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A parrot has a question for humans

nautil.us

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Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#61

Post by close04 »

cetalingua wrote: post #49
close04 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We viscerally understand But that's a very superficial understanding of a language. Maybe we have different concepts of what understanding a language means. Dogs are smart enough to grasp relatively advanced concepts, do you think you would understand the response if you asked "do you want food A, B, C, or D"? And I'm not talking about body language (them pointing at the thing) or training them to react in a specif…

>The meaning of a lot of human languages or alphabets is completely lost even if they were conceived by humans almost identical to us biologically. Hoping to understand alien languages without the aliens helping us is a pipe dream. There has been limited success with parts of Voynich Manuscript (some plants names?) and some interesting developments with rongorongo, but overall, yes, super hard. Hopeflly, Natural Lang…

I'm not sure the manuscript really qualifies as a language but it does highlight the difficulties in understanding an artificial construct, coming from an intelligent mind.

We understand natural constructs because we kind of understand the natural laws that govern them. We're nowhere near understanding the laws that govern the intelligent, conscious mind. Even our own.

P.S. Good luck with your project. Sounds very interesting and right on the money for this conversation.

Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#62

Post by arwineap »

cetalingua wrote: post #60
arwineap wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll pull the plug; any suggestions for further reading? > Our problem is to penetrate the communication system that is not visually based,and is purely acoustical. Given our depth in knowledge in acoustics, I'm hoping you can expand a little on this

>any suggestions for further reading? "Deep Thinkers" is a good recent book, you can check it out ( https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo27... ) >Given our depth in knowledge in acoustics, I'm hoping you can expand a little on this Our challenge is that we are visual species who are trying to understand “acoustic” species. (see ”What it is like to be a bat? https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iat…

Thank you for expanding, I appreciate the time it took and have already found further reading to be very interesting

Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#63

Post by svachalek »

logfromblammo wrote: post #45
ben_w wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also several movies about faster-than-light spaceships which are crewed by humans even during combat. Movies should not be the basis for an argument.

I very much want to see a sci-fi where combat begins with the captain (aka the token human) saying, "Ship, you are weapons-free. Lethal force is authorized." Then their acceleration pod seals, and fills up with perfluorodecalin. The rest of the action is the ship AI trying to save itself, its crew, and the cargo. If you have a FTL spaceship, the modal weapon will likely be FTL torpedoes, armed with thermonuclear warh…

I remember a book that went exactly like that back in the 80s. I just can't place what it was other than it was sci-fi of the variety that didn't take itself too seriously (maybe one of the Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh novels?).

Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#64

Post by cetalingua »

close04 wrote: post #61
cetalingua wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The meaning of a lot of human languages or alphabets is completely lost even if they were conceived by humans almost identical to us biologically. Hoping to understand alien languages without the aliens helping us is a pipe dream. There has been limited success with parts of Voynich Manuscript (some plants names?) and some interesting developments with rongorongo, but overall, yes, super hard. Hopeflly, Natural Lang…

I'm not sure the manuscript really qualifies as a language but it does highlight the difficulties in understanding an artificial construct, coming from an intelligent mind. We understand natural constructs because we kind of understand the natural laws that govern them. We're nowhere near understanding the laws that govern the intelligent, conscious mind. Even our own. P.S. Good luck with your project. Sounds very in…

Thank you!

Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#65

Post by lrem »

logfromblammo wrote: post #47
kortilla wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be ignorant, but in this case would it be more humane to own two so they can entertain each other?

There is always the risk that they won't like each other. Or that they will like each other too much, and thereby no longer have any need for the human interaction.

Yup, that happened to my family. Probably for the better... Except one of them flew off the window when cleaning the cage. Then the other inexplicably flew off a couple days later. I imagine I should thank my parents for sparing us understanding depression at such a young age.

Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#66

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

yeellow wrote: post #58
nosianu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remembered one more, just a very short story, nothing as exciting as the books: EDIT (Thanks @yeellow): Pilot Pirx => Ijon Tichy (how could I mix them up? Well, it's been two decades or so since I last read them) - ~~Pilot Pirx~~ Ijon Tichy series: I remember a short story from the "Ijon Tichy" series of stories ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Diaries ): It started with a microphone being lowered to onto t…

Lem's books are great but the hero you refer to is Ijon Tichy. Pilot Pirx is also Lem's character but stories on him are classical sf. Pirx is also a main character in Fiasco, Lem's last sf book.

> Ijon Tichy

So, if you write it Lastname Firstname, do you (almost) get Tachyon?

(I suspect Lem of always pulling legs ...)

Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#67

Post by ben_w »

logfromblammo wrote: post #45
ben_w wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also several movies about faster-than-light spaceships which are crewed by humans even during combat. Movies should not be the basis for an argument.

I very much want to see a sci-fi where combat begins with the captain (aka the token human) saying, "Ship, you are weapons-free. Lethal force is authorized." Then their acceleration pod seals, and fills up with perfluorodecalin. The rest of the action is the ship AI trying to save itself, its crew, and the cargo. If you have a FTL spaceship, the modal weapon will likely be FTL torpedoes, armed with thermonuclear warh…

Then I suggest most of the Culture battles in Iain M Banks’ works. I believe one of the passages was along the lines of: “Are we winning?” “We won several minutes ago. You’ve been watching a slow motion replay since it started.”

Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#68

Post by jcranberry »

542458 wrote: post #24
brownbat wrote: post #9

Years and years ago, there was an aol live chat with Koko, the gorilla who could sign. An early experimental cross species AMA. The crowd mostly asked questions like "is there a god?" The ape generally replied that she was bored and wanted food. Gray parrots and corvids and dolphins and squids are exceptionally fascinating and worth studying. They aren't the same as the mythologized first contact people are hoping fo…

On Koko... Koko's not all she's cracked up to be. Although there is a lot of non-scientific media that talks about her language abilities, there actually aren't very many scientific/peer reviewed articles on her, something that is the source of some contention. With Koko/many other talking apes the handler does a LOT of interpretation for the sign language, to the point that it starts to feel a bit like reading tea l…

What about new words? I remember reading an account online of someone who owned an African Grey parrot, who claimed that they called apples some word that was half banana, half cherry, because it looked like a combination of them (to the parrot).

Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#69

Post by yeellow »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #66
yeellow wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lem's books are great but the hero you refer to is Ijon Tichy. Pilot Pirx is also Lem's character but stories on him are classical sf. Pirx is also a main character in Fiasco, Lem's last sf book.

> Ijon Tichy So, if you write it Lastname Firstname, do you (almost) get Tachyon? (I suspect Lem of always pulling legs ...)

Wow, indeed. Lem is my favourite author and I read most of the books on him and his works and I am not sure I saw this. I will check if it is a well known fact but I doubt it is a coincidence.

Re: A parrot has a question for humans

#70

Post by 420basteit »

onychomys wrote: post #33
singingwolfboy wrote: post #27

You be good. I love you.

Just to be clear, he said that to whoever was putting him to bed each night. I worked in the Pepperberg lab as an undergrad back in the day, and he said that to me a hundred times too.

Very cool that you worked in that lab! Did you say I love you back when putting him to bed?
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