Catitude (yes, it is meaningful)

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#2732127 21-Jun-2021 17:04

When daughter went on her OE the cat which always slept at the end of her bed since kittenhood became quite sick and lost a lot of fur. You could see she was pining for my daughter as she would sit in her room and make a strange long mewing sound. It was like a grief.

TwoSeven

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#2732129 21-Jun-2021 17:06

tripper1000:

Cats and dogs don't really feel self pity (that is a human thing), nor do they naturally use tools, so I don't think they truly appreciate stuff like prosthetics.

i would suggest cats probably do use tools - or more specifically, their claws/jaws in a tool like manner being limited to not having hands and opposable thumbs.

I think one would have to do a study to determine if cats have self pity or not and one would have to couch it in the context of cat physiology rather than human.

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Fred99

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#2732207 21-Jun-2021 18:19

tripper1000:

Cats and dogs don't really feel self pity (that is a human thing), nor do they naturally use tools, so I don't think they truly appreciate stuff like prosthetics.

Our little dog lost a leg after being attacked by a big dog, and it didn't phase him. To begin with, he kept falling over and looking really confused, but after a few weeks he got used to it and he got on with life like he was meant to have 3 legs. No real change in his personality etc. I think he would have just found a prosthetic leg an un-necessary imposition and tried to chew it off.

Dogs definitely seem to act miserable if they're in pain - I guess that applies to every animal though. As far as "self pity" goes, they're pack animals and evolved / were selectively bred to co-exist with us. You can definitely make dogs feel "sad" with simple gestures or words/manners of speech, or by ignoring them when they want to interract, just as you can make them "happy" by saying good things. Even our last dog which was pretty dumb by canine standards understood probably 20 spoken commands, but they also read your gestures , facial expressions, body stance etc. I don't think the same applies to cats, but you'd have to be able to read their minds to know.

Rikkitic

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#2732217 21-Jun-2021 18:36

Fred99:

Dogs definitely seem to act miserable if they're in pain - I guess that applies to every animal though. As far as "self pity" goes, they're pack animals and evolved / were selectively bred to co-exist with us. You can definitely make dogs feel "sad" with simple gestures or words/manners of speech, or by ignoring them when they want to interract, just as you can make them "happy" by saying good things. Even our last dog which was pretty dumb by canine standards understood probably 20 spoken commands, but they also read your gestures , facial expressions, body stance etc. I don't think the same applies to cats, but you'd have to be able to read their minds to know.

I would not argue that cats are brighter than dogs. They are not. I have seen farm dogs in action and the way they interact with people is astounding. You can practically have a philosophical discussion with one if you know the right whistles.

But like dogs, cats have far greater emotional depth than most people give them credit for. The issue is not anthropomorphising. It is the opposite of that, the arrogant human assumption that only humans can think and feel.

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TwoSeven

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#2732617 22-Jun-2021 12:28

Rikkitic:

Fred99:

Dogs definitely seem to act miserable if they're in pain - I guess that applies to every animal though. As far as "self pity" goes, they're pack animals and evolved / were selectively bred to co-exist with us. You can definitely make dogs feel "sad" with simple gestures or words/manners of speech, or by ignoring them when they want to interract, just as you can make them "happy" by saying good things. Even our last dog which was pretty dumb by canine standards understood probably 20 spoken commands, but they also read your gestures , facial expressions, body stance etc. I don't think the same applies to cats, but you'd have to be able to read their minds to know.

I would not argue that cats are brighter than dogs. They are not. I have seen farm dogs in action and the way they interact with people is astounding. You can practically have a philosophical discussion with one if you know the right whistles.

But like dogs, cats have far greater emotional depth than most people give them credit for. The issue is not anthropomorphising. It is the opposite of that, the arrogant human assumption that only humans can think and feel.

I would suggest it is important not to confuse intelligence for the ability to perform conditioned responses.

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BlinkyBill

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#2732634 22-Jun-2021 12:42

TwoSeven:

I would suggest it is important not to confuse intelligence for the ability to perform conditioned responses.

In your earlier post you suggested “that cats could be what we call Sapient, which kind of means the ability to accumulate wisdom and make decisions from it - demonstrable traits related to sapience I would suggest might be independent behavior and also complex emotions.” and in this post you suggest dogs aren’t intelligent but work to conditioned responses. Seems inconsistent.

I would suggest that cats are demonstrably not sapient and dogs are demonstrably intelligent.

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#2732649 22-Jun-2021 13:07

TwoSeven:

I would suggest it is important not to confuse intelligence for the ability to perform conditioned responses.

A conditioned response is going left when hearing the go left command. Intelligence is working out how to make the sheep go left when they don't want to. No confusion here at all.

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Fred99

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#2732661 22-Jun-2021 13:41

Rikkitic:

TwoSeven:

I would suggest it is important not to confuse intelligence for the ability to perform conditioned responses.

A conditioned response is going left when hearing the go left command. Intelligence is working out how to make the sheep go left when they don't want to. No confusion here at all.

I agree - or maybe not...

Is the herding activity of "trained" dogs really just directing them in their "instinctive" hunting behaviour?

We had a budgie, given to our son as a 4th birthday present. For some reason the budgie "bonded" to me, would recognise me, "talk" to me, land on my hand, walk up to my shoulder and nibble my ear lobes, do laps around the lounge room using me as a resting place, seemed to enjoy me scratching it's head etc. It wouldn't let anybody else near. I guess its brain was about the size of a lentil - it seemed to be somewhat sentient.

