=A0 Tue Aug=A019,=A02008 8:57=A0am (PDT)
Interesting stuff. It always strikes me as funny that scientist seem
surprised to find self awareness in non human species. Anybody who
spends time around animals of any sort knows that they show levels of
awareness and consciousness that speak volumes. My guess is that we
don't find it more because we don't know how to look. Most interesting
to me though is the fact that all of these tests of self awareness are
based on a specific kind of self awareness. It is visual self awareness,
recognizing oneself in a mirror reflection. Certainly there are other
ways of recognizing oneself. What about tests for something like
auditory or olfactory self awareness? If we could get away from our own
biases toward the visual, we might find much more to marvel at.
Jim Lee
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I just returned from Maine and was most intersted in the article about magp=
ies since I investigate consciousness through speech research. I have menti=
oned before that we humans are very insensitive to our own language spoken =
by a bird.
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Gordon Gallup, Jr., the SUNY psychologist who began the mirror-testing flur=
ry, has backed off the importance of recognizing ones image in recent years=
. The idea of mirrors is hardly new to animals; look at the picture of a ch=
imp looking at himself in a pond featured in Gould's popular book about ani=
mals.
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The experiments with animals using human language have not been very produc=
tive in exploring the animal mind because the subject animals either do not=
have sufficient vocabulary or the creatures do not have a good understandi=
ng for the words they use. I think this is the result of the training metho=
ds used by investigators.
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Arielle is a free speaking macaw that has been educated rather than trained=
. She has spoken more than 4000 variations of words, phrases, and sentences=
. She applies cognitive speech to subjects and can voluntarily speak up to =
four sentences about a single topic of interest to her. She can relate info=
rmation about numerous topics; the most advanced concerns=A0diverse subject=
s.=A0Her undirected speech about different matters indicate that she has a =
"Theory of=A0Mind" and that she is conscious. It takes effort to listen to =
a bird's (or child's) words and most people do not try.
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Regards,
=A0
Mike
=A0
Michael Dalton
Author of
Another Kind of Mind: A Talking Bird Masters English
www.ParrotSpeech.com/Another_Mind.html=A0 (see this page for particularly c=
hallenging examples of a bird's free speech, including examples of innovati=
ve sentences and untaught complex sequences of sentences)
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