The Whale Song Translation: A Voyage of Discovery To Neptune and Beyond

by Howard Steven Pines

  He resumed reading. “‘The evolution of humans and whales proceeded to bequeath another distinguishing advantage: brain tissue sheathed in intricate convolutions of cerebral cortex that, for humans, has enabled the creation of symbols useful in thought experiments and communications. For Homo sapiens on the land, this process has transpired for less than a million years and has generated the self-proclaimed ‘extraordinary’ three-pound computer brain we know and love so well. For Megaptera in the sea, the evolutionary recipe has simmered for a span of thirty million years, spawning the massive cranium that encases a fourteen-pound brain endowed with a copious quantity of gray matter. One can only wonder what capabilities nature has bestowed upon the cetacean mind.’”

  “One can only wonder,” swirled throughout the audience like a ceremonial chant.

  Chris was taken aback, pausing until the repetitions had faded in intensity. He signaled to someone off stage, and the song of the humpback infused the air once again. “Let’s imagine the possibilities while meditating upon their mesmerizing songs.”

  He’d waited until the song had played for a full minute. “Thank you.” Gorman’s quiet finale caught many by surprise. Their delayed reaction crescendoed into a torrent of applause. He bowed repeatedly, then announced above the din, “Please log into the PICES website and sign the petition to halt all sonar testing in Hawaiian waters! Mahalo!”

  While waving a goodbye, the master of ceremonies reappeared and grabbed Chris’s arm, raising it in a linked salute. With the crowd still in an uproar, Joe shouted into the hand-held mike, “Thank you, Christopher Gorman! The next speaker on the program is RUSH activist Bill Baldwin!”

  Once Gorman had disappeared, slender William Baldwin jumped up onto the stage, pumping a fist with the gusto of an athlete’s victory celebration. In stark contrast to his purple, tie-dyed T-shirt, his carrot-top hair flamed in the harsh sunlight.

  “It’s an honor to ride Brother Gorman’s wake. He’s not only a dedicated researcher and educator; he’s one of the quintessential secular humanists of our times. His poetic portrayal of the majestic humpbacks is pure inspiration. Excuse the pun, but I get a rush at every one of Christopher’s talks. However, words can only take us so far. I represent RUSH, the Radical Ultra-Secular Humanist movement, and we put words into action! We’re dedicated to stopping government and corporate exploitation of earth’s most magnificent creatures.” He belted out the phrases like a seasoned politician. The crowd bellowed its approval.

  With sleight-of-hand proficiency, Baldwin lofted a shiny, white canister into the air, and then pointed it toward the microphone. “Hear for yourselves what the Navy’s doing to the whales.” Like the blast of an eighteen-wheeler’s horn, a mind-numbing howl exploded from seemingly everywhere. A thousand souls reacted instinctively with hands pressed to ears and faces contorted in pain. After five interminable seconds, Baldwin mercifully doused the sonic inferno. His voice penetrated the ear-ringing silence. “I’m sorry to have discomforted you. This sports air-horn generates 115 decibels of sound energy. Yet the Navy’s pulses of underwater sonar are hundreds of times more powerful. Need I say more?”

  The crowd replied with an angry roar.

  Baldwin shook his arms and shouted into the microphone. “RUSH leadership stands united with the other eco-movement representatives to express our outrage! It’s time to put an end to anthropocentric fascism or, in other words, our species ego trip. Did you know the blue whale, the largest creature that has ever lived, was driven to the edge of extinction by whalers? Did you know humans killed over two million whales during the twentieth century?” In this rhetorical fashion, Baldwin besieged the audience with a litany of sobering accusations. Like the chorus of the faithful at a religious revival, the crowd answered back after each question, delirious with indignation.

  “Greenpeace protests aren’t getting it done,” he continued. “The eco-enemies need a fist-in-the-face reminder of their role in the slaughter of earth’s endangered marine mammals. Now is the time to show the whole world what’s really going down. Let’s link hands and march to the gates of the oppressors! Our symbolic blockade will tell them to cease their killing ways. Save the Whales! Let’s move out!”

