Plant feelings

[Runewolf1973]

Thanks for the reply, Copernicus. I greatly appreciate and have utmost respect for your insight on the matter, however perhaps it is just in my nature to look beyond the material existence of things. This life, this physical existence to me is like a doorway. The door seems solid and physical, but I am interested in what lies beyond that door. The gateway to the soul. This not because I question it, but because I have seen it with my own eyes. It is a personal experience.

 

[Eddy Daze]

maybe worth buying this mag, or seeing if they hhave it at the library
Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New Scientist

 

[Copernicus]

In animals. Again you are comparing cows and apple trees. Now cows and worms.

Sorry, Painted Wolf, but we must be getting our wires crossed. I thought it was you who was attributing human-like emotions to plants, arguing that they could evolve something like "an alternative to a brain". If such an alternative existed, I think that, like the brain, it would have a physical locus in the plant. We can, of course, imagine all sorts of possibilities.

And sometimes we are blinded by expectations and don't see what is in front of us. There are still people who believe that animals do not have any emotion and its only humans who do.

Agreed. I think that most people who make such claims know on some level that they are wrong, but perhaps they feel the need to avoid feeling empathy for animals. After all, we treat them as property, and people are often quite cruel to them.

Informed by assumptions. Again, it was once informed opinion that beating a dog didn't actually hurt the dogs psyche.

I don't disagree that animals have emotions and mental states. They have brains. We were talking about the possibility that plants can have the same. It is not an assumption that plants lack brains. It is an observation. So what could possibly give rise to mental states and emotions in plants? If you are claiming that they have unobservable powers of some sort, then I suppose I would have to say that your claim is the one "informed by assumption".

you don't agree that asking Alex what one truck plus one truck is and having him clearly answer two truck is valid?

If you read your own articles carefully, you will see that the scientists involved hedge their language about the parrot. They admit that the parrot's concept of "zero" is not the same as ours. In fact, what they are doing is a "Clever Hans" act, and they are gaining some publicity for their work in the metaphorical way that they present it to others, especially reporters. Just because a parrot says "none", that does not mean that it has the mathematical concept of zero, which is a necessary tool in our ability to represent and perform operations on very large numbers. It is more than just a concept of "absence". All they are saying is what we know all sorts of animals to be capable of. They are saying that the animal can notice the disappearance of objects. If it could not, then it would have an extremely poor model of reality to work with.

I have seen this sort of thing a lot in papers on animal psychology. As a linguist, I know something about the properties of human language, but psychologists who work with animals quite often do not. So they tend to project their own ideas about human language onto the animals when they are doing experiments in animal communication. This tendency has led to a lot of extremely bad research that has made it into the popular press. The researchers are very sophisticated about animal behavior and ought to know better, but they often lack fairly rudimentary knowledge about human language. I suspect that this is part of the problem with the parrot study, but I have only your two articles to go on. It might be that the reporters have somewhat sensationalized what the scientists told them about their work.

 

[Copernicus]

Thanks for the reply, Copernicus. I greatly appreciate and have utmost respect for your insight on the matter, however perhaps it is just in my nature to look beyond the material existence of things. This life, this physical existence to me is like a doorway. The door seems solid and physical, but I am interested in what lies beyond that door. The gateway to the soul. This not because I question it, but because I have seen it with my own eyes. It is a personal experience.

And I thank you for your perspective, Runewolf. I appreciate your point.

 

[painted wolf]

Sorry, Painted Wolf, but we must be getting our wires crossed. I thought it was you who was attributing human-like emotions to plants, arguing that they could evolve something like "an alternative to a brain". If such an alternative existed, I think that, like the brain, it would have a physical locus in the plant. We can, of course, imagine all sorts of possibilities.

I'm just pointing out that plants do not have centralized systems in the way animals do. Thus to expect a physical locus like that of animals is unproductive. What would a plant system look like? Could we even recognize it?

