[HN Gopher] How Intelligent Are Cats? (2004)
___________________________________________________________________
How Intelligent Are Cats? (2004)
Author : maxmouchet
Score : 237 points
Date : 2022-04-10 08:41 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (messybeast.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (messybeast.com)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Razengan wrote:
| Yes
| vmception wrote:
| Great article, other comments have already covered my main
| thoughts
|
| But those sound boards that let pets communicate with words and
| concatenate have been okay at helping me move past our tests of
| intelligence. We cant even communicate with other humans that
| cant dont talk back or use fingers.
|
| I'm also less convinced that human behaviors are not just reward
| seeking patterns chained together, so I cant dismiss a pet's use
| of a sound board as just trained behavior for a treat - at least
| as a reason to dismiss their intelligence or weigh that action
| any way at all
|
| I would say its evidence of understanding and that the animal is
| aware that they cannot use their vocal cords to respond to us and
| just give up trying that
| midrus wrote:
| My cat is the smarter cat ever. It managed to train me very well.
| bredren wrote:
| I moderate /r/adventurecats, which focuses on leash training of
| house cats.
|
| I started leash training my cat at about 6 months and he is 4.5
| years old now.
|
| People are regularly astonished to see a cat content on a leash
| at all.
|
| But what's amazing is how much preference, analysis, and decision
| making you see a cat demonstrate when you spend so much time with
| them.
| rybosworld wrote:
| Cats are capable of more than they seem. I've spent time around
| many different dogs and cats (and other critters) when I worked
| at a vet clinic. I'd say that the cleverest of cats were almost
| on par with the cleverest of dogs. But the average dog is much
| more clever than the average cat. Cats also have a lot less
| interest in problem solving.
|
| There was one cat who lived permanently at the clinic. She would
| be crated every night before we left. She would often get out of
| her crate and we'd find her roaming around the clinic the next
| morning. The cage required that you press two pins towards each
| other. It's surprising that she figured this out but also that
| she had the dexterity to reach outside the cage and do this.
|
| She was one of the smartest animals I've ever interacted with.
| You could see the gears in her head turning when she wanted to
| figure something out.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I'm reminded of a Feynman story about rats in mazes. Their senses
| enable them to cue in on a dozen things that human maze-builders
| miss. So the humans misinterpret what ques they use to solve the
| puzzles, and publish erroneous conclusions.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| For anyone who wonders if cats are intelligent, I submit for your
| consideration Tulie and Sephie:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46rROBUDPYI
|
| I was playing with them with a bird wand toy and then I wanted to
| get back to work. So I wedged the toy's handle in the chair.
|
| Tulie had studied how I operated the toy, and she decided to work
| it herself to keep Sephie entertained.
|
| At one point the feathers got stuck on the chair, and Tulie
| figured out how to unstick them!
|
| Then the dogs came by to get some water, and the cats were like
| "nothing to see here, move along now."
|
| And then with the dogs out of the way, they got back to business.
| i80and wrote:
| My calico understands that the laser pointer is the object that
| causes the red dot to appear, and would paw at it when she
| would want to play with the red dot.
|
| Cats pay attention and put things together!
| jrjarrett wrote:
| I have an automated feeder for my 2 cats. One has a better
| time sense than the other and would camp out and devour both
| bowls when it dispensed.
|
| We got a timer and set it to chime when the feeder went off,
| which helped.
|
| The feeder has an app that triggers an alert on my phone and
| now if my phone makes that alert sound, they perk up and bolt
| to the basement.
|
| So they've also learned to associate the alert sound to
| food....
| Stratoscope wrote:
| Tulie does the same thing. I used to keep the laser pointer
| at the side of my desk mixed in with a pile of USB sticks and
| such. She would get pretty excited when she saw me reach over
| there. If I was just grabbing a USB stick she would walk
| away.
|
| Eventually she started jumping onto that corner of the desk
| to knock the USB sticks on the floor. After all, if I wasn't
| going to play laser tag with her, a USB stick makes a mighty
| fine cat toy!
|
| Interesting that yours is a calico. Tulie is a tortoiseshell,
| which is basically the same thing without the white
| background.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortoiseshell_cat
| jhbadger wrote:
| I had a cat who would actually pick up the pointer with her
| mouth and bring it to me when she wanted to play.
| implements wrote:
| The key word in the above three posts might be "she" - my
| two female cats seem much more intelligent and playful than
| the male ones. (Perhaps because as adults they have to
| mother and train kittens, unlike more the solitary males?)
| implements wrote:
| I'm puzzled the above comment is being downvoted. Wild
| feline species are often social for groups of females,
| and solitary for males. They're instinctual rather than
| (like us) cultural animals - it's entirely possible that
| male and female domestic cats exhibit different types of
| social intelligence and playfulness with respect to each
| other and to humans, and as I said, my (five!) do.
| throwanem wrote:
| My most recent one never bothered with that - intuiting
| when he wished to play and fulfilling the resulting
| obligation was _my_ job, and it doesn 't do to get too
| indiscriminately familiar with the help - but he did learn
| not just what the laser pointer was and looked like, but
| what the tactile switch under its "on" button _sounded_
| like. I liked to sneak the dot up on him when I could, but
| it very soon became a game of "how quietly can I actuate
| the switch?" versus "how faint a click can he hear?" - a
| game I rarely won, especially once he further learned to
| recognize the distinctive rattle of the batteries moving in
| the laser pointer case! There are probably _bombs_ easier
| to defuse than it eventually became to retrieve and
| activate the laser stealthily enough for the dot to come as
| a surprise - if nothing else, it was a great opportunity to
| find out how much I 've _really_ learned from a lifetime
| spent mostly in company with cats.
