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Not language but rather physiology. Don't you sympathize the birds which are annoyed by our flickering displays?
by eimrine 4y ago
Not language but rather physiology. Don't you sympathize the birds which are annoyed by our flickering displays?
- chimpanzee 4y agoWhy not language? We could then ask them how they feel rather than just assuming. People themselves usually prefer receiving informed, accurate sympathy rather than sympathy based on crude assumptions. And physiology alone seems unlikely to tell us how they “feel” about it. Perhaps they are so amazed by the technology that they couldn’t care less about the flicker :)
- eimrine 4y agoWe can barely do this to apes (gorilla Koko and maybe few others). Best cognitive interaction what the best educated birds can perform is to count 2+3 verbally (some African grey parrot).
- astrange 4y agoWe can't teach language to apes. Chimps can learn words, but a sentence isn't a bag of words, and they don't use recursion or even ask questions. Parrots actually do better.
- IIAOPSW 4y agoThere's no grammar, and thus no arbitrary construction of concepts beyond the fixed literal vocabulary. Without meaning in word order, there's no difference between "what the cat ate" and "what ate the cat". I wouldn't call it "language" for the same reason I wouldn't call HTML "programming". It does something adjacent, has some superficial similarities, but its limited in what it can ultimately be used for.
- chimpanzee 4y agoSome words, like “language”, are often used in the common sense rather than the technical sense. Sometimes for simplicity. Sometimes for humor. And sometimes it happens on Hacker News. But, if we’re being pedantic, I should mention that there are languages that do not require ordering for meaning but instead use declensions and conjugations (though ordering may still be used for further expressiveness). Though maybe you include this in your “fixed literal vocabulary”. Edit: A quick search suggest parrots can indeed use a basic grammar via sentence structuring. One of a few relevant search results: https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/polly-wants-a-conjunction-birds-learn-artificial-grammar/#:~:text=It%20turns%20out%20we're,on%20par%20with%20infant%20humans https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/polly-wants-a-con....
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- arcanemachiner 4y agoWe've already jumped to assuming the birds are annoyed? What if it's more like using an old telephone or a black-and-white TV? A hindrance, but better than what came before?
- eimrine 4y ago> We've already jumped to assuming the birds are annoyed? If our displays flicker to them, which is a highly probable, it is annoyance by any definition. It may be not annoying to spiders which have a tiny brain and live in a world of mechanical sense, but birds are smart and most of their brain is shaped for visual data. > A hindrance, but better than what came before? How can this statement be applied to birds? They neither expect nor desire all these technology and the only reason they are not scared of it is a professionalism of their caretakers.
- teapot7 4y ago> If our displays flicker to them, which is a highly probable, it is annoyance by any definition. Well, an annoyance by your definition. Not sure how you managed to declare it universal.
- eimrine 4y agoIf you name me at least one source of flickering available to parrots in the wild, I consider my assumption wrong. You sound like a superoptimist advising to drive a screw with a hammer. And you know the superoptimist is not totally wrong because it is really possible in some circumstances.