It is not an assumption that plants lack brains. It is an observation. So what could possibly give rise to mental states and emotions in plants? If you are claiming that they have unobservable powers of some sort, then I suppose I would have to say that your claim is the one "informed by assumption".

The assumption is that only an animal type brain is capable of these states. True it is based on observation but it is the "all swans are white" fallacy. Future observations may change things, you may find your black swan.

If you read your own articles carefully, you will see that the scientists involved hedge their language about the parrot.

Scientists always hedge their language... it's one of the first things you learn to do when talking about science.

They admit that the parrot's concept of "zero" is not the same as ours.

Sadly, Alex died at a young age, before more testing could be done. Hopefully the other parrots in the program can shed more light on this.

If you want definitive language, then science publications are not for you.

wa:do

 

[Copernicus]

I'm just pointing out that plants do not have centralized systems in the way animals do. Thus to expect a physical locus like that of animals is unproductive. What would a plant system look like? Could we even recognize it?

Possibly not, but what reason would one have to imagine something there that we cannot detect?

The assumption is that only an animal type brain is capable of these states. True it is based on observation but it is the "all swans are white" fallacy. Future observations may change things, you may find your black swan.

True, but what does it buy you to assume the existence of a black swan if all the ones you see are white? I have never seen a unicorn, so what would it do for me to assume that unicorns exist? I have never seen a horse with wings either. Unlike the black swan and unicorn, I have a much better reason not to expect ever to find one. What we know about evolution and flight dynamics makes it extremely unlikely that such an animal ever would come into existence. In the case of plants having feelings, that's more in the flying horse category.

Scientists always hedge their language... it's one of the first things you learn to do when talking about science.

Yes, and I've had quite a few discussions with animal behavior experts, too. The kind of hedging you see in that article usually indicates a serious "Clever Hans" event taking place. The article talked about animal call systems as if they were only recently discovered and revealed some rather newly discovered things about animal cognition. Nonsense. This sort of research has been going on for decades.

Sadly, Alex died at a young age, before more testing could be done. Hopefully the other parrots in the program can shed more light on this.

Parrots are very intelligent birds, but they are still birds.

If you want definitive language, then science publications are not for you.

Actually, science publications are usually meticulous about definitive language. What you are looking at on the web are popular science articles, not real scientific publications. Take them with a grain of salt. Often they are PR exercises for the universities and businesses that promote them.

 

[painted wolf]

True, but what does it buy you to assume the existence of a black swan if all the ones you see are white? I have never seen a unicorn, so what would it do for me to assume that unicorns exist? I have never seen a horse with wings either. Unlike the black swan and unicorn, I have a much better reason not to expect ever to find one. What we know about evolution and flight dynamics makes it extremely unlikely that such an animal ever would come into existence. In the case of plants having feelings, that's more in the flying horse category.

Actually there is good phylogenetic and morphological reasons against unicorns and winged horses.
There is no such limit on a black swan. There is no such limit on plants. Unless you know a good reason plants cant transmit and store information? Since we know they can transmit information perhaps sticking with storing information.

Yes, and I've had quite a few discussions with animal behavior experts, too. The kind of hedging you see in that article usually indicates a serious "Clever Hans" event taking place. The article talked about animal call systems as if they were only recently discovered and revealed some rather newly discovered things about animal cognition. Nonsense. This sort of research has been going on for decades.

They have only been explored recently. Prior assumptions was that animals were incapable of useful or complex communication because that was a human quality.
Again, all scientist use 'soft' language when discussing research. That is the way it works, because there is always room for more experimentation.

Parrots are very intelligent birds, but they are still birds.

Indeed they are, I never suggested the were anything but.
Birds are as highly evolved as any mammal. Many groups of birds are self aware and capable of abstract thought. They evolved the capabilities in parallel to mammals.
Your anthrocentric bias is showing again.

Actually, science publications are usually meticulous about definitive language. What you are looking at on the web are popular science articles, not real scientific publications. Take them with a grain of salt. Often they are PR exercises for the universities and businesses that promote them.

