Using iPads to bridge communication gap with dolphins

Re:Using iPads to bridge communication gap with dolphins by illumin8 on Friday June 04, 2010 @04:39PM (#1405570)

I'm not sure I agree. You may describe an underwater setting by saying "there is a clump of seaweed floating 3 meters above , 10 meters in front of, and 2 meters to the left of your current location, and a shark hiding about 20 meters behind the clump of seaweed", but it's much more efficient for you to send me a JPEG image of it, or better yet, a 3d image of it. I think this is how most scientists believe that dolphins communicate.

This is sort of like the difference between playing a text game like Zork or a 3D MMO like World of Warcraft. English only descriptions leave the details up to your imagination. 3d graphic imagery communicates the actual picture.

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Re:Using iPads to bridge communication gap with dolphins by xenophanes on Friday June 04, 2010 @05:25PM (#1405713)

You could read out each byte of a jpeg to someone (or invent a different format in pure English). That is an example of an English description that leaves no details up to your imagination (that aren't also left up to your imagination by jpeg).

Further, really detailed and well written prose can describe 3d scenes -- and help the reader visualize them -- better than everyday photographs, 3d computers renderings, what dolphins have, etc... There is no limit to how much detail prose can include.

As a practical matter, we do not use English to its full capacity, and it's inefficient for some things, but still it is universal.

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