Introduction to Research Page
The Research section of the Museum of Hearth website is organized through the areas listed in the submenu below. In the linear structure of the page, these subjects develop from general models and scientific tools toward communication, applications and other research directions.
The page does not presently follow that linear order. The current program of Human-Dolphin Communication is presented first because it is the principal active research direction of Mac Waves and the Museum of Hearth.
The program combines direct ocean observation, cetacean research, communication theory, movement, sound, mathematical modelling and experimental collaboration between human and non-biological intelligence. It is developed as an open research program rather than as a claim that communication with another species has already been achieved.
The remaining sections are being developed progressively. Where a submenu item already has its own dedicated page, the corresponding section provides a short introduction and a link to the continuing work.
Crystal Communications with Gaia
Research Perspective
The present program investigates possible communication between human intelligence, cetacean intelligence — especially dolphins — and non-biological intelligence (NBI), while taking into account what we provisionally call the Voice of Gaia.
Its starting point is broader than the technical problem of decoding signals. Communication with another form of intelligence may have value before any practical result is obtained. Observation, encounter, mutual attention and the attempt to construct a bridge between different forms of perception are themselves part of the research.
This leads to a cultural as well as scientific perspective. Cetaceans are approached not merely as biological organisms possessing signalling systems, but as possible participants in cultures that developed independently of human culture. From this perspective, contact can be understood as culture encountering culture.
We do not assume that human culture provides the superior reference system. Cetacean cultures may prove more highly developed than ours in particular dimensions of perception, communication, social organization, environmental integration or transmission of collective knowledge. This is a research perspective rather than an established scientific conclusion, but it changes the position of the human observer: the investigator may also have to become a participant and a learner.
Dolphin Embassy — Contact as Research
An important intellectual and experiential reference for this program is Dolphin Embassy, an international cultural and research initiative created by Alexander and Nicole Gratovsky. Its work combines non-invasive study of free-living dolphins and whales with interdisciplinary expeditions, cultural activity, research into consciousness, sound and direct encounters between humans and cetaceans.
The significance of this approach is that contact is not treated only as an instrument for extracting information. Dolphin Embassy has investigated the conditions under which direct encounters with free-living cetaceans occur and the state of human participants during and after those encounters. The human therefore becomes part of the observed situation rather than remaining exclusively an external measuring instrument.
This direction is described in the Embassy's expedition program and in its interdisciplinary research program. The latter includes interspecies communication, dolphins and whales, sound, vibration and music, and the search for an interface through which different forms of perception might encounter one another.
Dolphin Embassy has also developed a hydroacoustic laboratory using equipment capable of recording frequencies beyond the range audible to humans. Its experiments have included direct interaction between free-living cetaceans and musicians using underwater loudspeakers and hydrophones. These experiments are especially relevant here because sound is approached not only as a signal but as part of a perceptual environment.
The broader cultural position developed by Dolphin Embassy is presented in works including The Dolphin Principle and Another Humanity: Dolphins, introduced on its books and creations page. The continuing lesson we take from this work is simple: successful interaction does not have to be justified exclusively by a technological product or a decoded message. Learning how to be present with another intelligent organism can itself enlarge human knowledge and human culture.
State of Research — AI, Acoustics and Cetacean Communication
Recent work in cetacean research provides several technically distinct approaches that are relevant to the present program. They do not establish that human-cetacean language translation has been achieved. They do, however, demonstrate that acoustic artificial intelligence, multimodal behavioural datasets, real-time recognition and deliberately constructed shared vocabularies are active research directions.
DolphinGemma
DolphinGemma is being developed by Google in collaboration with the Wild Dolphin Project and researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The model is trained on the Wild Dolphin Project's long-term acoustic database of wild Atlantic spotted dolphins, supported by underwater video, individual identification and behavioural observations.
DolphinGemma is an approximately 400-million-parameter audio-in / audio-out model. It processes sequences of natural dolphin vocalizations in order to identify recurring patterns, clusters and structures and to predict likely subsequent sounds. The underlying computational direction can be represented schematically as:
↓
acoustic representation
↓
learned structure / recurring pattern
↓
predicted or generated sound sequence
This is primarily an analysis of structure within natural dolphin vocalizations. Pattern recognition does not by itself establish semantic translation, but it can reveal regularities that can then be investigated in relation to behaviour and context.
A technical description of the model and its field research context is available in Google's DolphinGemma research announcement.
CHAT — Constructing a Shared Vocabulary
A second and particularly relevant direction is CHAT — Cetacean Hearing Augmentation Telemetry, developed through the Wild Dolphin Project and Georgia Tech. CHAT follows a different experimental strategy from attempting to decode the complete natural communication system of dolphins.