Actually I read Science and Nature among other publications.

wa:do

 

[Copernicus]

Actually there is good phylogenetic and morphological reasons against unicorns and winged horses. There is no such limit on a black swan. There is no such limit on plants. Unless you know a good reason plants cant transmit and store information? Since we know they can transmit information perhaps sticking with storing information.

I am surprised that you seem to understand why winged horses are unlikely, but you cannot seem to fathom why plants ought not be expected to develop emotions. I see a glaring inconsistency there. Emotions are not about the transmission of information. My computer does that just fine, and I am reasonably certain that it has no emotions, despite its occasional malevolent behavior.

They have only been explored recently. Prior assumptions was that animals were incapable of useful or complex communication because that was a human quality. Again, all scientist use 'soft' language when discussing research. That is the way it works, because there is always room for more experimentation.

Painted Wolf, let me try to put this to you more plainly. I have worked with that literature on a professional basis. I have also interacted with researchers on animal communication. You have not. Please do not try to lecture me on how scientists behave or when they started studying the phenomenon. One of the pioneering researchers in that area was Thomas Sebeok, who began publishing decades ago. I may be wrong, but I think that all you know about what goes on in that field is what you have read in a few popular science journals. Those two articles you cited struck me as rather vague and inconclusive about the research that has been going on for a very long time. BTW, do you know the difference between bird song and bird calls? Do you understand that humans have a complex system of primate "calls" (screams, laughter, grunts, sighs, etc.), which is quite distinct from a natural language?

Birds are as highly evolved as any mammal. Many groups of birds are self aware and capable of abstract thought. They evolved the capabilities in parallel to mammals.
Your anthrocentric bias is showing again.

No, it isn't. I am well aware of the fact that birds have some advanced abilities, but nothing that really comes close to what we see in primates and many other mammals. Most researchers tend to be very cautious about making grandiose claims, but what gets reported about their research sometimes takes metaphorical description much too literally. Some mammals can recognize reflections of their own images, which is a sign of very highly evolved cognition. I'm not sure that that capability has been seen in any birds yet. Crows are widely regarded as the birds with the most highly evolved intelligence. They are even tool users, although not quite as advanced as primates. Parrots have some interesting linguistic capabilities, but they are severely limited. For example, they do not hear the same speech sounds that humans do, although they are great at mimicking human speech.

 

[painted wolf]

I am surprised that you seem to understand why winged horses are unlikely, but you cannot seem to fathom why plants ought not be expected to develop emotions. I see a glaring inconsistency there. Emotions are not about the transmission of information. My computer does that just fine, and I am reasonably certain that it has no emotions, despite its occasional malevolent behavior.

Again you are comparing cows and corn not cows and worms.
I understand that you will not find structures outside of the genus let alone class of an animal or plant.
This does not stop plants from developing their own systems.

Just because birds have wings does not means that bats can not. They must be different and of unique evolutionary heritage.

A plant will no more develop a animal type brain then it will a animal type heart. Yet a plant is able to move fluid quickly and efficiently through its body. It has a unique plant solution to the issue.

Stop demanding animal structures from plants... and stop insisting that the animal solution is the only evolutionary solution.

So again, please stop expecting a Larch to evolve like a Lemur.

Painted Wolf, let me try to put this to you more plainly. I have worked with that literature on a professional basis. I have also interacted with researchers on animal communication. You have not.

In what capacity do you work on this?
And yes, I work mostly with physiology and behavior rather than communication. Limulus isn't a very talkative genus.

Please do not try to lecture me on how scientists behave or when they started studying the phenomenon. One of the pioneering researchers in that area was Thomas Sebeok, who began publishing decades ago. I may be wrong, but I think that all you know about what goes on in that field is what you have read in a few popular science journals.

Please do not patronize me. I read more than "pop sci". I am a working biologist thank you.
I'm sorry I did not post journal articles for you to look at, I was unaware that you had more than a "pop sci" level of science background.

Those two articles you cited struck me as rather vague and inconclusive about the research that has been going on for a very long time.

