When a parrot says something like "hi", "I love you" or "f@#% off", you obviously assume that it doesn't really know what it's saying - they're just mimicking human words in the same way that they'd copy the sound of a barking dog, or even (as some parrot owners know) a cell phone ringing.
Alex the Parrot was different, though: he could correctly identify 50 different shapes, recognize numbers up to six, distinguish seven colors, and understand qualities such as bigger, smaller, same, and different. By the end of his life, he was getting closer to grasping the concept of nothingness.
Alex didn’t just associate a word with a specific object but he could generalize which is usually something only humans can only do. For example, when shown various keys, he could recognize that they were thing and even point out differences in size and colour.
That bird behaves more like a human than half the people we saw on the subway this morning. One day, as Dr. Irene was closing up the lab, Alex said goodbye by telling her to "be good." Irene replied by saying "I love you," to which Alex answered, "I love you too." He then asked: "You'll be in tomorrow?" Irene assured him that, yes, he'd see her tomorrow.
The next morning, Alex was dead.
- Ammar
- Ammar
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