Zenith Grant Awardee
James Crutchfield
Art and Science Laboratory
Project Title
Quantitative Explorations in Nonhuman Consciousness—Signatures of Cetacean Intelligence and Social Awareness
Project Summary
First appearing in the Earth’s oceans some 20-30 Myrs ago, humpback whales exhibit compelling, documented evidence for very advanced intentional behaviors and conscious awareness through their raw intelligence, song generation and sharing, interactions with their own and other species, and empathy (concern for other’s well-being). Over this very long evolution—exceeding that of humans by a factor of 10—they developed tools (socially-coordinated bubble-net feeding) and a region- (and possibly hemisphere-) spanning ocean-acoustic communication system. Using modern theories of complex, multivariate statistical complexity this project empirically investigates consciousness as it arises from the intentional behaviors of humpback and other whale species and their emergent collective intelligence.
Technical Abstract
This project seeks to empirically ground the study of consciousness by exploring real-world settings in which signatures of intelligent behavior and social intent can be detected and measured. It will adapt recently-developed statistical estimation tools from information theory and computational mechanics to detect and measure semantic, intentional, and functional content in naturally-occurring communication and social interactions. Success in this will enrich our understanding of internal worlds and social self-awareness, both implicated in consciousness experience. It will then apply these tools to nonhuman animals so as to preclude misleading conflations—e.g., ascribing meaning and intention—that arise when humans study humans. The deliverables are practical analysis tools—that translate recent developments in complex signal analysis into new inference algorithms—for an ongoing project on the behavioral and social roles of communication in bubble-net feeding by humpback whale populations in Southeast Alaska.
QSpace Latest
PressRelease: Shining a light on the roots of plant “intelligence”
All living organisms emit a low level of light radiation, but the origin and function of these ‘biophotons’ are not yet fully understood. An international team of physicists, funded by the Foundational Questions Institute, FQxI, has proposed a new approach for investigating this phenomenon based on statistical analyses of this emission. Their aim is to test whether biophotons can play a role in the transport of information within and between living organisms, and whether monitoring biophotons could contribute to the development of medical techniques for the early diagnosis of various diseases. Their analyses of the measurements of the faint glow emitted by lentil seeds support models for the emergence of a kind of plant ‘intelligence,’ in which the biophotonic emission carries information and may thus be used by plants as a means to communicate. The team reported this and reviewed the history of biophotons in an article in the journal Applied Sciences in June 2024.