|
| The thing about tact switches, though, is that they all
| generally sound quite alike, and he was used to not
| immediately seeing the dot when he heard one. So, through
| the latter decade or so of this cat's life, it was quite
| common for the following sequence of events to play out
| several times a day:
|
| - I adjust the volume on my phone;
|
| - the cat glances excitedly around the floor, then
| expectantly at me;
|
| - I hold up the phone for him to see;
|
| - the cat and I simultaneously settle back to what we were
| doing before.
|
| Confused the hell out of a boyfriend one time.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| My dog and both cats still like to play with the laser
| pointer, but all of them know exactly where it comes from.
| Thankfully it's just like playing fetch with the dog. Totally
| repetitive and predictable but still entertaining enough that
| the pet will keep it up indefinitely.
| lodovic wrote:
| Please, never use a laser pointer to play with dogs. This
| can cause anxiety, OCD and ultimately lead to serious harm.
| A frustrated dog may keep searching for the pointer for
| weeks after. There is a name for the condition, "laser
| pointer syndrome". Laser pointers are fine with cats but a
| big no with dogs.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Heh, my dog has never gotten that wrapped up in laser
| pointer chasing. She knows it's me, she stops when I say
| 'Done'. Now, when it comes to chuckit balls on the other
| hand, she's dangerously close to real OCD.
| hbarka wrote:
| I'm amazed by my cat's stalking instincts. I play hide and seek
| with her indoors and she will outflank me more than I can
| outflank her majority of the time. When I think I have the
| surprise on her she'll be behind and I'm sure thinking to herself
| how easy this human is.
| Razengan wrote:
| Ours understood how to open doors by jumping up at the handle and
| pulling it down. Another could clearly tell we were angry when we
| frowned.
| mft_ wrote:
| Having spent the past three years observing two quite different
| cats who came into my life via a relationship, I'd say the answer
| is "eh, a little".
|
| One of them has learnt to do basic tricks for treats, and has
| also learned to turn on two different robot hoovers by pressing
| the right button - she only does this late at night, which I take
| either as attention-seeking or just boredom? The other one is the
| Zoolander of cats.
|
| Beyond this, they seem quite limited: sleep, eat, wander around,
| watch the world go by, occasionally hang out with us, sometimes
| play or hunt.
| darkerside wrote:
| Why does that make them unintelligent? More like unambitious if
| you ask me.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's like looking at your retired grandparents and calling
| them unambitious for just sleeping and playing golf and
| eating dinner at 4pm.
|
| A 16 year old cat deserves to do whatever the hellz it wants.
| darkerside wrote:
| Or a teenager for sleeping and playing videogames. The only
| difference is time horizon, which you introduced I suppose
| for the sake of your own argument? No idea how old these
| cats are.
| eric4smith wrote:
| Cats are oriented towards hunting and killing. In that regard
| they are seriously intelligent.
|
| Anything else they are not very intelligent. Let's not make cat
| videos confuse us.
| ggm wrote:
| "Cat sense" by John Bradshaw is a fascinating read on the nature
| of cats. Not really on-topic here, but a great read on feline
| behaviour.
| dghughes wrote:
| I think a cat's brain would be a great model for intelligent
| robots. Pattern recognition is what they do well but their brains
| are better at detecting moment more than anything for humans it's
| colours.
|
| My cat knows when it's 9pm since that is treat time. She can be
| sound asleep but at 8:59pm I hear _thump thump_ as she hops down
| from her sleeping spot. It 's not that she is detecting me doing
| something. I watch streaming video at random times stopping and
| starting it. There is no obvious cue that I can think of that is
| allowing her to know the time. Not even sunlight is a cue since
| the light is wildly different here due to being on the 49th
| parallel and the seasons. She even adjusts for daylight savings
| and standard time but it takes about a week.
| derefr wrote:
| Hypothesis: cats have a mental architecture -- brain hardware --
| that's amenable to learning as much as that of any other mammal
| with a cortex; but they don't come with instinctive knowledge of
| certain _mental schemas_ -- brain Operating System software,
| essentially -- required for _social_ intelligence. Those mental
| schemas instead have to be taught /communicated.
|
| - Have you ever seen a "cat raised by dogs"? They develop the
| same mental schemas around socialization that dogs do; begin to
| understand the sort of "pack" structure and reward norms that
| dogs think in terms of; and so end up trainable exactly like
| dogs, using e.g. social-status gratification/reassurance as a
| substitute for food. And often, you won't actually have to
| explicitly train a "cat raised by dogs"; cats are seemingly
| highly skilled at modelling (i.e. witnessing others earning
| rewards for a behavior, and then self-motivatedly learning to
| mimic that behavior), and so a cat that hangs around trained dogs
| may teach _themselves_ "tricks" it observes the dogs doing.
|
| - Have you ever seen a cat taught human language using AAC
| (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) devices, a.k.a.
| "button training"? They can very quickly absorb human mental
| schemas, learning to not just to favor "using their words" to
| signal their needs, but also, through that, to begin modelling
| the world narratively, telling stories about what they witnessed
| other-person A doing to other-person B. If you communicate the
| terms "soon" and "later" to them, they will begin asking about
| the future, expressing a curiosity about whether events (e.g. a
| person coming home from work) will happen near or far in time.
| These are not things that cats seem to instinctively think about,
| until they have the mental schemas to think about them; but once
| they absorb these schemas, they do engage with these topics!
| djaychela wrote:
| I had three cats when I was younger, and one of them was one who
| just turned up one day and decided to move in. He had many funny
| traits, but the best one was if you put down food he didn't like,
| he wouldn't just not eat it, he would mime that he was burying
| it, (like they do their poo), as if he was saying "this is crap"
| to you. He would look at you as he did this, and then walk off. I
| don't know if this is what he meant, but I thought it was
| hilarious.
| dspillett wrote:
| They are often intelligent enough to actively resist intelligence
| tests, unlike too many humans who click through any and all "only
| some% know this, do you?" marketing/pii-harvesting rubbish.
