You ever see a dog that’s got its leash tangled the long way round a table leg, and it just cannot grasp what the problem is or how to fix it? It can see all the components laid out in front of it, but it’s never going to make the connection.
Obviously some dog breeds are smarter than others, ditto individual dogs - but you get the concept.
Is there an equivalent for humans? What ridiculously simple concept would have aliens facetentacling as they see us stumble around and utterly fail to reason about it?
Well technically we can group things and do maths and we also have scientific notation, so there’s also that
Aye, really makes you appreciate just how important language and writing are to our society. Imagine what the parrots could accomplish with their base-17 number system, if they could write!