if they form a society conductive to long-term pursuit of the project
Why would they want to? A modern dolphin can get basically all the food its needs with minimal effort,so the main competition is intra-species. So for a dolphin society to advance technologically you would require every individual within it to give up their own reprodutive fitness but putting time and energy into the great project with no immediate benefit. For a technological society to develop it isnt enough that with sufficient coordination they could do so, but that it is in their self interest at every step along the way.
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It may also be possible to fall into local maxima and not get out of them even once a species has got a starting level of technology. Consider that humans spent 2.6 million years or so at paleolithic technology levels, and were probably only knocked out of it y sudden environmental change not by a gradual process of improving technology.
if they form a society conductive to long-term pursuit of the project
Why would they want to?
This is part of a hypothetical intended to explore the issue of technical feasibility of developing technology using only dolphin bodies (underwater, etc.). This hypothetical removes two other most obvious issues in order to focus attention on this one. It removes the issue of developing useful-in-practice understanding of science by assuming that we have modern engineers. It removes the issue of unfavorable incentives by assuming that the incentives are directed towards the project.
You can explore other issues in other hypotheticals.
Why would they want to? A modern dolphin can get basically all the food its needs with minimal effort,so the main competition is intra-species. So for a dolphin society to advance technologically you would require every individual within it to give up their own reprodutive fitness but putting time and energy into the great project with no immediate benefit. For a technological society to develop it isnt enough that with sufficient coordination they could do so, but that it is in their self interest at every step along the way.
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It may also be possible to fall into local maxima and not get out of them even once a species has got a starting level of technology. Consider that humans spent 2.6 million years or so at paleolithic technology levels, and were probably only knocked out of it y sudden environmental change not by a gradual process of improving technology.
They don’t. They either starve, be killed by predators, humans or by something.
They haven’t escape this bloody cycle of exponential population grow on one, and mass death on other hand.
There is nothing like a “stable population” among dolphins.
This is part of a hypothetical intended to explore the issue of technical feasibility of developing technology using only dolphin bodies (underwater, etc.). This hypothetical removes two other most obvious issues in order to focus attention on this one. It removes the issue of developing useful-in-practice understanding of science by assuming that we have modern engineers. It removes the issue of unfavorable incentives by assuming that the incentives are directed towards the project.
You can explore other issues in other hypotheticals.
This group of dolphins might do it as a (long-term) way to better compete with that group of dolphins over there.