What's irrational about a bird responding to another bird's call, though?
I always figured, unlike human speech, bird song contained only truth - 100% real-time factual representation of reproductive fitness/compatibility, 0% fractal bullshitting (such as arguing about definitions of abstract notions, or endless rumination and reflection, or command hierarchies built to leak, or...).
Although who knows, really! I'm just guessing here. Maybe what we oughtta do is ask some actual ornithologists to ask an actual parrot to translate for us the songs of its distant relatives. Sounds crazy enough to work -- though probably not in captivity.
Overall I see your point, and I see many people sharing that perspective; personally, I find it rather disheartening. Tbh I'm not even sure what would be a convincing argument one way or the other.
I always figured, unlike human speech, bird song contained only truth - 100% real-time factual representation of reproductive fitness/compatibility, 0% fractal bullshitting (such as arguing about definitions of abstract notions, or endless rumination and reflection, or command hierarchies built to leak, or...).
Although who knows, really! I'm just guessing here. Maybe what we oughtta do is ask some actual ornithologists to ask an actual parrot to translate for us the songs of its distant relatives. Sounds crazy enough to work -- though probably not in captivity.
Overall I see your point, and I see many people sharing that perspective; personally, I find it rather disheartening. Tbh I'm not even sure what would be a convincing argument one way or the other.