| cheschire wrote:
| "We value your privacy! Accept all cookies?"
| amelius wrote:
| Or, in the case of Apple: We value your privacy! Here is your
| AppleID.
| gedy wrote:
| In the middle of the night, my cat will sometimes open the
| bathroom towel cabinet. Couldn't understand why until I realized
| it's a couple feet from the garage door on same wall, and he's
| actually attempting to go in garage to use the litter box.
| OtomotO wrote:
| Counterquestion: how intelligent is Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the
| self-proclaimed crown of creation?
|
| I was a biology nerd before I became an IT nerd and during my
| (non scientific) studies I found that many species are way more
| intelligent than what we give them credit for.
|
| When I studied at university (discontinued, switched to IT) I
| also found evidence to underline some of my personal findings.
| jIyajbe wrote:
| Emo Phillips once said, "I used to think that the brain was the
| most important organ in my body; until I realized who was
| telling me that."
| blacklion wrote:
| I've read, that theory about "alpha male with alpha female in
| wolf pack" is disproved, as this behavior is seen only in
| captivity.
|
| Also, claim that cats are breed only for appearance is not
| completely true, in villages good rat-catchers will breed and
| not-so-good rat-catchers will have their litters drown.
| [deleted]
| squarefoot wrote:
| One of our cats waits when my girlfriend and I are at the dinner
| table, then leans against the table with two legs, touches my GF
| arm with one of his paws and sometimes emits a meow incredibly
| similar to what in a local dialect translates to "hey!" which
| probably he already heard a thousand times from us. That's his
| way to tell us he wants some of our food, and he doesn't stop
| until he gets some. Not that it counts as a sign of intelligence,
| anyway I was able to teach the other cat to shake "hands".
|
| To me the sign that cats are definitely intelligent is their
| ability to make us think so whether they are or not:).
| blacklion wrote:
| My mother has degree in behavioral biology (though rather old
| one, she got diploma in 1980, in USSR), and her first job after
| university was "surgically intrusive experiments to assess
| learning and intelligence" in cats. She abandoned this work after
| half a year, because she thinks it was too cruel to animals. Her
| career was ruined, as in USSR you was unable to easily quit your
| job in first 3 years after university, you have to work for 3
| years on assigned job, to "pay out" your education. As result all
| her subsequent jobs were low-wage ones, like typist, nurse, and
| sometimes cleaner or dishwasher. Only after the fall of USSR my
| father started successful software business (we didn't know word
| "start-up" till much later) which allows my mother to not work
| anymore.
|
| But as far as I know, she never regret her decision.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| I too have a family member who turned down top research
| positions in genomics and forensics stateside because it would
| mean dissecting cats. She never regretted it either.
| nnoitra wrote:
| What is it about this animal that makes it very dear to our
| hearts?
| papacho wrote:
| The lack of self awareness makes animals innocents and it's
| hard to justify hurting an innocent being.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| It's neotenisation of animals features..especially
| domesticated animals. Cats are an exception..dogs have
| eyebrows..cats don't!..they didn't have to evolve to look
| like our young.
|
| We are often protective towards faces that look like our
| young. It's hard coded for most creatures. Big eyes, flat
| side profile and reduction in size of the skulls. Tugging
| human heart strings means they don't have to compete for
| food resources. Domesticated animals also exhibit this
| with behaviour as well as physical features. Cats..for
| example.. can be rather aloof ..until they need you. They
| are absolutely affectionate fur balls.
|
| We don't play hide and seek..and fetch with adults but we
| do with children and our pets. They become child
| substitutes and satisfies a very primal caregiving
| instinct in humans who may not be able to express it with
| other humans.
|
| Also..this is why psychopaths start early with torturing
| and killing animals. It's an early warning sign to lock
| these people up and throw the keys away.
| macintux wrote:
| Parasites.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii
| devmor wrote:
| Note that if you actually read the wikipedia article you
| linked, more recent studies found that the effects of
| previous studies are not supported by evidence, and found
| this with an extremely high P-value.
|
| You're also more likely to get the parasite from handling
| raw pork than cats, and indoor cats are entirely
| unaffected.
| blacklion wrote:
| This parasite makes mice (not humans!) a slightly less
| averse to light and feline scent, noting more. I don't
| think we can attribute love for cats to toxoplasma, it is
| too far-fetched.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| I agree. But it's more than being slightly averse..it
| makes the mice suicidal. The first time I heard about
| suicidal rodents and how cats hunt them with their Trojan
| parasitic poo was on the discover channel..they had set
| to a night vision camera and recorded the whole thing. I
| don't even know if the channel or magazine exists
| anymore..
|
| I have also seen this in snakes that 'mesmerize' mice
| ..predators know how to paralyze their prey.
|
| But this turned up as more recent and is closer to the
| Trojan suicide prodding parasite.. https://api.nationalge
| ographic.com/distribution/public/amp/s...
|
| I have read the full piece but now it's not accessible
| without subscription..
|
| [..] A mouse sniffs the air, catches the whiff of cat
| urine, and runs towards the source of the smell... and
| straight into the jaws of a cat. This bizarre suicidal
| streak is the work of a single-celled parasite called
| Toxoplasma gondii, which has commandeered the mouse's
| brain and turned it into a Trojan rodent--a vehicle for
| sneaking T.gondii into a cat.[..]
|
| [..] T.gondii (or Toxo for short) infects a wide variety
| of mammals, but it only completes its life cycle in the
| guts of a cat. To get there, Toxo has ways of subverting
| the behaviour of dead-end hosts like mice. Its
| machinations are subtle, so subtle that it's normally
| hard to tell an infected mouse from an uninfected one.
| But the difference becomes obvious when there's cat pee
| in the air. Normal mice, even lab-born ones that have
| never met a cat, have an innate fear of cat smells. Those
| infected with Toxo do not. They (and their parasites) are
| more likely to end up in a cat. Toxo also influences the
| brain of Wendy Ingram from the University of California
| at Berkeley. She has long been obsessed with the brain
| and fascinated by Toxo's dominion over it. "I was struck
| by the idea that a single celled parasite 'knows' more
| about our brains than we do," she says. [..]
