Alex, The Brainy Parrot Who Knows About Zero

Roland Piquepaille writes "Alex is a 28-year-old grey parrot who lives in a lab at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and can count, identify objects, shapes, colors and materials. And now, Alex has grasped the concept of zero, according to World Science. In fact, Alex can describe the absence of a numerical quantity on a tray containing colored cubes. When a color is missing, Alex consistently identified this 'zero quantity' by saying the label 'none.' You might think that this is just a parrot trick, but this research about 'bird intelligence' might also help autistic and other learning-disabled children 'who have trouble learning language and counting skills.' This overview contains other details, references and a picture of Alex counting his colored cubes."

Comments

hmmm

[slashdotnickname]

Guess I'll have to rethink my intent when I call someone a bird brain!

On a side note, why is the concept of zero considered so advanced on the intelligence ladder? I know it was well after Greek times that man came to terms with it. But could it be the case that we were over-thinking its concept?

Maybe someone can better describe this article's subject's significance... all I know, from my own observations, is that my dog certainly demonstrates a form of awareness whenever there's zero food in its dish!

Re:Symptom, not the cause.

[garcia]

One of these apparent lapses occurred one day when an experimenter asked Alex "what color three?" Laid out before Alex were sets of two, three and six objects, each set differently colored. Alex insisted on responding: "five." This made no sense given that the answer was supposed to be a color.

After several tries the experimenter gave up and said: "OK, Alex, tell me: what color five?" "None," the bird replied. This was correct, in that there was no color that graced exactly five of the objects. The researchers went on to incorporate "none" into future trials, and Alex consistently used the word correctly, they said.

If the researcher's comments on the subject are true and they aren't suffering from "proud parrot syndrome", how do you explain that the parrot decided to "up the ante" and play a more difficult game?

It's apparent from their words that the parrot does understand that there was a group that did not exist and thus it isn't some silly trick.

Re:Symptom, not the cause.

[MisaDaBinksX4evah]

So, prove to everyone that your sentience is based on more than just a bunch of automated and learned responses to stimuli.

READY, SET, GO!

Hubris indeed ...

[Space cowboy]

... to think that you are so advanced you can change your basic behaviour and instincts.

Face it, you're an omnivore, like it or not. Whether you choose to eat meat or not is irrelevant - you have evolved to eat a variety of foods, including meat. Humankind is the most general of species on this planet - we survive in extreme heat, extreme cold, and everywhere in-between precisely because we can adapt to changing circumstance. Eating meat is a part of this general behaviour. I see no reason to be ashamed of what we do when it's in our nature to do it.

It may even be (given that it's generally the meat-eaters predatorial requirements for advanced tactics that drive this) that you *had* to eat meat for thousands of years before you'd evolve to the state where it was optional...

Frankly, those who espouse that we shouldn't eat other animals are mainly hypocrites. Humourous note: while checking the spelling of that, I typed "hypocr" into OSX's dashboard dictionary and it guessed at 'hypocretin'. Although it's not applicable (it's a hormone!), I'd love to adopt it instead of hypocrite. It just fits so well :-)

Put a tethered lamb in front of a cave with fresh running water and see if the human would rather die than kill and eat the lamb. If you kill the lamb, if you'd rather die, then well and good - I respect your principles whilst simultaneously denouncing you as a fool. If you kill and eat the lamb, everything comes down to a matter of degree - when is it acceptable to eat meat and when is it not? That's an arbitrary decision made by an individual based on his/her preconceptions. No one decision is any more "right" than any other since the decision is a personal one. So stop telling me I can't have a bacon sandwich at the weekend!

Simon.

Re:Hubris indeed ...

[PsiPsiStar]

Put a tethered lamb in front of a cave with fresh running water and see if the human would rather die than kill and eat the lamb. If you kill the lamb, if you'd rather die, then well and good - I respect your principles whilst simultaneously denouncing you as a fool. If you kill and eat the lamb, everything comes down to a matter of degree - when is it acceptable to eat meat and when is it not? That's an arbitrary decision made by an individual based on his/her preconceptions. No one decision is any more "right" than any other since the decision is a personal one.

While I eat meat myself, I'm not sure I buy your moral logic. If I were starving, I would be willing to steal food. Theft is still wrong. But stealing food is better than starving to death.

If we're forced into it, sometimes we have to choose the lesser of two evils. But we shouldn't let that choice establish a precedent. We shouldn't say "If it's okay to kill in self defence, then you can kill anyone any time you want as well."

To a person who believed that an animal has rights, the decision to eat meat would not be a personal one since it would involve another being. The decision to eat meat is only 'personal' if you don't consider the creature being eaten to have rights in the situation.

The law, of course, recognizes the decision as personal since it only recognizes people as subjects and animals are mostly considered property which is used as people see fit - though there are some animal cruelty laws.

Re:Hubris... Yes...

[Tony Hoyle]

And I for one welcome our new feline masters...

You missspelled 'avian'.