  With the bravado of a hang-glider pilot launching from the edge of a cliff, Baldwin leapt from the stage and was snared in the net of his front-row devotees’ linked arms. His prostrate figure was borne aloft and then passed overhead from person to person. Soon back on the terra firma, Baldwin cranked an arm forward and shouted, “Follow me!” The mob resounded with a fierce cheer.

  A lone drummer beat the solemn rhythm heard at military funerals while the parade of humanity marched resolutely toward its destination. At least two hundred RUSH loyalists trailed in Baldwin’s footsteps, chanted protest slogans, and screamed for justice. A phalanx of security guards waited to greet them as they approached the main gate to Pearl Harbor Naval Station. With the crowd surging forward, their shiny shields, helmets, and batons broadcast an intimidating warning.

  Baldwin shouted into a bullhorn, “Everybody stop here.” Once everyone had settled in, he cried, “Now let’s link hands and form a chain! Nobody gets into this base until the Navy ends the sonar experiments!”

  After several rounds of solidarity songs, and as the temperature climbed, the mob grew restive. When someone cried, “Let’s make fruit salad!” front line provocateurs began to hurl squishy ripe guavas and mangoes.

  “Yeah! Let’s give ’em Hawaiian punch!”

  Ruby red and yellow splashes of fruit pummeled the linked array of transparent plastic shields. As their body armor began to resemble a Jackson Pollock canvas, the guards’ friendly faces turned angry.

  “Viva the whales!” a young woman shouted.

  “Yeah! Let’s get ’em,” screamed a disheveled youth wearing a RUSH T-shirt. Then, beer bottles propellered through the air, crashed into shields, and shattered into glistening shards like Hawaiian shave ice. The sprays of spittle, the showers of glass, the rain of curses, and the clashing of bodies—these were the primal elements precipitating the tipping point in human relations. Billy clubs answered back, battering human flesh, and the blood of one species was shed in protest against the bloodshed of another.

  THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST

  SoCalSci University, Department of Engineering, Los Angeles, California—mid-January

  “Good morning, Seema and Andrew,” said Dmitri. “It’s great to be back home.” SoCalSci was his home, he thought. His students were his family. “Grab some chairs.”

  Southern California’s mid-winter, morning sunshine poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Professor David Dmitri’s second floor office, illuminating the faces of his two stellar graduate students. Seema Roy and Andrew Chu removed the piles of paper gathering dust atop two ergonomic guest chairs and settled down for their weekly advisory session. It was their first meeting in nearly a month, since before the winter break campus shutdown.

  “Hey, boss,” said Andrew, “seems like your vacation paid off. You look tanned, rested, and ready to go for our next handball match.” He flexed an arm in a muscle-man pose.

  Dmitri shook his head in feigned exasperation. Today, more than usual, he enjoyed Andrew’s playfulness as a counterpoint to the usual academic chitchat and to his own darkened thoughts about the whales still perishing in Maui.

  “I adore your shirt,” said Seema, referring to the floral-red, silk-print shirt Dmitri had found in Lahaina. She touched a finger to her temple. “My sixth sense also tells me that you had a transformative experience in the Islands, possibly even a romantic encounter.”

  Seema’s teasing smile and lilting voice delighted peers and colleagues alike. Her willowy figure reminded Dmitri of a classical dancer’s, and her large, dark eyes revealed an innate curiosity. Seema’s calming British-Indian accent relaxed him during their meetings. Her accurate hunch, however, reignited his concern about Melanie. He knew she’d be shaken by the news of the mounting humpback death t
oll. He willed himself to appear at ease.

  “I was going to inquire about your holidays, but since you mentioned it, I did indeed have a transformative series of encounters. Since I’ve returned with materials for a new line of inquiry, let’s temporarily suspend your current research activities. I’d like you to conduct a brief investigation for me.”

  Dmitri’s students exchanged expressions of concern. Andrew spoke first. “But, boss—”

  Dmitri interrupted. “I apologize for the sudden shift of priorities. Do you remember our discussion last year regarding Professor McPinsky’s ideas about interspecies communication?”