We lived in Sydney, had a flock of about a dozen lorikeets that would hang around our balcony. For years their flock also included a single blue budgie - an escaped pet. It seemed to have worked out that in the absence of other budgies, rowdy and annoying wild parrots 4x its size would do the trick for company, enjoy much the same food, and offer "group protection" from predators. Or maybe it had been caged with captive lorikeets, so that behaviour had become normal for it. I don't know. I think while we anthropomorphise, we also underestimate animals, there are plenty of behaviours you can observe which seem "pointless", unless they're just enjoying having fun.

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#2732664 22-Jun-2021 13:48

I am a committed cat person and not a big dog fan, but living in the countryside you can't escape the intelligence of some sheep dogs. It goes way beyond rote training behaviour and Pavlovian reflex. These dogs are using intelligence to problem-solve. Lots of animals do. Also birds. Some are very bright. Considerable research has been done into this and it is well-established that certain animal species 'think' by any standard we hold up.

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TwoSeven

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#2732778 22-Jun-2021 17:53

I think that wisdom and intelligence are not the same thing, although here I am just speculating.

the thing I suggest with Intelligence is that two different species might be considered intelligent, yet one might be capable of making more complex decisions than the other.

it might be that a dependent decision maker might rely on collective thought or previously learned responses when making decisions. Decision making in this case might be just choosing a response from a set of options. For example, I got wet when I last went out in the rain. It is raining now and I don’t want to get wet - so I wont go out.

perhaps Independent decision making might allow one to both make decisions without the need for a group, and to come up with lateral solutions to previous problems. For example, I still want to go out, so giving it some thought I notice there is some cover. If I stay under it, I can be out and not get wet.

So we might think that in the first example, an intelligent decision was made - but it is likely to always the same response given the same input. In the second example, an intelligent decision was also made, however given the sense of the state of the world (rain, availability of cover) and a sense of need (desire to go out) an alternate solution to the problem can be arrived at and applied in the future.

One might suggest that Sapience is the ability to gain and use of tacit knowledge.

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#2732791 22-Jun-2021 18:55

I can't speak for dogs, but that is literally what my cats do. It has been raining a lot lately and when they want to go out and not get wet, they stay under cover. None has yet put on a hat or raincoat, but they certainly know how to avoid getting wet.

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Obraik

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#2733125 23-Jun-2021 13:15

gcorgnet:

I find the fact that you are not even considering the possibility of cats not giving a rat's ass about their human(s) rather intriguing. I like my cat and all but I am under no illusion that he's only around due to:

- Force of habit
- Steady supply of food
- Source of heat

I am convinced that cats feel no love or attachment and that if they could TXT back, they simply wouldn't :-)

I definitely feel that cats are capable of love and attachment.

My cat waits by the window around the time I'm due home from work and waits until he sees my car pull into the drive way. He knows what my car looks/sounds like and once he sees that it's me he will move to the garage door and meow at the door to see me. When I walk in he wants me to pick him up and hold him, where he'll purr loudly and smudge against my face. I usually have to hold him for 5-10minutes while he tries to be as close to my face as possible. If I'm working from home or it's the weekend then throughout the day he will come up to either myself or my partner to request this.

He actually has his different preferences between myself and my partner. With me, he prefers that I hold him as per the above. With my partner, he prefers to sit on his shoulders and kind of wrap himself around his shoulders while purring away and smudging against his face.

To me, this feels like an expression of love.

I kind of think he also has a sense of trust and gratitude. Whenever he has sleep/crunchies around his eyes my partner will carefully pick them out for him. Initially he would struggle against this but now he holds his head still and looks like he welcomes the grooming. Similar story with me clipping his claws. He lets me hold his paws and then clip the claws while purring the whole time.

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1101

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#2733166 23-Jun-2021 14:15

Rikkitic:

...It has been raining a lot lately and when they want to go out and not get wet, they stay under cover.

Thats what my cat does . It also knows what noises & activities mean a bit of free steak . It figured out how to open cupboard doors .
It is however the most stupid cat Ive owned .

elpenguino

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#2733567 24-Jun-2021 10:31

Obraik:

My cat waits by the window around the time I'm due home from work and waits until he sees my car pull into the drive way. He knows what my car looks/sounds like and once he sees that it's me he will move to the garage door and meow at the door to see me. When I walk in he wants me to pick him up and hold him, where he'll purr loudly and smudge against my face. I usually have to hold him for 5-10minutes while he tries to be as close to my face as possible. If I'm working from home or it's the weekend then throughout the day he will come up to either myself or my partner to request this.

I'm on the fence about cats' ability to love anything as much as a heater on full. Is it possible you're reading your own desires into your cat's behaviour?

For example, what if your cat has an itchy skin condition and just wants you as a source of scratches? I know when I have an itchy back I wouldn't care if Rosemary West scratched it.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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#2733578 24-Jun-2021 10:44

If you are convinced cats are just a collection of pre-programmed instincts, you can always find arguments to back that up. If you think cats put Michelle Obama to shame in the emotional warmth department, you can find arguments for that as well. My own considerable personal experience of cats convinces me that they do feel and express complex emotions. Yes, cats are the most self-centred creatures on the face of the earth, but so are small children. I have witnessed what can only be described as altruistic behaviour in my cats. They often come to me not because they want something, but just because they enjoy my company. They don't start out that way. It grows over time, as the relationship develops. Just like with people.

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