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| big eyes & small face:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuteness
| https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-code-for-cuteness
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Well... squirrels are just rodents with beautiful fluffy
| tails. We feed squirrels but we kill rodents. Maybe it's
| the tail!
| userabchn wrote:
| My cat jumps up to pull down on the handle of closed doors that
| she wants to open, then pulls the slightly open door with her paw
| so she can go through. When the front door is locked she finds
| which room I am in and scratches at the door (I keep the doors
| closed) until I come, then encourages me to follow her to the
| front door so that I can unlock it for her.
| GWBullshit wrote:
| Depends on who you ask.
|
| In some intelligence circles cats are referred to as "St. Up ID"
| aka "St. Uppity" because they always like to show your their
| asses ... almost as if they're begging for some sort of trophy or
| something.
|
| On the other hand ... over time, cats have developed mice/Rat &
| human mind-altering poop:
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/cat-poop-parasite-control...
|
| ... leading to incidents such as:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ4Y27RQaZk <== notice none of
| the cats manage to "eat The Rat" aka The Emperor:
| https://www.trendstees.com/product/emperor-pikachu-t-shirt/ ...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bhDAJUk-vU
|
| https://quinzo.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/shocking-german-bish...
|
| Same video (shorter), with Russian comment-a-Ri:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPK_ij0llc8 ...
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTt4k3lh9Gc
|
| Here is another famous scene from Belgium:
| https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/cat-instant-karm...
|
| So basically, cats poop, Ratz eats the SH!I.T. code, becomes
| fearless, cat attacks what it assumes is free food and learns a
| lesson:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uSfLDuRtOM
|
| https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZulOGB9yXlY <== starts off with
| "cocaine"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bv4KGhtFt4 <== Cocaine Marley
| fought with the Crips because she got jumped in; she's "Big Blue"
| ... has "Lincoln Tunnel-vision" and "rolls like a marble" ...
|
| Early example of a PHD candidate's example of Ai:
| https://www.macintoshrepository.org/6008-sumo ...
| https://tenor.com/view/obviously-defective-tomax-xamot-gi-jo...
| ... unless you keep insisting on playing it ... then it gets
| harder exponentially quickly at the later levels ...
|
| At "2:48" is the NSA/Se Cutey Ri's opinion of MSM:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXKOIKBCC8c
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS4RpBR0Zn0
| https://giphy.com/gifs/IntoAction-eH4H6NP5XePcxnO6wU
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/oct/14/freedomofinfor...
|
| https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fbi-reveals-its-suspicion...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bortnikov#:~:text=Al....
|
| http://thealexandernj.net/ Front view:
|
| https://tenor.com/view/voltron-linkup-gettogether-gif-561031...
|
| aka "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFN3l2NuoE0"
|
| Top view from outer space: https://www.amazon.com/Lolita-Jeremy-
| Irons/dp/B00001IVFG
|
| This is a random scene from the film:
| https://voltamagazine.wordpress.com/2020/11/02/decoding-the-...
|
| This is a bizarre random movie theater closing of a place that
| had some great reviews on Yelp ... yet closed for "undisclosed
| business circumstances":
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=edgewater+multiplex+closing&...
|
| https://www.pcgamesn.com/the-outer-worlds/the-outer-worlds-c...
|
| It had great cheap ticket rates and even cheaper matinee rates
| ...
|
| Unfortunately, messing around with the National "Se Cuty Ri"
| Agency is a very expensive proposition:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPn82XZgTMA
|
| https://tenor.com/view/super-milk-chan-anime-adult-swim-gif-...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQW2FFt3-A8
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGQvlx4LDqg
|
| https://tenor.com/view/i-got-a-solution-idiocracy-solution-t...
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=donald+rumsfeld+smile&tbm=is...
|
| This is what Donald Rumsfeld was trying to give endless clues
| about what "Pentagon" is a "Ran MAGA/Anagram/Spell-s-witch" about
| (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9169611/Rihann...)
| :
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/video/pentagon-35-trillion-accounting-...
|
| https://tenor.com/view/destro-marvel-animated-such-bottomles...
| rideontime wrote:
| I mean this in the kindest possible way: take your
| antipsychotics.
| vertnerd wrote:
| It's all about the yardstick we use for measuring intelligence,
| isn't it?
|
| For years, my rescue cat has had an annoying habit of gently
| plucking at my clothes with her claws for no apparent reason.
| Then one day I had an epiphany. I discovered that scritching the
| top of her head made her stop plucking my clothes. Now she gets
| head scritches whenever she wants.
|
| So from her perspective I am thoroughly stupid, yet capable of
| learning simple tricks given enough repetition and reinforcement.
| duckydude20 wrote:
| how can we measure other species intelligence when we can't
| ours... we can't and we shouldn't, every test which states it
| measures intelligence is dysfunctional... Loved it...
| http://messybeast.com/intelligence.htm#:~:text=Humans%20ofte...
| goldenkey wrote:
| One of the major problems is that we haven't broken down IQ
| into its actual basis. Working memory and reaction speed are
| two psychometrics highly correlated to IQ. But someone can
| easily be gifted in one but not the other. A conventional IQ
| test would not recognize this.
| Epiphany21 wrote:
| More intelligent than anyone gives them credit for. I have a
| couple I let them roam around outside in my garden where they'll
| wander through the pathways and stop to sniff every individual
| fruit, vegetable and flower near the edge, as if they're
| appreciating my work. Most of the stuff in my garden is flat out
| inedible to them and poses no threat. They're just enjoying the
| scenery.