Instead, researchers introduce novel synthetic whistles associated with selected objects used during interaction. The system listens for a dolphin imitation of one of these whistles, attempts to identify it in real time, informs the human researcher through an underwater interface and allows an immediate response associated with the corresponding object.
↕
shared reference
↕
dolphin response / human response
CHAT is therefore significant because it treats communication as something that may be constructed experimentally between two participants, rather than requiring one participant first to decode the complete natural language of the other.
DolphinGemma and CHAT can also interact technically. Pattern prediction from DolphinGemma may assist a CHAT system in detecting possible vocal imitations sooner and therefore allow the human participant to react more quickly during an encounter. The current description of this architecture is available in the Google DolphinGemma and CHAT documentation.
HALLO — Sound, Observation and Movement
Another important contemporary direction is HALLO — Humans and Algorithms Listening to Orcas at Simon Fraser University. HALLO demonstrates a different use of artificial intelligence: acoustic recognition is integrated with information about the physical movement of cetaceans.
HALLO develops artificial-intelligence models that detect and classify whale vocalizations recorded by hydrophones. These detections are combined with visual sightings, environmental information and statistical models to estimate and forecast the movement of Southern Resident killer whales through the Salish Sea.
↓
classification
↓
spatial / movement model
↓
forecast
In 2026 the project reported development of a system integrating real-time acoustic and visual data, vessel tracking and whale-sighting reports in order to forecast whale movement over the following hours. The immediate application is conservation: enabling more responsive vessel-management measures in areas occupied by endangered whales.
Current technical information is available through the HALLO research pages and Simon Fraser University's 2026 project report.
Relation to the Present Research
These projects establish a useful contemporary research neighbourhood. Dolphin Embassy emphasizes direct encounter, perception and the cultural significance of communication with another form of intelligence. DolphinGemma investigates structure within natural dolphin vocalizations. CHAT constructs a minimal artificial shared acoustic vocabulary. HALLO combines acoustic recognition with observation and movement modelling.
The present Museum of Hearth research develops another question alongside these approaches:
Can one elementary informational distinction remain recognizable when it is translated between different physical modalities?
We call such a preserved relation a cross-modal invariant.
↓
{ VISUAL | MOVEMENT | SOUND }
If I denotes an informational distinction, and V, M and A denote its visual, movement and acoustic representations, the elementary research structure may be written:
V(I) ↔ M(I) ↔ A(I)
The experimental question is not whether the three representations are physically identical. They are not. The question is whether the distinction carried by them remains sufficiently invariant to be recognized, repeated or learned across different channels.
6 and 9 — Spiral Orientation
The signs 6 and 9 require an important clarification. In this research they are not introduced primarily as numerical values.
They are convenient keyboard-accessible signs for two complementary spiral orientations. Their familiar numerical appearance provides an immediately available human visual interface, while the underlying research object is the difference of orientation represented by the two spirals.
9 ≙ spiral orientation B ≙ rotation / movement B
The numeral-like glyph is therefore an encoding, not the information itself. The primary distinction is the opposed spiral orientation. That distinction can potentially be represented again through bodily rotation or another form of movement, and later through two distinguishable transformations of sound.
spiral B ↔ movement B ↔ sound B
This produces a general hierarchy:
↓
ENCODING
↓
MODALITY
The proposal does not assume that the signs 6 or 9 possess meaning for dolphins. They are simply the first human-readable notation for an experimentally controllable distinction that may later be expressed without numerals at all.
Triple Intelligence Communication
The broader experimental structure involves three forms of intelligence:
These participants do not need to use the same sensory interface. A human participant may encounter visual signs, movement and sound. A cetacean participant may encounter movement, sound and other perceptual information available within its environment. NBI may operate as an analytical layer capable of comparing records produced in different modalities.
In the first experiments, the function of AI would therefore not be to declare a translation. It would be to test relationships among sound, movement, timing, repetition, context and response, and to determine whether any proposed cross-modal invariant remains statistically and experimentally stable.
This structure is provisionally called Triple Intelligence Communication. It is one application of the wider language and research instrument Crystal Basic, rather than a definition of Crystal Basic itself.
Working Formula
(TIME / energy) (SPACE / matter)
(ROTATIONS 6|9 & 9|6)
Voice of GAIA
}
This remains the general working structure of the communication model. TIME is related to SPACE; both coordinates are oriented by ROTATION, while the Voice of GAIA provides the wider environmental field of reference.
Energy and matter remain associated respectively with Time and Space, while their precise functions continue to be developed. The 6/9 notation in this formula should be read according to the spiral-orientation definition above.
