the fence was patched.  During which the work crew received a few angry knocks from the dolphins, the first violence we experienced since bringing them to Florida.  We built a big square gate above and below the waterline.  We left it open almost always.  I tried to feed them on the other side, play with them going through, push them through… but they stayed inside.  My first attempts at open water work were frustrating.
Rosie was pregnant, and we postponed plans to move the dolphins to Sarasota, where we were working with MOTE Marine Lab next to the private island of Jewfish Key. 
Instead, Toni Lilly assigned Joe and Rose to Project ORCA and they hired Ric OBarry to release them.  They were let go about 3 years later without followup as to their readaptation and well being after the release. 
Since then I have only worked with wild dolphins, in several places of the world.  For the past 18 years I have lived and worked on the Big Island, a mecca for dolphin encounters, going out to the pods by boat.

Dolphins in the Wild
While continuing my research into Dolphinness, I take people out by boat to the spinner dolphins off the Kona coast.  We typically encounter a pod of 200 dolphins, or a subset of the 700-800 resident spinner dolphins. 
I’ve developed a protocol for these encounters, calling the basic 3 steps, Dolphin Secrets. 
1 The first dolphin secret, Terry taught me over 30 years ago.  Terry would wait a couple feet away, while I was draped over the tank wall with my hands waiting for her in the water. 
As she waited, I would breathe and relax, and relax more, before she would glide into my arms.  Terry rewarded me for relaxing deeply by allowing me to embrace her.
The first Dolphin Secret is to be in a position to wait for the dolphins to come to you.  Let them approach into an intimate range if they want.  Relax and wait. 
2  She also rewarded me for grace.  After we danced gracefully over the tank wall, fluid and innovative, Terry would run around the tank performing splashless bows, or corkscrew underwater.  She would stand beside me with her nose pointed skyward and her eyes closed.
The second Dolphin Secret is to Go in Grace – be predictable and smooth, respectful and calm.  Observe and respond to what happens during the encounter.
3  The third secret became apparent with the wild dolphins.  When the dolphins establish and maintain eye contact, go with it.  Be open to gamesplaying, become more responsively active, either swimming with them or following their lead.   They have invited you to play, even if it lasts mere seconds.  Eye to eye presence, stay present, focused, attentive and responsive.  Play, but play with grace and respect, rather than intrusion.  Watch for cues.  Feel your response and the dolphins’ response to your response.  BE with them. 
Relax and breathe.  Go in Grace. Be present in eye to eye contact.
Communication begins here.  We are sending signals to the dolphins.  Signals indicating harmlessness, non-intrusion, trust, respect, curiosity, and a willingness to play if invited.  We watch for signals from the dolphins indicating their acceptance of our presence, trust, curiosity, and willingness to engage us in games.
In my videos I am looking at their use of whistles and other vocalizations while in close proximity to us, perhaps directed towards us.  Also their use of vocalizations while engaged with each other in highly active play.  I have some of these videos posted on http://www.youtube.com/dolphinsecrets  and http://vimeo.com/robertagoodman
If you would like to analyze any of my videos, please let me know.
Roberta Goodman
Kailua Kona
Hawaii


















1 comment:

  1. Funny how people from the past can resurface in one's life on the web. Good to see you're still involved with cetaceans. You may not remember me but I was there volunteering on JANUS near the end. My name is Russell Hockins.

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