| 2wrist wrote:
| My dad suffered a head injury and afterwards, he could just sit,
| still, spaced out, in one place all day. At night he used to
| struggle. Our two cats decided to look after him, they used to
| snuggle him through the day, or harass him to go get food, or to
| open this door and that door, he used to be kept pretty active by
| them! At night they used to sleep close to/on him and if he woke
| they would stick their faces in his and just purr at him. They
| gave him so much comfort.
|
| After he passed, they now do this with my mum. In the mornings
| they will wake her up by licking her forehead, ever so gently.
|
| I guess you can read in to their behaviour what you will, but to
| us it feels like empathy. Not sure what we would do without them.
| dralley wrote:
| There was a widespread video of a cat trying to save it's owner
| from "drowning" in the bathtub
|
| https://youtu.be/Y1GMlXuvdic
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I guess you can read in to their behaviour what you
| will, but to us it feels like empathy
|
| After 20 years of cat ownership spanning three cats, I felt
| sure that cats had a very specialized sort of intelligence:
| they're good at doing predator stuff, and they have also
| evolved to be good at manipulating humans in a generally
| benign/symbiotic sort of way.
|
| I felt quite certain "empathy" wasn't part of this set of
| skills.
|
| But something recently made me question it.
|
| A few weeks ago I saw a video from the Russia/Ukraine war that
| made me visibly upset. I became distressed and said "no no no
| NO" and hastily pounded the keyboard to close the window and
| went into an adjacent room to sit down, actually crying a bit.
|
| My cat became very alarmed and followed me into the other room,
| looking at my face, and urgently rubbing himself against me.
|
| I'm very close to my animals and I try very hard not to
| anthropomorphize them. I think it's actually a big disservice
| to do this. I try very very hard to think about how they
| experience the world in their own unique ways with their
| unique, non-human minds.
|
| But this felt utterly unmistakable. He saw that I was upset and
| comforted me.
|
| And he did this with no real prior data to work with. At least
| from me. I had never been visibly upset like that around him
| before.
|
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| rbanffy wrote:
| Non-human emotions are an interesting topic and I'd expect the
| same perceived behaviour could come up from all sorts of
| different origins, but, as I have seen my friends (and myself)
| with mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and spiders that live with
| humans and their behaviours, I'm not surprised to conclude they
| have their own emotions.
|
| When I was in high-school, I had a fish, a Banded knifefish,
| who welcomed me home every afternoon by standing upright on its
| tail by whatever side of the aquarium I was. I gave it food at
| the end of a stick and played games where it would hunt the
| food. If sometimes, if I stopped moving the stick it'd come to
| my side of the aquarium and stare at me until the stick started
| moving again.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| That's an amazing story about the fish. I had no idea. Thanks
| for sharing.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I strongly suspect predators need to be smarter so they can
| be more effective.
|
| Either that, or I just had an extremely weird fish.
| praptak wrote:
| My mom's cat did not do anything super smart but she made _me_
| feel dumb.
|
| She would walk over and start talking - almost literally. Her
| trills and mews vere so varied in pitch and length that it
| sounded like speech. And she responded when we talked to her.
|
| This made me feel dumb, because I obviously couldn't understand
| what she'd talk about. Well except that one time she detected a
| leak in the central heating and alerted me to it.
| irrational wrote:
| We provide them with food, shelter, toys, medical care, etc. and
| they provide us with indifference. Seems pretty smart to me.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Cats are master manipulators and if you have been chosen by one
| (or more) to feed and shelter them according to their desires you
| will know this. In the hierarchy of your home atop sits the
| feline.
|
| They generally do what they please when they decide to do so. And
| they know it. How many people in your household can say they have
| this unbridled freedom?
|
| Once you realise that the cat(s) in your abode and life have the
| luxury to pick and choose their course of action, or lack of it,
| at their whim the more you understand that they rule and
| occasionally oversee and direct proceedings.
|
| In my house the cat runs the show. Then my wife. Then my two dogs
| and then me. I'm sure others on here can relate.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I am one of those people who had one view before a youtube video
| and another view after.
|
| We had cats when I was a kid, and I would observe that cats are
| very good at tracking prey, at opening doors or at getting humans
| to open them, at figuring out who is the boss, and at bearing
| very, very long term grudges, but otherwise they operate in a
| system where the world revolves around them (apparently quite
| literally in terms of how they map the world).
|
| This utility-focussed view of the world means they always get
| fed, but it also leads them to get stuck when exploring -- never
| paying attention to the fact that the neighbour's garage door
| does not just open, it also closes, for example!
|
| So I have tended to see them as well-optimised, intelligent, but
| not necessarily "bright".
|
| But the cat-mirror-ears video -- where a cat sees a reflection in
| a mirror, apparently understands that it is its own reflection
| and then... realises it has ears... that changed my mind.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akE2Sgg8hI8
|
| There is another "cat theory of mind" video where a mother cat
| purposefully and deliberately retrieves an object its kitten
| wants to play with, that scientists have talked about on twitter,
| but I can't find it.
|
| A friend of mine has a cat that learned to play fetch as a kitten
| and never stopped playing. So unusual.
| shagie wrote:
| > There is another "cat theory of mind" video where a mother
| cat purposefully and deliberately retrieves an object its
| kitten wants to play with, that scientists have talked about on
| twitter, but I can't find it.
|
| You are likely thinking of https://youtu.be/whVMP6BqcqU
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I am! Thank you!
|
| This is a very, very interesting video.
|
| There are other interpretations (that it is for example
| mum/dad's favourite toy too for example). But it is worthy of
| discussion.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| It seems fairly cut and dry.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > apparently understands that it is its own reflection
|
| No, cats do not recognize themselves in mirrors. Very few
| animals do.
