Hacker News Reader

Comment by eimrine | Hacker News Reader

Not language but rather physiology. Don't you sympathize the birds which are annoyed by our flickering displays?

Why 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 :)

There'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.

Some 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-con....

We 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).

We 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.

We'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?

> 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.

> nor desire all these technology

Are you sure? Parrots are highly social creatures. Very possible that they do desire if not the technology, but the connection it gives them.

> the only reason they are not scared of it is a professionalism of their caretakers

Maybe. Maybe not. You have way too much confidence for something we do not know enough about.

> 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.

If 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.

So your working definition of annoyance is "that which cannot be found in the natural world"?

That oscillation which can not be found in the natural world.

Especially if it is not possible to escape from this oscillation (caretaker want the parrot to interact with the display).

Especially if it is in the animal's favorite kind of sense (mechanical oscillation of a spiderweb is a working way to annoy the owning it spider).

Most people rather like music.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com