Conversations with a wise-cracking telepathic parrot

[hot_pastrami]

I found this interesting... An article on BBC News discusses N'kisi, a captive four-and-a-half year old African Gray Parrot who has a surprisingly good grasp of the English language. He goes beyond mimicking... he invents words and phrases when confronted with new things, and understands how to use past-, present-, and future-tense words. He has a vocabularly of about 950 documented words.

From the BBC article:
He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.

One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.

When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?"

To further the mystery, this parrot has demonstrated the ability to read his owner's mind...

From a USA Today article:
According to Sheldrake, N'Kisi made 123 comments during the test sessions, and 32 of those were "direct hits" corresponding to the images Morgana was looking at. The chances of that occurring, Sheldrake says, are less than 1 in a billion.

From the N'kisi Project Home Page:
N'kisi appears to telepathically "surf" the leading edge of Aimee's consciousness, responding to the spontaneous moment of discovery rather than to any consciously projected thoughts.

He's also shown signs of a sense of humor, with phrases like the "Got a chimp?" comment described above:

From the BBC Article:
He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera."

Fascinating. I remain skeptical about the alleged psychic abilities, but one way or the other that's one smart bird, and he's got a mean vocabulary. Parrots have lifespans similar to humans, so it'll be interesting to see how much his vocabularly manages to develop, and to see if he can ever really express anything beyond commenting on what he observes.