  “Of course we remember.” Seema replied in crisp, enunciated tones. “You’re referring to his challenge to the scientific community to break the linguistic codes of other sentient species like whales and dolphins and engage them in dialogue.”

  “But it’s already been done,” said Andrew. “Koko the gorilla has learned to communicate using sign language gestures.”

  “Touché,” replied Dmitri. “Over a thousand signs, in fact, but that’s just scratching the surface of human potential. Koko’s gorilla brain is just one-third the size of a human’s and her measured IQ barely tops eighty-five.”

  “And the whales?”

  “Their brains are at least four times bigger than ours with gobs of cortex. Think about the possibilities.”

  “But surely you don’t think our team can attempt such an ambitious task?”

  Dmitri rocked in his chair. The swaying motion helped to moderate his heartbeat and focus his thoughts. “A week ago, I would have agreed with you. While in Hawaii, however, I discovered both the means and the motive for pursuing such a controversial research project.” Andrew furrowed his brow. “Riddle me this. Why would a fifty-ton, fifty-foot-long, fourteen-pound-brained whale leap completely out of the ocean with such reckless abandon?”

  “Why do seemingly intelligent people jump from airplanes?” replied Andrew.

  “Exactly!” When Dmitri slammed his palm on the desk, both students recoiled. “It could be a leap of the imagination, by a mind that’s evolved over thirty million years. To experience novel forces: the weight of their bodies, the deceleration and acceleration through the ether, the thrill of the wind, the chill of evaporative cooling on their skin, and finally the jolt of the impact.”

  “Like a roller-coaster ride,” said Seema.

  “More than that,” replied Dmitri, his voice rising on an updraft of emotion. “Just as humans seek to explore other worlds, the curious humpbacks thrust skyward for a kaleidoscopic vision of the world above—brilliant light, intense colors, mountains, clouds, and alien craft.”

  “Sounds like you had a great time in Maui, boss.”

  Dmitri, seeing his students’ tentative expressions, realized he’d better dial down on the intensity. “The more I directly observed and learned about the behavior of the humpback whales, a common thread emerged, a level of intelligence meriting further investigation. And thanks to the marine biologists at the Pacific Institute for Cetacean Educational Studies, I’ve brought back recent recordings of whale songs we can scrutinize.”

  Seema swiveled slowly, back and forth, in her chair. In the same rhythm, she stroked a lock of jet black hair between her thumb and forefinger, as if she were bowing a string instrument. Dmitri recognized the telltale sign of an impending question.

  “I’m sure I will appreciate the humpbacks’ songs,” she said, “but how do you propose we make the conceptual leap from music to the identification of linguistic symbols?”

  “Do I detect a glimmer of interest?” Dmitri knew damn well his students couldn’t resist the challenge. He considered Seema Roy and Andrew Chu the most exceptional of the many outstanding graduate students he’d advised in SoCalSci’s Engineering Communications Program. After graduating at the head of her class from the Bangalore Institute of Technology, Seema had applied to some of the world’s top graduate engineering schools. Since it had been her dream to experience California’s rich tapestry of academic, cultural, and scenic attractions, she had not hesitated to accept SoCalSci’s generous offer of a stipend and research assistantship.

  Seema was a gifted musician, a violinist, who nonetheless realized the advantages of an advanced degree in an income-generating profession. She’d confided in Dmitri the hope that, with a mechanical engineering diploma in acoustics, she could one day design improved or even new types of musical instruments. Currently, she was investigating the properties that defined the superior tone quality of notable stringed instruments such as the Stradivarius violins. Dmitri knew she appreciated his support of a project that other professors would dismiss as too conjectural.

  Andrew, an upbeat and competitive, second-generation Chinese-American, was also stellar. He had graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree from SoCalSci. Despite Andrew’s wisecracking facade, Dmitri understood this young man was, like himself, passionately devoted to the fields of digital voice and signal processing engineering. During their joint research activities, Andrew had marveled aloud about the deep-space probes that could transmit pictures and data from Saturn, Neptune, and beyond. Dmitri took pride in the work of the brilliant SoCalSci colleagues who had designed the sophisticated error-correction codes to repair the data waveforms damaged by radiation.