Pop sci articles can be vague.
Here is the actual paper.
http://www.alexfoundation.org/pdf/irene_pdf/JCP Alex Add.pdf

BTW, do you know the difference between bird song and bird calls?

Yup.

Do you understand that humans have a complex system of primate "calls" (screams, laughter, grunts, sighs, etc.), which is quite distinct from a natural language?

Yup.

wa:do

 

[Copernicus]

Again you are comparing cows and corn not cows and worms.

I am not comparing plants to animals. By accepting the discredited "plant feelings" research, that is precisely what you are doing. Alex, the grey parrot, could characterize the evidence you have presented in favor of that hypothesis: "None".

I understand that you will not find structures outside of the genus let alone class of an animal or plant.
This does not stop plants from developing their own systems.

Really? You claim to be a biologist. Tell me why they would evolve emotions and cognition. And please explain what structures in the plant might evolve such tendencies. Why is this more plausible to you than a winged horse?

Just because birds have wings does not means that bats can not. They must be different and of unique evolutionary heritage.

Parallel evolution is well-known in animals. Birds and bats more recent common ancestry than plants and animals. In particular, their wings evolved on limbs. Plants do not have nervous systems, let alone central nervous systems. So what you are suggesting here is not just unfounded. It is absurd.

A plant will no more develop a animal type brain then it will a animal type heart. Yet a plant is able to move fluid quickly and efficiently through its body. It has a unique plant solution to the issue.

What does that have to do with emotions and thoughts?

Stop demanding animal structures from plants... and stop insisting that the animal solution is the only evolutionary solution.

I am not "demanding" any such thing. I am pointing out that mental function is associated with brains in animals. Plants lack the requisite equipment. If you wish to advance some hypothesis regarding plant cognition, please explain how they might do it without a limbic system. Exactly what are you talking about?

So again, please stop expecting a Larch to evolve like a Lemur.

:cover:

In what capacity do you work on this?

I used to teach linguistics courses at Columbia and Barnard, some of which were devoted to psycholinguistic topics such as language acquisition. In that capacity, I had a number of interactions with folks doing research on chimpanzee language acquisition in the Psychology department. I followed the literature for a while, but animal communication was not my area of specialization. I was more interested in human acquisition and language disorders. Nowadays, I specialize in robotics and computational linguistics.

And yes, I work mostly with physiology and behavior rather than communication. Limulus isn't a very talkative genus.

I'm glad to hear that you have some expertise. I would hazard a guess that horseshoe crabs are a lot more emotional than plants.

I'm sorry I did not post journal articles for you to look at, I was unaware that you had more than a "pop sci" level of science background.

No problem, and thanks for posting the paper, which is a lot more interesting. My opinion has not changed that the researchers involved have been engaged in an elaborate "Clever Hans" exercise. They themselves admit that the parrot didn't really have a mathematical concept of zero, although the dance around it a lot. Their bibliography did not seem to have many references to the extensive literature on animal communication that goes back to the 1960s, but they must be aware of some of it. They do not appear to have any linguistic training at all.

I've seen this go on a lot with researchers in chimpanzee communication who do not have any linguistic training. And they have made real progress in getting chimps to communicate with researchers in a rudimentary kind of sign language. It just isn't a real language like human sign language is. As you may know, linguistic capacity in humans is largely innate. Primates have good general cognitive skills, but their brains are not specialized for language, as ours are.

 

[Eddy Daze]

Cop and PW...Not read all your stuff but would you agree on this, that plants have a lesser developed nervous system?

 

[painted wolf]

Plants don't have an animal type nervous system. They transmit information in a different way from animals. This is because they have to deal with cellular walls that animals don't have.

wa:do

 

[painted wolf]

By accepting the discredited "plant feelings" research, that is precisely what you are doing.

When did I say I accepted that research? I don't.

Really? You claim to be a biologist. Tell me why they would evolve emotions and cognition. And please explain what structures in the plant might evolve such tendencies. Why is this more plausible to you than a winged horse?