|
| It's just very easy for us to see all sort of human behaviors
| in our pets.
| jsz0 wrote:
| I've had many cats over the years. They absolutely do
| understand reflections. I've watched them learning it in real
| time. Kittens will often try to get behind the mirror, play
| with the reflection, etc and over time most of them learn
| it's a reflection or at least not another cat and lose
| interest. I've frequently seen cats spot movement behind them
| in a mirror and turn around to investigate further. Makes
| perfect sense to me considering animals have been seeing
| their reflections in water for millions of years. It's not
| like they just recently learned what a reflection is.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > Makes perfect sense to me considering animals have been
| seeing their reflections in water for millions of years.
| It's not like they just recently learned what a reflection
| is.
|
| I suppose. But I think this point is in danger of being
| overstated. Mostly animals don't see their own reflections
| in water; they certainly see others' reflections in water.
| But when you're close enough up to see a full reflection of
| your face in water, what you largely see is a shadow.
|
| Yes, the shadow has a reflection in it, but I suspect that
| is quickly disregarded without much contemplation of what
| it means.
|
| Mirrors are another matter entirely. You can really
| interrogate a mirror by seeing your own reflection at
| considerable distance, which is usually not possible with
| water.
|
| Plus you can do so at leisure, because you are not
| necessarily prone at that point, whereas a cat at the
| waterline is at risk of attack.
|
| So I don't know if, in the scheme of things, much about
| reflection has had a significant impact, until the mirror.
|
| Edit to add: the fact that some intelligent birds are able
| to pass the mirror dot test might make sense in this
| concept of how easy a reflection is to comprehend. Birds
| have after all had millions of years of opportunities to
| interrogate their reflection in water at different heights,
| and to see a much clearer and more complete image of their
| own reflection. For a bird, still water really could be a
| mirror.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| _> No, cats do not recognize themselves in mirrors. Very few
| animals do._
|
| That is certainly the conventional belief.
|
| But that conventional belief is founded on a single
| fundamental test (the mirror-dot test) that may simply be
| difficult to apply to cats.
|
| Other animals were thought not to be able to recognise
| themselves until they passed that test.
|
| When they pass the test, we say that animals of that species
| can recognise themselves in the mirror. It's a single
| observation.
|
| So the question then becomes: are we so sure about that test?
|
| If you have not watched the video, watch it a few times.
|
| The only other really sensible explanation is that the cat
| only gets this far:
|
| _The mirror cat does everything I do! Every time! I know the
| thing on the wall has the mirror cat in. I can only see the
| mirror cat 's ears... Ears are interesting. Do my ears look
| like that? Since the mirror cat matches my every movement,
| that must be what my ears look like. So if I rub my paws on
| my ears, and watch the mirror cat copy me, I should be able
| to confirm that interpretation..._
|
| The cat is definitely performing a slow, precise movement in
| order to watch what happens in the mirror. She sits up to
| make sure she can see it, before she does it. (She doesn't
| need to sit up to clean her own ears without looking). It's
| far too deliberate and studied; we know what cats look like
| when they are concentrating on movement.
|
| That she comes up short of realising that the mirror cat is
| herself is definitely plausible. But even then it is
| demonstrating an enhanced theory of mind, because it involves
| predicting that the mirror cat's actions will always match
| her actions, that this can be used to test an idea, and that
| conclusions can be drawn about what she must look like when
| doing the same actions.
|
| At some point, we have to accept that the idea that we are
| wrongly projecting our unique intelligence onto other animals
| is actually pretty arrogant.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Incidentally the greatest moment in this video is not the
| "oh... that's what those are" moment, looking in the mirror.
|
| The greatest moment is the head-turn and the wide-eyed look on
| her face as she is sitting down. Like: "oh this changes
| everything".
| agumonkey wrote:
| "How am I gonna tell the others.."
| unixhero wrote:
| Does this self awareness mean cats have evolved now? Does this
| hold any consequence? Genuinely curious. I did not study any
| biology, so I don't know where this leads us.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I don't know. But after twenty years of cats around me as a
| kid, that video never ceases to confound me.
|
| Because I've only ever seen cats confused, agitated or
| completely avoidant around mirrors.
|
| I'd always assumed the avoidant thing was, you know, "don't
| look at the mirror cat and it won't look at me, and we won't
| have to have the fight where nobody wins".
|
| But the ears video makes me wonder if cats don't look at
| mirrors because they can't _quite_ process the implications.
| t-3 wrote:
| My cats like mirrors? They use them to look at themselves
| and around corners while stalking each other. I don't think
| they particularly like being _seen_ in mirrors any more
| than being seen normally though (which makes sense for
| small, specialized, ambush predators in the middle of the
| food chain).
| kcrx wrote:
| Our cat does too.
|
| We have a bathroom just off our living room that has a
| very large mirror above the vanity. The cat likes to get
| drinks out of the bathroom sink (we're trained).
|
| If she sits on a corner of the vanity when the bathroom
| door is open, she can see the living room in the mirror.
| She will stare into the mirror until she sees someone
| look at her. When she catches your eye, the meowing to
| turn on the sink begins.
|
| She also stares at herself in a hallway mirror a lot. We
| think she thinks she's pretty.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| One of my cats looks me in the eyes through my bathroom
| mirror on a nearly daily basis, often meowing at me while
| doing so. He also likes nuzzling his face up against mine
| while our faces are close to the mirror, almost like he
| enjoys seeing us cuddling as much as actually cuddling.
| buildbot wrote:
| Same with my cat as well! I am not sure she gets the
| mirror exactly; but Shem sometimes will watch us through
| it, otherwise just ignores it. She is never troubled by
| them.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Make videos of this.
