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Old 20-07-2008, 11:07 PM   #32 (permalink)
TheAesthete
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i'd like to stop you there for a second. Firstly memetics is a very dificult skill, i no way belittle it. And, as i said above, many creatures have better memetic skills than us. However copying someone is not the same as a transfer of content. When a parrot says "square" because you show it a square object, it does not have the concept of a square, it just as a behavioural response. (behavioural responses can be very complex, things like mating riturals in many species show us this)
When i talk of intelligence in this context i do not mean anything like inventors or scientists. I am talking about the basic capacities of our species, at the basic level.

As i said above, many animals display certain qaulities which you could refer to as intelligent, i've done a lot of research into great ape abilities, particularlly the cognitive side of things, and i can assure you, although its very exciting some of the things they can do, their cognitive abilities are stunted at a 4yrold childs level.

Research with animals such as parrots is very dodgy, and the stuff i've looked over is often discredited by many phychologists because of the way the birds are taught words. (given food for getting things right etc) This way of teaching encourages behavioural traits to develop, not concepts to be learnt.

We barely understand how brains can hold concepts/content (on the meta level not the physical mechanics) at the moment, and how representations can form inside a mind. But one key thing that seems essential is language. Without looking into the details of that second parrot you showed the wiki page of i can't comment on its perosnal situation. But i am confident that that parrot has no idea what its actually saying. As far as it is concerned it is making noise to gain itself food or what ever it wants.
Its like when i shout "food" to my cat. She gets up and runs to me very excited. She doesn't know what "food" means it is just a behavioural response because when ever if done it before i've put food down on her bowl.


***edit***
and apologies for my spelling, i know its awful, but i'm so used to an automatic spell check that i've lost the habit of proof reading.
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