Acacia trees (and many other plants) communicate danger to one another via chemical signals. The selective pressure is for better communication and interpretation of that danger.

How is that less probable than a flying horse?

Parallel evolution is well-known in animals. Birds and bats more recent common ancestry than plants and animals. In particular, their wings evolved on limbs. Plants do not have nervous systems, let alone central nervous systems. So what you are suggesting here is not just unfounded. It is absurd.

I never said they did have a nervous system... I have repeatedly said they do not.
You repeatedly insist that they need one. They do not, it would never work for an organism with cellular walls.
:banghead3:

I said... and I am saying one last time. That plants would evolve a unique solution to the isssue, like they did for cellular communication. It would not be an animal solution though it could well function in the same capacity as an animal system.

What does that have to do with emotions and thoughts?

It was an example that obviously you missed the point of.
It has nothing to do with emotions or thoughts, it has everything to do with demonstrating that expecting an animal type system in a plant is futile.

I am not "demanding" any such thing. I am pointing out that mental function is associated with brains in animals. Plants lack the requisite equipment.

And I'm telling you that the premise is flawed.
Naturally plants will lack the animal equipment. Plants lack a heart too but they move fluids just fine.

If you wish to advance some hypothesis regarding plant cognition, please explain how they might do it without a limbic system. Exactly what are you talking about?

It would be an advancement on plant cellular communication. Either in the way molecular signals are shunted through the plasmodesmata or in some other area of cell signaling.
Again the question is how would we identify such a system?
If most people are willing to assume it can't exist, because only animals can have an advanced signaling system, then why would it ever be noticed?

I used to teach linguistics courses at Columbia and Barnard, some of which were devoted to psycholinguistic topics such as language acquisition. In that capacity, I had a number of interactions with folks doing research on chimpanzee language acquisition in the Psychology department. I followed the literature for a while, but animal communication was not my area of specialization. I was more interested in human acquisition and language disorders. Nowadays, I specialize in robotics and computational linguistics.

What is your view on analog robots? I admit I know little about them, but I find the idea very interesting. And the implications for 'intelligence'. Analog vs. Digital.
It would be nice to have the view of someone with more experience.

I'm glad to hear that you have some expertise. I would hazard a guess that horseshoe crabs are a lot more emotional than plants.

Oh I don't know, we have a 'touch me not' upstairs that is at least as responsive.

No problem, and thanks for posting the paper, which is a lot more interesting. My opinion has not changed that the researchers involved have been engaged in an elaborate "Clever Hans" exercise. They themselves admit that the parrot didn't really have a mathematical concept of zero, although the dance around it a lot. Their bibliography did not seem to have many references to the extensive literature on animal communication that goes back to the 1960s, but they must be aware of some of it. They do not appear to have any linguistic training at all.

Your welcome.
Perhaps if a linguist were to aid in the research more could be discovered.
As I said, like most preliminary findings this will need more detailed experimentation. It will be interesting to see if the other parrots in the study group are capable as well. Parrots in other separate study groups would be useful as well.
If not, then it is absolutely a 'cleaver hans'.

I've seen this go on a lot with researchers in chimpanzee communication who do not have any linguistic training. And they have made real progress in getting chimps to communicate with researchers in a rudimentary kind of sign language. It just isn't a real language like human sign language is. As you may know, linguistic capacity in humans is largely innate. Primates have good general cognitive skills, but their brains are not specialized for language, as ours are.

Spoken language yes, but from an evolutionary standpoint chimps must have strong precursors for language. Its only a few mutations that separate our and their abilities.
But I suppose this is dependent on what you consider language.

wa:so

 

[Eddy Daze]

I think once we start tarring part of his work with a brush, we will tar the whole of it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(paranormal)

 

[painted wolf]

There are very good reasons to be skeptical.
Extraordinary findings of single experimenters need to be confirmed by the work of others.
The more extraordinary the claim, the more evidence is needed.

wa:do

 

[Copernicus]

By accepting the discredited "plant feelings" research, that is precisely what you are doing.[/i]

When did I say I accepted that research? I don't.

