Are Words in Your Brain?

Sorry to burst your bubble Buz, but parrots can talk. Not just imitate noises or repeat things, but actually communicate through speech.

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Dr. Pepperberg’s pioneering research resulted in Alex (an African grey parrot) learning elements of English speech to identify 50 different objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities up to and including 6 and a zero-like concept. He used phrases such as “I want X” and “Wanna go Y”, where X and Y were appropriate object and location labels. He acquired concepts of categories, bigger and smaller, same-different, and absence. Alex combined his labels to identify, request, refuse, and categorize more than 100 different items demonstrating a level and scope of cognitive abilities never expected in an avian species.

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Pepperberg says that Alex showed the emotional equivalent of a 2 year-old child and intellectual equivalent of a 5 year-old.

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SourceMutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : Forgot to mention the species.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Buz,Are you actually suggesting that this parrot is a miracle parrot? If words are a function of the soul, and parrots don't have souls, a talking parrot would require a full-on, direct intervention miracle. Is that what you are suggesting?It's not just in the case of Alex either. As it says at the end the article, Dr Pepperberg now uses two more talking parrots, Griffin and Arthur. They are by no means unique. I would be very surprised if crows could not talk as well (they are excellent mimics and have an advanced brain structure similar to that of parrots).Add to this the large number of chimps, bonobos and dolphins that have also been taught to use or understand human communication and your miracle theory looks increasingly shaky. Is every one of these cases a miracle?Is everything that invalidates your whimsical notions explained by a miracle? Why is that your knee-jerk reaction, instead of assuming the far more likely explanation; that you are wrong and there is nothing uniquely human about speech?Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Unlike your dog, the parrot in question actually could talk, or at any rate, it certainly could if Dr Pepperberg's research is to be believed. It could use specific words to communicate specific ideas. It could use words for number values up to six. Your dog can't do that. Yet this is exactly what the parrot seems to have been doing. In what way is "I want X" not a logical thought expressed in words? This suggests either that Alex had a soul or that souls are not necessary for speech. No, that is exactly what Alex was not doing. Did you even read that article?

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quantities up to and including 6 and a zero-like concept. He used phrases such as “I want X” and “Wanna go Y”, where X and Y were appropriate object and location labels. He acquired concepts of categories, bigger and smaller, same-different, and absence.

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That is not just mimicry or object recognition. Pepperberg even believes that Alex was able to coin new words for new objects. Perhaps she is wrong, but her work with parrots forces us to take these ideas seriously. Actually, we are not that far apart here, we just attribute the process to different agencies. I would say that many animals show human-like mental capacities. I would also say that there are many examples of what might be considered primitive language use, emotion or intelligence amongst animals. I however see this as being an obvious implication of evolutionary theory rather than the work of a designer. It isn't at all surprising to me that a range of animals should show a varying range of cognitive abilities. But is God opening the parrot's mouth? Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Hi Phat,

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I mean, a dog barks the same in China as in Cleveland. A Cats meow sounds the same the world over.

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At the risk of coughing up more hash, I don't think that's true. Dogs are thought to show regional variation in their vocalisations. Birds certainly do.I think that the main difference is in how the vocalisation is hard-wired into the brain. Take this example of a cruel, yet fascinating experiment on chaffinches. Source There are some sonographs and audio samples on that page.In the finches, part of the actual song is hard-wired. The isolated finches' song was still recognisably chaffinch-like, but it was not well developed. This is markedly different to humans, where all that is hard-wired is the propensity to learn language; the actual specifics of the language are learnt. An English baby brought up by Chinese parents would surely have no difficulty learning Mandarin.Perhaps specific languages are hard-wired to some extent, but far less than in animals. That strikes me as the major difference between human and animal vocalisations.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade