Sometimes I almost feel like a naturalist making observations of wild animals when I’m chilling out with my 12-foot-tall 3D-printed naked Buddy Hield statue. Just like with animals, there’s not really a good way to figure out what’s going through his mind, so you have to guess based on his behaviors. And if he’s just lying on my floor all spread out and relaxed with Japurri sleeping on his naked purple chest, there’s not much to observe.
But lately I’ve been more curious about his actual intelligence level. Of course, he’s smart enough to know what I’m doing most of the time, and I’ll never forget the time he repaired my illegally modified microwave, but is he, like, a genius?
It occurred to me one day while he was using my laptop to watch cute animal videos on YouTube that I had never showed him how to use a computer. He must have watched me doing it (because it’s all I do when I’m home) and learned that way. But the crazy thing is, the whole internet is in English (well, most of it anyway), and I never taught him English either. I’ve known for a long time that he can understand English when I speak it to him (that’s another mystery entirely), but apparently he can read it too. Whatever magical force entered his body to make him animate must have had pre-existing knowledge of the English language because he can use the internet no problem.
I tested this out by having him read the Wikipedia article on goats. On YouTube, you can pretty much use it even if you’re illiterate because all the videos have pictures, but Wikipedia is not for illiterate people. Once he was done reading I asked him some obscure yes-no questions about goats and he nodded for all the “yes” answers and shook his head for all the “no” answers. He got 100% on my little improvised quiz.
What if I had him type his thoughts on the computer? Would he be able to do it? He already types URL’s and stuff. It’s scary to think about. I don’t really want to go there. I’d rather him just say garbled nonsense to me.
Buddy’s mastery of the language is pretty strange, but, then again, so is his whole existence. So I’m not going to worry about it too much. Now I’m like, what if he’s some kind of math genius too, with the ability to solve the world’s toughest mathematical conundrums, and I’ve just got him hanging out in my place not doing anything? It’s too bad I suck balls at math and I can’t just take him to, like, the local college and have one of the genius math professors give him some hardcore math problems to solve. Even an open-minded academic would probably call the cops once they saw a purple plastic statue twice the height of an average man walk in the door.
So I don’t know. It’s just something I’m wondering about. Buddy doesn’t seem too upset with my ignorance of his supposed mental gifts, so that’s cool. He’s my best friend.