"She remained with it for several hours and possibly even days."
Interesting article, but that comment veers into speculation. Speculation diminishes the value of a scientific article.
Fair, but does that mean that the entire article is speculative? They were not around long enough to confirm whether or not it happened for days, but the fact that the mother stayed for at least some hours appears to be confirmed (although as another reply said, the motivation for staying could be different than ours).
You will likely find a lot of these hedging comments in scientific articles, as it’s hard to know and prove something with 100% certainty and it’s an important task for researchers to also indicate the limits of what they’ve discovered. I think ;)
Blows my mind that so many people just have this hardened internalized idea that we're somehow significantly different than any other animal.
Sure, we've got them beat on language and planning, but we're currently in the process of being passed up on both those fronts by multi-dimensional arrays of floating point numbers sitting inside of sand. So, like, how special is that then, really?
Almost certainly our linguistic abilities (and through them, planning skills) are vastly greater than those of all other animals, but that is a matter of degree, not of category. The one thing in which we are categorically different from all other animals is that we learned to control and make fire... and quite possibly the linguistic abilities followed from that rather than the other way around[0]. Until the 20th century basically all of the advantages that technology bestowed upon our species directly flowed from our use of fire. Maybe our species should have been called "homo ignis"; the fire ape.
Obviously the cetaceans will never have that benefit, even if by some other objective measures they turned out to be as intelligent as humans.
"People ache to believe that we human beings are vastly different from all other species – and they are right! We are different. We are the only species that has an extra medium of design preservation and design communication: culture."
> do you feel like LLMs are specifically getting better at planning?
When harnessed, yes. They still suck at it, but they are getting significantly better over a relatively short time.
And you don't have to look very far in any direction economically or politically to wonder if humans in 2026 are really as good at planning as we like to think and/or if we may be regressing in this area. Because a lot of things we are responsible for aren't going very well for the majority.
They can pretend to, of course, and use the language of grief, but if you can't feel the cold bottomless pit that has bored through your gut then you aren't really grieving.
You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive.
It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
You might also argue that although there may be a non-emotional argument for why grieving could be beneficial, it’s possible or even likely that evolution encoded this instinct in something like emotions. Just how evolution encoded the tendency to care for one’s family and community in emotions for humans.
You will likely find a lot of these hedging comments in scientific articles, as it’s hard to know and prove something with 100% certainty and it’s an important task for researchers to also indicate the limits of what they’ve discovered. I think ;)
Yeah, that's not grieving.
Sure, we've got them beat on language and planning, but we're currently in the process of being passed up on both those fronts by multi-dimensional arrays of floating point numbers sitting inside of sand. So, like, how special is that then, really?
Obviously the cetaceans will never have that benefit, even if by some other objective measures they turned out to be as intelligent as humans.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catching_Fire:_How_Cooking_Mad...
— Daniel Dennett
When harnessed, yes. They still suck at it, but they are getting significantly better over a relatively short time.
And you don't have to look very far in any direction economically or politically to wonder if humans in 2026 are really as good at planning as we like to think and/or if we may be regressing in this area. Because a lot of things we are responsible for aren't going very well for the majority.
i think most people are automatons and can be programmed.
it is the most moral thing to program people to operate in ways that causes least harm to everyone else around them that has to live with them.
people like certain foods, outrage, and gambling/fomo.
They can pretend to, of course, and use the language of grief, but if you can't feel the cold bottomless pit that has bored through your gut then you aren't really grieving.
Just as much as any human that isn't me, as far as I can tell from all available evidence.
So, yes, I absolutely believe they grieve, just like I believe humans who aren't me grieve.
Here's an article about orcas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047
It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
No, they really don't. The article says
> indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf
Yeah, that's not grieving.
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/southern-reside...