  Andrew frequented the university athletic center’s handball courts, and like many of the serious student athletes, he sported a buzz cut. Dmitri admired the young man’s disciplined workout regimen and his impressive physique. It was obvious that Andrew relished their weekly handball matches.

  As rising stars, Seema and Andrew had earned a virtually guaranteed first choice in the selection of a major field advisor. Independent and adventurous, they had wanted more than a secure roadmap toward the pursuit of their advanced degrees. During their due diligence survey of the engineering faculty, some of their more senior schoolmates had spoken in superlatives about Dmitri. They reported that he treated his students like peers, and that he encouraged them to develop proposals based upon their own interests rather than coercing them into accepting pre-formatted research projects. Most importantly, Seema and Andrew were well aware that Associate Professor Dmitri had himself been mentored by the illustrious and iconoclastic Professor Theodosius McPinsky.

  “Okay boss,” said Andrew, cupping his hands behind his head. “As usual, you’ve piqued our interest. What’s the history and current status of whale song research and how do we fit into this picture?”

  Dmitri stood. “It’s a remarkable National Geographic story.” He started to pace slowly, his eyes studying the wavy patterns woven into the carpet. “Over forty years ago, marine biologist Roger Payne and his colleagues pioneered the acoustical analysis of humpback whale vocalizations. He discovered that, unlike bird songs or the utterances of any other species, these particular vocalizations exhibited a rudimentary linguistic structure. Using pre-digital technology, Payne identified about a dozen different types of discrete sound elements called ‘units.’”

  Dmitri stopped pacing. He reached down and rotated his laptop so that the screen faced his guests. “Here’s a time and frequency plot from Payne’s original research paper.” He touched the screen, pointing to alternating sequences of squiggly lines and blobs, arranged somewhat like sheet music. “You can see each unit has an average duration of about 2.5 seconds, separated by intervals of silence. Payne classified these sound units according to their acoustical attributes. Some, like our vowels, contained elements of frequency- and amplitude-modulated harmonics. Others had a broadband frequency character like our consonants and sounded like rumbles, grunts, and gurgles.”

  Seema pivoted her chair toward Dmitri. “So you’re saying these sound units are similar to the phonemes of our spoken language?”

  “On the surface, yes, but it gets better than that. Look at the next slide.” Dmitri clicked his mouse to refresh the screen. “Payne also proved that these units were organized into repeating and varying
patterns of short and long duration, similar to the short phrases and longer themes in human songs. Each song can last up to thirty minutes and sometimes for many hours. Even more fascinating, Payne’s wife Katy discovered that a humpback population’s song constantly evolves during each season and from year to year. The Paynes became environmental heroes. Their findings were persuasive evidence of whale intelligence and instrumental in the U.S. Congress’s passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. They also influenced the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 moratorium on the commercial whaling of endangered species like humpbacks.”

  “Okay,” said Andrew. “So he’s a Payne in the fluke to the whaling nations.”

  Dmitri groaned. “I’ll ignore that.”

  Andrew raised a hand. “Has anyone else used more sophisticated techniques and advanced computing power to study the songs?”

  “Bingo. In fact, as recently as three years ago, an engineering team at Columbia applied information theory. They measured the information content of the whales’ lexicon in the context of their song. They also confirmed Payne’s observations that whale songs are hierarchical in structure, similar to the way human language is organized into clauses and sentences.”

  Seema sighed. “I realize you’re both familiar with communication theory but as an acoustics major, I just signed up for this semester’s Engineering Communications 101 class.”

  Dmitri smiled at her. “Then let me explain.” At the whiteboard behind his desk, he sketched out the interconnected rectangular, circular, and diamond shapes representing a system block diagram. “Think about a message such as a book, an email, or a song. In this context, the information content of the message is proportional to the number of words in the dictionary of the message’s native language. The units of measurement are called ‘bits,’ representing the exponential powers of the number ‘two.’”