|
| There really is a conventional scientific view that cats
| are not capable of passing typical mirror-related self-
| awareness tests.
|
| But it strikes me that the problem might be that the
| tests just aren't designed to test cats.
| stephencanon wrote:
| Every cat we've ever had very clearly understood mirrors.
| If that's really the conventional view of scientists in
| the field, that's basically willful ignorance.
| hiq wrote:
| Should be simple enough to prove, here is the test to
| pass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test
| unixhero wrote:
| Yes, this is not normal.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I often wonder if animals don't do human things because
| they're too busy enjoying other desires and emotions. We
| run after abstract arts, concepts, way to craft tools etc
| etc but if they hit some kind of equilibrium and their
| brain just prunes stuff because they'd rather sit in the
| sun enjoying the wind. I used to be obsessed by ideas and
| nowadays all I want to do is sit near a pond around family,
| hug and watch the view :)
| traviswt wrote:
| Perhaps the key here is the cat saw only its ears first,
| which looked like two potential targets. Then it had to
| reprocess after it realized they were attached.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Yeah. Though the typical view is that cats do not ever
| grasp that it is them in the reflection at all. That
| moment is just completely fascinating.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Hunters are alert to movement -- as you say, a cat is optimised
| for certain activities. They do also have strong
| proprioception.
|
| "That's my leg" or "that's my ear" seems a reasonable discovery
| for a cat. I doubt that there was a deep existential discovery
| because it happened in a mirror.
|
| Of course, pets of a species will vary in ability, that's only
| normal variation. We love them because they are simple, pretty,
| calming, and sometimes even helpful.
|
| The animals that we love less, we tend to eat.
|
| There's an obvious cognitive limit compared to humans. The
| theory of mind in humans conjures intentionality everywhere.
| Despite the (sometimes wildly) erroneous notions that this can
| produce, there is value in cooperation. _Assuming_
| intentionality has been an evolutionary advantage for our
| species.
|
| Our species domesticated cattle, horses, and dogs because we
| have what we call "empathy". It's our mind at work building
| assumptions about the _other_.
|
| It doesn't take much for the human mind to start imagining
| intentionality and companionship. Jesse Bering [1] offers the
| example of the well-known film, The Red Balloon, in which a
| simple balloon becomes a little boy's companion.
|
| https://slate.com/technology/2011/02/theory-of-mind-and-the-...
|
| Humans love their pets and often project human cognition onto
| them. It's a human thing. People often project traits onto
| their children as well. Pets usually avoid some of the worst
| effects of this projection. ^_^
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Bering
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > "That's my leg" or "that's my ear" seems a reasonable
| discovery for a cat. I doubt that there was a deep
| existential discovery because it happened in a mirror.
|
| It does, except that mirrors are not truly a natural
| phenomenon (most animals, contrary to literature, never
| really see their reflection in the water, only a shadow). So
| there is a chance that something more fundamental and novel
| is going on in the cat's mind.
|
| And in most people's experiences and the view of science,
| cats do not appear to ever understand it is them in the
| mirror, whereas other animals (some crows for example)
| definitely do.
|
| Of course cats know they have ears in the sense that they can
| touch them themselves. And they know other cats have ears
| because they can observe them. The question is whether they
| understand that their ears are the same concept as other
| cats' ears.
|
| This cat appears very clearly to be learning that, in real
| time.
|
| Whereas other cats don't ever do this in mirrors. They try to
| reach the cat in the mirror, they try to outpace it, they try
| to attack it. They don't usually look in the mirror and then
| touch their own heads or bodies, and they are not known to be
| able to pass the mirror dot test, where only understanding
| that the reflection is actually _them_ should allow them to
| pass.
|
| This cat looks very much like it could pass the mirror-dot
| test, and that could be of interest to science.
|
| (Though given how sensitive cats are to things placed on
| their bodies, how routinely they clean their own faces, and
| the presence of whiskers on their face, it may actually be
| impossible to apply the mirror dot test in a way that is
| meaningful)
| jancsika wrote:
| > They try to reach the cat in the mirror, they try to
| outpace it, they try to attack it.
|
| Well, there's the old film trope of a movie character
| looking in the mirror and then smashing it out of anger.
|
| Perhaps most cats instinct to attack the image of
| themselves is stronger than the desire to primp.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Whereas other cats don't ever do this in mirrors. They
| try to reach the cat in the mirror, they try to outpace it,
| they try to attack it.
|
| In my experience, most animals, including cats, just flat
| out ignore mirrors. At least all the pets I've had and that
| my family has had over the years, none of them ever reacted
| to themselves in the mirror.
|
| In a way that suggests they do have _some_ kind of
| understanding that they are just seeing themselves.
| [deleted]
| toast0 wrote:
| For my three cats, there was only an interesting reaction
| to themselves in a mirror the first time (or the first
| time in a long while; or sometimes the first time they
| experienced a specific mirror) they approached the
| mirror; then they seemed to ignore it (not sure if any
| picked up the use a mirror skill, as some cats in the
| article appear to have; I didn't notice it anyway). If
| you miss that first encounter, you missed it.
| bagels wrote:
| I had the same experience. My cat's first encounter with
| the mirror involved getting mad at the cat in the mirror
| and attacking it. Every other time after that, the mirror
| was completely ignored. They certainly did display
| cleverness in other contexts, such as figuring out how to
| open cabinets, or figuring out from the outside of the
| house which room we slept in so she could bang on the
| window to be let back in.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > mirrors are not truly a natural phenomenon
|
| That's true of course. Mirrors (looking glasses) are a
| human construct made to please human psychology.
|
| > So there is a chance that something more fundamental and
| novel is going on in the cat's mind.
|
| The cat's reaction is interesting, I fully agree. It's a
| mammalian brain.
|
| But humans will inevitably imagine much more. As part of
| modern inevitability, _social media_ (another kind of
| mirror) will be monetised with the wildest speculation.