Sorry if I misconstrued your remarks. I have been arguing against the "Backster Effect", and I thought that you were trying to offer some kind of defense of it.

...Tell me why they would evolve emotions and cognition. And please explain what structures in the plant might evolve such tendencies. Why is this more plausible to you than a winged horse?

Acacia trees (and many other plants) communicate danger to one another via chemical signals. The selective pressure is for better communication and interpretation of that danger.

OK, but my smoke alarm communicates danger to me via sound waves. There is selective pressure to improve them in the market for smoke alarms. The behavior of my smoke alarm is not in any reasonable sense an emotional response to its detection of smoke.

I said... and I am saying one last time. That plants would evolve a unique solution to the isssue, like they did for cellular communication. It would not be an animal solution though it could well function in the same capacity as an animal system.

If your argument does not rise above the level of a metaphor, then I can accept it in that sense.

It has nothing to do with emotions or thoughts, it has everything to do with demonstrating that expecting an animal type system in a plant is futile.

I think that we can claim violent agreement on rejecting the expectation that it is useful to confuse plant systems with animal systems, although there can be some rather startling cases of similarities (e.g. the evolution of carnivorous plants).

I am not "demanding" any such thing. I am pointing out that mental function is associated with brains in animals. Plants lack the requisite equipment.

And I'm telling you that the premise is flawed. Naturally plants will lack the animal equipment. Plants lack a heart too but they move fluids just fine.

So does a heart and a bladder, but it would misleading to argue that they have mental function. What is the idea that you are trying to convey other than the obvious one that you can draw analogies between any two things that are different? Analogies can be very useful, but yours strikes me as misleading in the context of this thread.

If you wish to advance some hypothesis regarding plant cognition, please explain how they might do it without a limbic system. Exactly what are you talking about?

It would be an advancement on plant cellular communication. Either in the way molecular signals are shunted through the plasmodesmata or in some other area of cell signaling.
Again the question is how would we identify such a system?
If most people are willing to assume it can't exist, because only animals can have an advanced signaling system, then why would it ever be noticed?

Sometimes analogies can help us understand new ideas, but they can also create misunderstanding because of the conceptual baggage that they drag along with them. You seem to have aligned yourself with the side of the discussion that is making some fairly silly claims about the nature of plants, although I admit that your ideas are more informed by technical expertise than I had originally thought.

What is your view on analog robots? I admit I know little about them, but I find the idea very interesting. And the implications for 'intelligence'. Analog vs. Digital.

That's a fascinating subject, but almost all of my experience has been in the digital world. I've been more involved in the subject of conversational interactions between humans and machines--what we refer to as 'dialogue management'. I suspect that analog robotics is going to be the driving paradigm in nanotechnology. If one thinks about modeling the behavior of neurons in a brain, then I think that we are still a very long way away from significant insights in how to do that. The brain is such a complex and convoluted machine. But I am more hopeful about the development of insect-like behavior. We have already produced some interesting flying behavior by studying the way insects and birds "swarm".

Perhaps if a linguist were to aid in the research more could be discovered.
As I said, like most preliminary findings this will need more detailed experimentation. It will be interesting to see if the other parrots in the study group are capable as well. Parrots in other separate study groups would be useful as well.
If not, then it is absolutely a 'cleaver hans'.

I'm in absolute agreement with you about parrots. They are fascinating animals, and it would might be helpful to our understanding of phonology to probe their articulatory abilities. Humans hear and produce discrete strings of sounds called "phonemes", and I wouldn't mind looking at how the parrots' utterances of the same "human" words might vary both in terms of acoustics and articulation. I wouldn't expect to find human phonemes, but it would be fascinating if we found something analogous to human phonology. I would expect that. Phonology is really all about the coordination of the speech tract during the production of utterances. Unfortunately, linguists and biologists tend to operate in parallel universes. Sometimes there are some brilliant folks who manage to develop a good grasp of both subjects.

