I love birds. I thrill to the sight and sounds of them on my walks in the country with my dogs every morning, and I’ve had a few enjoyable relationships with other people’s pet chickens. I’ve found them to be quirky, individual, and smarter than we might suppose.
I experience a wave of envy when I see a bird fly, and can immediately understand why, since ancient times, mankind has been obsessed with flight.
Among the most captivating of birds are parrots. In my cartoon above, they have literally “captivated” the captain of a pirate ship. But in general, their ability to speak has fascinated humans for who knows how long; probably since shortly after we developed language.
Some people believe parrots are merely mimicking sounds they hear, which they clearly do in nature with many types of sounds, but others are certain they take a few steps beyond mimicry and have some understanding of what the words they say mean. I fall into that second category.
It seems to me that this kind of knee-jerk skepticism is born of anthropic arrogance. Clearly, humans are at (or very close to) the top of the intelligence scale among Earth animals, but that brain power can too easily lead to an assumption that we know everything.
This is not only a fool’s illusion, it is also a pretense that we are omniscient gods. Oddly, those of us who do not believe there is a god or a higher consciousness of any kind are the most likely to pretend we know what is possible in all things. I was such a person for most of my adult life. Science became my god, and if (current) science hadn’t studied and proved it, I readily declared it to be nonsense.
In recent years, I’ve realized that was a function of my ego: I’m nobody’s fool, dammit! I need proof! was my ego’s mantra. When I gave that up, the entire universe became a more interesting place.
Consider that when Louis Pasteur discovered germs in the late 19th century, every other scientist in the world thought he’d lost his mind.
Billions of tiny, invisible colonies of animals that can kill us?! Get that man a straitjacket!
With a microscope, Pasteur looked beyond what was known in his day. Imaginative scientists who do not assume they already know everything have always been more likely to make important discoveries. Just as a closed, locked door allows no entry, a closed mind learns nothing new.
I’m remaining open-minded to the language capabilities of parrots and tons of other things a person with a locked door might consider crazy.
I’ll be expanding on this topic in a future article for The Naked Cartoonist and Medium.com. I hope you’ll drop in and join me for some philosophical fun.
The answer to why the chicken crossed the road is the same as why he took the LSD.
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