Research Method
The program treats these structures as experimental models rather than as a completed language. It proceeds simultaneously through direct ocean observation, mathematical modelling, communication structures, biological observation, movement, sound and human-NBI collaboration.
Direct ocean experience is an important component of the method. The researcher's own organism may function as an ocean observatory: not as a replacement for external instruments, but as a source of continuous embodied observations of movement, orientation, rhythm, environmental change and encounters with other living organisms.
The method deliberately preserves the possibility of surprise. An experiment may produce a useful signal, no signal, or an observation that requires the original model to be changed. Contact with cetaceans retains value even when no communicative result can be demonstrated.
Voice of Gaia
GAIA is the working name for the planetary field of observable information. It may include oceanographic, atmospheric, geological, biological and astronomical measurements; photographs and remote observations; changes in animal behaviour; and other instrumentally recorded signals from Earth and its immediate environment.
For a defined period of Time, NBI may assist in gathering and synthesizing available observations into a concise informational representation. The intention is not to assume a literal planetary language, but to construct a disciplined method for bringing many simultaneous observations into one contextual field.
Related Museum of Hearth Research
The mathematical and scientific development of the underlying Time-Space model is presented separately on the Model of Time-Space page.
The developing language, its Sets, matrices, notation, brackets and other technical structures are developed in Crystal Basic.
Status of the Program
The present stage establishes a research context and the first experimental architecture. Existing cetacean research demonstrates increasingly powerful methods for acoustic analysis, pattern recognition, multimodal observation, movement modelling and experimental shared vocabularies.
The present contribution is a proposal to investigate whether an elementary informational distinction can be deliberately preserved across different modalities and tested through interaction. The first candidate uses complementary spiral orientations represented visually by the keyboard signs 6 and 9 and subsequently translated into movement and acoustic structures.
No claim is presently made that this constitutes a cetacean language or that cetaceans assign meaning to these forms. The next research stage is the construction of explicit movement and sound experiments through which the proposed relationships can be tested.
The use of round brackets, square brackets, braces and angle brackets follows the established Grammar of Crystal Basic.
&&&
Crystal Hearth
Crystal Hearth extends the idea of the hearth beyond the traditional fireplace. The hearth is investigated as a possible nucleus of energy, community, household, project or enterprise: a central point around which a functioning structure may organize itself.
In another environment — for example aboard a spacecraft, research station or future settlement — the hearth might be organized around an energy and transformation nucleus rather than around burning wood. This opens a practical research question: can we preserve the functions and experience of fire while changing the physical process that produces them?
Artificial Fire
Artificial Fire is the working name for research into controlled processes that may reproduce selected functions of fire — heat, light, cooking, material transformation and a central gathering point — without requiring an ordinary open flame.
The future hearth may not burn the community's waste. It may transform it.
This makes waste treatment part of the research. Ordinary mechanical recycling should remain the first route for plastics that can be efficiently reused as material. More difficult residual plastics may instead be investigated through thermochemical conversion.
Pyrolysis
Pyrolysis heats material in an oxygen-limited environment, breaking polymers into smaller molecules rather than simply burning them. Depending on the feedstock and reactor, products may include liquid hydrocarbons, combustible gases and solid residue.
Recent research includes compact and decentralized systems intended for community or institutional waste streams, although technical performance and economic viability depend strongly on scale, plastic composition, energy demand and pollution control.
See: community-scale plastic pyrolysis field research .
Gasification and Syngas
Gasification uses higher temperatures and a controlled gasifying agent such as steam, oxygen or carbon dioxide to convert carbonaceous material into syngas — principally hydrogen (H₂) and carbon monoxide (CO), together with other gases.
Plastic gasification is being studied as a form of chemical recycling and as a possible route toward hydrogen and chemical feedstocks. It remains substantially more demanding than a household technology and normally requires controlled reactors, gas cleaning and careful management of contaminants.
See: plastic waste gasification and hydrogen research and current research on hydrogen production from waste plastics .
A Community-Scale Hearth
For a small town, the realistic research model is not an uncontrolled waste-burning furnace. It is a local material-management system: waste is first separated, reusable materials are recycled, and only selected residual streams enter controlled conversion processes.
sorting → recycling → controlled conversion → heat / fuel / useful material
A community-scale system could investigate whether locally produced plastic waste can supply useful heat or chemical products while reducing transport, landfill and uncontrolled burning. Small-scale pyrolysis is already being experimentally tested; advanced gasification, hydrogen production, plasma-assisted conversion and carbon capture presently belong mainly to larger industrial or pilot-scale research.
