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Library of Congress CCN 67-10417 CHAPTER 07 |
In order to first ask the proper questions we must become
partly delphinic (with their hclp), and to understand the questions
the dolphins must become partly human (with our help). To give proper
answers to our questions the dolphins must go partly human, and to understand
the answers we must go partly delphinic. Each side, delphinic and human, can rewrite some of
their programs to adapt to the other side. Each side has programs they
cannot rewrite, the built-in sets of programs. In this book, I describe
where we see this line between us, between the built-in programs and
the rewritable problems as we can determine them to date. This line
will continue to be delineatcd as we do more research with the dolphins.
It takes a fantastic amount of work and special methods (new and imaginative
ones) morc carefully to define these lines. The fine border between
"rewritable" and "forever-fixed" programs is a fascinating
area for the courageous researcher. It is an area in which it is possible
to make horrendous mistakes and maintain them for years. It requires
courage to break up one's deepest prejudices here. We do not yet fully
understand how much of what we think and believe can be fundamentally
changed. We know that much can be modified but not how much it can be
modificd. We are especially stable in many areas because of the special
properties of our feedbacks --our social feedbacks, and our feedbacks
to ourselves and to our loved ones. Society itself daily re-establishes
certain kinds of programs in us repeatedly again and again. Other programs
are stable hecause they are built-in and necessary to maintain life
itself from the physiological body levels to the monetary, economic,
external feedback levels. We have some programs for assuring failure in certain
areas of our endeavors. These are best erased. I hope that no dolphins
acquire these programs. I doubt that they are compatible with iife at
sea under the difficult conditions that dolphins must mcet successfully. In certain areas, the delphinic ethic is apparently nonWestern-human. Their constant nudity. public sexual display, public urination and defecation, tasting one another's excrement and urine are things for which Westem man locks up his fellows and calls them "psychotic" or "perverse" or "committing a public nuisance." |
