The Mind of the Dolphin: A Nonhuman Intelligence

This remarkable work continues the progress report started six years ago with Man and Dolphin. In his earlier book. Dr. Lilly documented a dramatic first: the idea and basic first steps of epochal scientific experiments to find ways to communicate with another species. In his newest work, he details the discoveries about the dolphin's abilities, current ideas about his intellect, and the paradoxes of inter-species communication, developed since 1961. That the bottlenose dolphin (or Tursiops truncatus) has a brain larger than man's, that it has a sophisticated form of vocal communication,that it, to a certain extent, "understands" man has become generally known. What has been virtually unexplored is the astonishing intricacy and nonhuman nature of the dolphin's intelligence and yet the profound relevance of that intelligence to man's place in Nature. The dolphin, for example, is a systematic communicator - a trait long considered unique to human beings. The dolphin is a startling "moral" creature ( who acts along lines similar to our own Golden Rule) - again, something always thought of as a "human" characteristic. Dr. Lilly demonstrates that dolphins can clearly distinguish between dictated words and vocal instructions when responding to man with airborne "words." When dolphins are displeased with human behavior - which they frequently are - they will "train" willing men to act correctly. In short, The Mind of the Dolphin may upset man's implicit preconceptions about his own intellectual, ethical, and social superiority. Dr. Lilly's fascinating documented book stands at the frontier of a new field of scientific inquiry.