The Shrine

http://www.parrotresearch.com/

I seriously think these guys are just below, and sometimes reaching, the threshold of human communication.

And I think you are letting the subtitles fool you into thinking he's being coherent. I think he just learned a bunch of words and is repeating them back nonsensically.

I agree with Seraphina, it's all in your head... it's just repeating stuff cause that's what BIRDS DO. If you close your eyes and don't look at the subtitles it sounds like jibberish half the time... and at times what the subtitles say don't make sense with what the people in the video reply with.

I don't think so. Some of the videos are hard to catch, but others are pretty clear. Take a listen to this one.

First, he interprets the chirps of a fellow bird as "Betty ask for carrots", but Ryan doesn't believe him. So, for one, the owner already understands what the bird is saying without needing translation or subtitles. He accuses Victor (the bird) of lying. Victor gets mad, and says as much. Also, he understands a mental link between "lies = dishonest", when he says "He thinks that I can be dishonest." He pronounces "dis-hon-nest" pretty clearly. And then he gets mad and tells him to "go away back to school", as his raising his voice. To recap:

1. Victor somewhat understands the chirps of his fellow bird/mate, partly because his brain is trained to interpret communication.
2. The owner understands what Victor is saying without the need of repeating or translation.
3. He reflects on an earlier incident that day where Anthony (Ryan's son) didn't believe him either. (Notice the change in his voice, too. He sounds hurt.)
4. He understands the definition of "believe" and knows that "lies = dishonest"
5. He expresses emotion from frustration and verbalizes it.
6. He raises his voice to express that emotion, as humans do.

It's not such a far stretch to think that some talking birds have a capacity to go beyond mimicry. Dolphins, for example, have a spacial memory that rivals man-made sonar equipment. We can only achieve something like that by making something that would duplicate it (such as sonar). Thus, some animal brains are better than we are for certain tasks.

Perhaps budgerigars (as well as some other talking parrots) developed an evolutionary need to understand communication, so that they could interpret the chirps of many different birds, and not only repeat the chirps, but understand which chirps mean what. Not to mention that they are flock birds, and perhaps they communicate ideas of food, shelter, weather, etc. to each other better than we think.

You're fucking off your rocker Sine... forget to take your meds?

SineSwiper wrote: :

1. Victor somewhat understands the chirps of his fellow bird/mate, partly because his brain is trained to interpret communication.

OMG AN ANIMALS CAN UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER! Every fucking species communicates in some manner... how is this special?

[*]The owner understands what Victor is saying without the need of repeating or translation.

Maybe because Victor is his pet? Even I know what my cats are trying to tell me and they're not speaking English. It's just something you pick up over time... good god you have pets you know this.

[*]He reflects on an earlier incident that day where Anthony (Ryan's son) didn't believe him either. (Notice the change in his voice, too. He sounds hurt.)
[*]He understands the definition of "believe" and knows that "lies = dishonest"
[*]He expresses emotion from frustration and verbalizes it.
[*]He raises his voice to express that emotion, as humans do.[/list]

It's all rehearsed. Parrots are excellent at doing exactly that-- repeating something you teach them.

Seriously Sine, I didn't expect you to be such a gullible type.

Tessian wrote:

SineSwiper wrote:Victor somewhat understands the chirps of his fellow bird/mate, partly because his brain is trained to interpret communication.

OMG AN ANIMALS CAN UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER! Every fucking species communicates in some manner... how is this special?

Ummm...isn't that what we are arguing? Victor can understand what Betty is chirping about and then verbalizes it to a human.

Tessian wrote:

SineSwiper wrote: The owner understands what Victor is saying without the need of repeating or translation.

Maybe because Victor is his pet? Even I know what my cats are trying to tell me and they're not speaking English. It's just something you pick up over time... good god you have pets you know this.

Well, you guys seem to think that it's random syllables put together, and the sounds he makes could be thousands of other words. However, since the owner understands what he's saying, it's not simply just random sounds, nor is it a case of subtitles re-interpreting the spoken words.

The difference between your cats and this bidgie is that the bidgie CAN speak English, whereas your cats do it through body motions and meows.

Tessian wrote:

SineSwiper wrote: [*]He reflects on an earlier incident that day where Anthony (Ryan's son) didn't believe him either. (Notice the change in his voice, too. He sounds hurt.)
[*]He understands the definition of "believe" and knows that "lies = dishonest"
[*]He expresses emotion from frustration and verbalizes it.
[*]He raises his voice to express that emotion, as humans do.[/list]

It's all rehearsed. Parrots are excellent at doing exactly that-- repeating something you teach them.

Seriously Sine, I didn't expect you to be such a gullible type.

Tessian, as you typically do, you are dismissing arguments and yelling instead of actually providing evidence. If you're going to be so closed-minded about it, why the fuck are you bothering to argue with me?

It's quite a leap of faith to believe that it is rehearsed. Are you talking about rehearsed, as in Ryan taught him to respond that way and is just trying to fool us into thinking that he can really talk? If that's the case, he's certainly doing it many hundreds of times. That seems like a lot of work and a well trained parrot to be able to recite a paragraph on command. Parrots like that don't typical say what you want them to say. They aren't dogs.

Or are you saying that its rehearsed, as in the parrot is fooling his owner and everybody else? That again is quite a leap of faith. I've already provided why this is more of context conversation than rehearsed speech. It's up there in a nice and easy ordered list. But, instead of trying to pick it apart, you dismiss it haphazardly.