Spoken language yes, but from an evolutionary standpoint chimps must have strong precursors for language. Its only a few mutations that separate our and their abilities.

But I suppose this is dependent on what you consider language.

Nowadays, there is a very popular trend to see speech as developing in parallel with complex gestural communication. We have had a lot more success in teaching other primates gestural communication, and that seems to bear out the idea. Of course, speech is far superior to gestural communication, because it can be done in the dark.

 

[painted wolf]

Sorry if I misconstrued your remarks. I have been arguing against the "Backster Effect", and I thought that you were trying to offer some kind of defense of it.

I'm glad we got that out of the way.

OK, but my smoke alarm communicates danger to me via sound waves. There is selective pressure to improve them in the market for smoke alarms. The behavior of my smoke alarm is not in any reasonable sense an emotional response to its detection of smoke.

Smoke alarms are not alive. Comparisons between living systems and mechanical ones in evolutionary discussions are useless beyond measure.

If your argument does not rise above the level of a metaphor, then I can accept it in that sense.

My argument has always been hypothetical.

So does a heart and a bladder, but it would misleading to argue that they have mental function. What is the idea that you are trying to convey other than the obvious one that you can draw analogies between any two things that are different? Analogies can be very useful, but yours strikes me as misleading in the context of this thread.

The idea that I am trying to convey, is that plants needed to solve many of the same problems as animals and they do this in ways totally different from anything found in the animal kingdom.
Just as you would not expect to find a plant with a heart to move fluids, one should not expect to find a brain to process information.

Sometimes analogies can help us understand new ideas, but they can also create misunderstanding because of the conceptual baggage that they drag along with them. You seem to have aligned yourself with the side of the discussion that is making some fairly silly claims about the nature of plants, although I admit that your ideas are more informed by technical expertise than I had originally thought.

I don't like to see ideas dismissed for the wrong reasons. The claim that only an animal type brain is capable of evolving to process thoughts and perhaps even 'feelings' is unsupportable. It is the "all swans are white" fallacy.
I also find 'emotions' to be a very blurry and frankly over loaded term to use in a biological discussion.

That's a fascinating subject, but almost all of my experience has been in the digital world. I've been more involved in the subject of conversational interactions between humans and machines--what we refer to as 'dialogue management'. I suspect that analog robotics is going to be the driving paradigm in nanotechnology. If one thinks about modeling the behavior of neurons in a brain, then I think that we are still a very long way away from significant insights in how to do that. The brain is such a complex and convoluted machine. But I am more hopeful about the development of insect-like behavior. We have already produced some interesting flying behavior by studying the way insects and birds "swarm".

From what I've heard analog robots do not use digital memory to perform their actions. If so, then they are as different from digital robots as plants are from animals.

I'm in absolute agreement with you about parrots. They are fascinating animals, and it would might be helpful to our understanding of phonology to probe their articulatory abilities. Humans hear and produce discrete strings of sounds called "phonemes", and I wouldn't mind looking at how the parrots' utterances of the same "human" words might vary both in terms of acoustics and articulation. I wouldn't expect to find human phonemes, but it would be fascinating if we found something analogous to human phonology. I would expect that. Phonology is really all about the coordination of the speech tract during the production of utterances. Unfortunately, linguists and biologists tend to operate in parallel universes. Sometimes there are some brilliant folks who manage to develop a good grasp of both subjects.

Parrots do not and can not pronounce words in the same manner as humans. They have no vocal cords, larynx or other structures that humans use in speech.
This makes their ability to mimic our vocal communication that much more impressive.
Bird use complex vocal talents to share information and this may be why they are so skilled at adapting to human speech.

Nowadays, there is a very popular trend to see speech as developing in parallel with complex gestural communication. We have had a lot more success in teaching other primates gestural communication, and that seems to bear out the idea. Of course, speech is far superior to gestural communication, because it can be done in the dark.

I'm suspicious of this. Not to say that gesture isn't important but there are clear precursors to language to be found in nature.
Vervet Monkey calls for example.

wa:do