LibriumArcana.Games

1. Collect several African Grey Parrots, enough for a good genetic spread

2. Feed them a very high protien diet

3. Force them to do complex problem solving to get their food

4. Breed them and continue this program for several generations until they develope human or greater intelligence

...

n. Get a secret island base, perferably in a volcano with my face carved on the side of it

n+1. World Domination!

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What would you think of a program like this, to creat a recognizably sapient species? Well, minus the mad science aspect.

edit: I wanted to bread them. Tasty breaded parrots.

How long is a grey parrot generation? I think you might be waiting a loooonnnnngggg time. Consider how long it took us to get where we are.

Course you could try fucking with their genes and engineering them as a short cut, but I can't promise you'll get what you want.

As an owner of birds, and having owned some of the more "intelligent" species thereof that are commonly pet birds, I don't believe your idea would work the way you think it would. Birds are intelligent creatures, but only to an extent.

There are some that, properly trained, can learn over a hundred words and use them meaningfully. This takes years and years of individual training in a very intelligent species to do this. They have great memories and are adept at improvising and investigating new ways of accomplishing things. About 15 years ago it was noticed that ravens in japan would drop or place walnuts on busy streets in between lights, so cars would roll over them and crack them open. Next light cycle they would eat their meal.

Birds are intelligent but a lot of this comes from social neccesity, not a physical one. This, however, seems to be restricted to corvids and only a few species of parrots. And while their social learning mimics ours, as well as chimps and dolphins, they generally are only capable of posessing an intelligence and understanding of that of a 2-3 year old. I don't think this would qualify them for recognizably sapient. We recognize dolphins and chimps as intelligent, but not neccessarily sapient.

Now if you wanted to train them to attack people or drop rocks on things, yeah that could be done probably relatively easily. But carrying on anything more then a very limited(again, 2-3 year old) conversation consisting of a very limited vocabulary would be unlikely. Most of their conversation is rote or mimiced with only a little real understanding of what they're after.

JEAP wrote:1. Collect several African Grey Parrots, enough for a good genetic spread

2. Feed them a very high protien diet

3. Force them to do complex problem solving to get their food

4. Breed them and continue this program for several generations until they develope human or greater intelligence

...

n. Get a secret island base, perferably in a volcano with my face carved on the side of it

n+1. World Domination!

---

What would you think of a program like this, to creat a recognizably sapient species? Well, minus the mad science aspect.

edit: I wanted to bread them. Tasty breaded parrots.

This would not work. Flat out. Would. Not. Work.

African Grays are smart for birds, but each individual, as already said, requires yearsof specialized instruction before they can actually grasp the concepts. And even if you selectively breed for intelligence, it is going to take a LOT of generations. They are limited in large part by brain size as well, so you would have to select for larger braincases and it would get very very complex and nasty.

It would be better do do similar things with dolphins or chimps, and even then, figuring out which genese influence intelligence and braincase saize and messing with those would be better.

I was thinking about Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis. Their brain sizes went from 500cc to 1200cc and from what I've read it is most likely linked to their diet- they were able to regurarly get meat for their food. And our final jump into Homo Sapiens may have been linked to us living near the shore and eating a lot of fish.

Actually it was this German Boarder Collie that got me thinking about this. He learns the same way we do, by fast mapping the words. Or at least using the canine equivalent of it. It demonstrates my question to a certain extent- we've been breeding collies for several centuries to get the qualities we want.

Though you're right, without better genetic engineering something like this is beyond our abilities. The semi-natural evolution way I'm suggesting would only work if we had the lifespans of redwoods.

Never mind the border collie compairison, dog brains are actually noticably smaller than wolf brains in animals of similar size. One anecdotal quote put it at a 30% difference.

[quote=Comrade Tortoise]African Grays are smart for birds, but each individual, as already said, requires yearsof specialized instruction before they can actually grasp the concepts.[/quote]

I got to thinking about this more, and would you say that this is any different than raising a child? I went through 9 years of primary school, 4 years of secondary, and am still going through college. That can be condensed down a bit, but I basically have spent the first twenty years of my life being taught how to function.

I got to thinking about this more, and would you say that this is any different than raising a child? I went through 9 years of primary school, 4 years of secondary, and am still going through college. That can be condensed down a bit, but I basically have spent the first twenty years of my life being taught how to function.

Put it this way, when you hit puperty, you could breed, and if we decided to do selectie breeding on humans for intelligence, we would know already if you were a candidate.

With Grays, they require not only much more intensive training in order to even dtermine if they are a candidate for breeding thn a humn would, but their reproductive lifespans are half over before it is even determinable.

On a side note, if you really wanted to make super-intelligent birds and didn't mind how long it would take, etc, you'd have to ditch flying. Not that a parrot is less of a parrot for being flightless, but they just can't afford the heavy brain weight if they want to fly.

So if you had any evil plans involving them flying out from your secret base to do their secret missions, you'd better teach them to be pilots and provide the stealth jets yourself.