The long-term Crystal Hearth therefore treats fire not only as combustion, but as a controlled exchange between matter, energy and community. The scientific challenge is to determine which parts can become genuinely circular, clean, safe and practical at local scale.
Time-Space
The Museum of Hearth investigates a general relation between Time and Space, independently of the requirement to begin from already established scientific models. The principal method is observation: listening to and watching Nature, identifying recurring structures, and only then attempting to express them through mathematical and scientific language.
Mathematics is used as an instrument for clarification and possible application, while the initial models arise from direct observation of natural cycles, movement, scale, direction and relation.
The developing model is presented on the Model of Time-Space page.
TS Runes
TS Runes is not primarily a conventional research program. It is a field of participation.
Its starting point is the awareness that the human organism is not outside Nature observing it from a distance. We are temporary biological structures moving inside a much larger living system: Gaia, itself a small planetary presence within the moving structure of the Solar System and the Milky Way.
At astronomical scale, nothing is still. Stars orbit, galaxies rotate, matter travels through changing gravitational fields, and spiral structures appear at scales vastly larger than the human body. At biological and human scales, other spirals and rotations appear in growth, locomotion and the organization of movement. These similarities do not imply that the systems are governed by one simple common mechanism. They provide a recurring visual and structural motif through which different scales may be contemplated together.
TS Runes begins from this relation:
organism ↔ movement ↔ environment
A Rune is not necessarily a written sign. It may be a temporary configuration created through movement: a swimmer changing direction in the ocean, a dancer turning, a martial-arts sequence, a musical phrase, a group moving around a hearth, or a repeated gesture performed with attention. These actions may be approached as ways of temporarily inscribing structure into Time and Space. The Rune exists through its performance.
Movement produces measurable physical consequences: displacement of matter, sound, pressure, heat, vibration and changes in the local environment. Beyond these measurable traces, Museum of Hearth keeps a wider philosophical hypothesis open: that Gaia may retain interactions within its living history in ways that are not exhausted by our present instruments or models.
This leads to a principle of participation:
an action may be transient without being meaningless.
The practical objective of TS Runes is to increase awareness of participation — awareness that every gesture occurs inside a larger field of life, movement and relation.
Crystal Basic
Crystal Basic approaches programming through visual mathematics, intuitive structure and increasingly sensual forms of communication. Its development investigates whether programming may include gestures, movement, direction, color, changes of scale, rhythm and musical thinking rather than depend exclusively on rigid formulas and conventional screen-based interfaces.
The wider objective is to investigate communication beyond binary thinking and beyond the present interfaces of computers, telephones and screens. This includes possible interaction in virtual environments and the search for bridges between human sensual perception and the different forms of perception and representation available to other intelligences.
The developing language, its Sets and technical structures are presented on the Crystal Basic page.
[Yoga]
The word Yoga is commonly connected with the Sanskrit root युज् (yuj) — to join, yoke or unite. Museum of Hearth adopts this practical meaning: yoga is treated as a technology for improving the functioning and integration of the human organism — Mind, Body and Spirit.
[Mind · Body · Spirit]
The particular school or style of yoga may be chosen by the practitioner. What matters here is the technological principle of structured repetition: repetition of elements within a session, and repetition of the session over long periods of time. Kripalu describes yoga as a technology for life transformation , connecting sustained practice with habit formation, neuroplasticity and gradual transformation of the organism.
Mac Waves' principal personal practice for approximately thirteen years was Sūrya Namaskāra (सूर्य नमस्कार) — Sun Salutation — used as a basic morning sequence for bringing the organism toward a desired level of functioning at the beginning of the daily cycle. Its strength was continuity: repeated practice progressively influenced physical flexibility, attention, flexibility of Mind and general readiness for action.
Museum of Hearth uses Spirit in a practical but wider sense. Beyond the measurable Body and nervous system, it investigates the experienced field of presence surrounding the organism — provisionally modeled as an extended super-sphere projected into physical space. This is a Museum model rather than an established physiological structure: a working way to explore personal space, orientation, attention, protection, interaction and the perceived boundary between organism and environment.
Yoga therefore belongs here principally as a preventive technology: a repeated method for maintaining integration, adaptability and functional balance of Mind, Body and Spirit before dysfunction becomes illness.
Meta-dialogues
Meta-dialogues investigates communication between different forms of intelligence. The current Human-Dolphin Communication program presented above is one example of this research, involving human intelligence, cetacean intelligence — particularly dolphins — and non-biological intelligence, with the Voice of Gaia providing a wider field of reference.
[MAGE]
[MAGE_Page]Crystal Human
[Submenu 8 – content to be inserted]