|
| Next we'll have Feline Blockchain. (Please don't tell me...
| there is already a subreddit for it?)
| nullstyle wrote:
| Such confidence and such ignorance, a powerful combo. I
| recommend you go spend some more time around wild animals or
| you'll continue to have trouble seeing the continuity between
| us and "the animals". We could be better stewards.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > Such confidence and such ignorance
|
| The fact is that I am probably very much like you. Except
| that I won't throw barbs at a stranger who may in fact be a
| good person. Site rule: assume the best intentions. ^_^
|
| I happen to love nature and animals. I guess we would agree
| about the terrible environmental consequences of human
| industry and consumerism. We have scaled the our greed and
| selfishness too far to hide it from ourselves anymore.
| airbreather wrote:
| Smart enough to get you to feed it if you own one...
| snvzz wrote:
| "own"...
| goldenkey wrote:
| In Russia, cat "own" you.
| naoqj wrote:
| Tldr?
| c22 wrote:
| I had my cat read it to me.
| geocrasher wrote:
| How intelligent are cats? Intelligent enough to be the subject
| of a very long article about feline intelligence which I also
| did not read in full due to it's excessive length!
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Cats and dogs can be roughly assessed as being about the same
| in intelligence but vary strongly in trainability due to their
| different motivations. Dogs gain advantage by pack living, cats
| by loose association. Pack living offers a better platform for
| coordination and training hence dogs are more motivated to
| learn tricks.
|
| In the past this trainability was associated with intelligence
| but modern studies indicate trainability and intelligence are
| not correlated as closely as we used to think.
|
| In short: you train a dog, your cat trains you aka the old joke
| about dogs having masters and cats having staff is probably
| true.
| hef19898 wrote:
| My personal pet theory is that cats are the only animals ever
| to domesticate humans.
| ianai wrote:
| Agree. That's how I introduce my cat to his doctors or
| boarders "he's trained me very well."
| hprotagonist wrote:
| "I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are
| alike to me. I will not come."
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| that's funny, but considering the many ways in which humans
| have mistreated them over the centuries I don't think they
| really benefited all that much from the relationship
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ritualistic-cat-
| tortur...
| goldenkey wrote:
| That's just the tip of the iceberg. Cats are often used
| in gory neurology research. The research is unnecessary
| and wasteful, most of it just grant-farming. [1]
|
| https://www.peta.org/features/uw-madison-cruelty/
| Brybry wrote:
| I thought the pack dominance hierarchy concept for wolves,
| that the article mentions, was observed to be a myth?[1]
|
| Wolf packs are generally a monogamous pair with their recent
| offspring.
|
| And feral cats certainly form colonies, though it seems like
| what research there is has the primary cat social groups
| being a female and her young and extending from there to
| multiple females and their young.[2]
|
| Really for both wolves/dogs and cats it seems like
| environment strongly influences social behavior and there is
| a large amount of variance.
|
| [1] https://phys.org/news/2021-04-wolf-dont-alpha-males-
| females.... [2]
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7149619/
| User23 wrote:
| > Wolf packs are generally a monogamous pair with their
| recent offspring.
|
| Larger packs have been observed in Yellowstone. I think
| it's largely a function of prey density. In a case where
| family packs merge into a larger pack I imagine somehow the
| animals work out who the leader is as a necessary condition
| for cooperation.
| danaris wrote:
| "Pack living offers a better platform for coordination and
| training hence dogs are more motivated to learn tricks"
| does not require a strict dominance hierarchy as was once
| erroneously thought to exist.
| naoqj wrote:
| Thanks, I appreciate it.
| em500 wrote:
| Nice summary. I skimmed the entire article, and it appears to
| be mainly about explaining why the traditional consensus that
| cats are less intelligent than dogs would be biased.
|
| "Because we judge intelligence by comparing other creatures
| to ourselves, many popular accounts of cat behaviour describe
| learning as though cats are mentally defective humans rather
| than highly specialised carnivores."
| ianai wrote:
| I wish it had pointed out cats also have fast twitch muscles.
| Their actions are constrained by this. They thus aren't going
| to rush through a maze on a whim or for the chance at a
| treat.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I currently own the stupidest cat I've ever seen, but I
| previously had a very clever cat that I got from my in-laws. It
| could obey commands, figure out patterns, etc.
|
| However, my dog is orders of magnitude smarter, and has taught
| herself:
|
| - Lying. She barks "at the mailman" about 10 minutes before he
| arrives, so I'll put her out when he's in the area
|
| - Mirrors. She understands that her reflection is only a
| reflection, and will look at herself to see if her fur is ruffled
| on her hindquarters
|
| - Language. Dogs are often taught to communicate with buttons
| that trigger a word. The conventional wisdom is that it takes a
| dog about a week to learn to use them. She taught herself 5
| separate buttons in 20 minutes, and uses them to this day,
| chaining them together to express her thoughts remarkably
| clearly. For example, she used "no" + "time for bed" in the
| morning when I hadn't refilled her water yet.
|
| But that's why dogs are so popular: they're calibrated to our
| psyche. They understand human gestures incredibly well.
| nathias wrote:
| I doubt your dog passes the mirror test ...
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Things to hate about HN: the large number of nearly-nothing
| responses like this. I wish people would instead suggest
| something constructive like 'make some vids and put them on
| youtube so we can judge for ourselves'.
| irrational wrote:
| Or include a link to peer reviewed research. Instead it's
| all memes. This one is Will Ferrel as the Anchorman saying
| "I don't believe you."
| homarp wrote:
| https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/dog-spies/what-do-
| dogs-... has some references
| nathias wrote:
| That would imply I can believe his very extraordinary
| claims. No dogs have ever passed the mirror test, this
| would be a momentous occasion for science.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Given the list of animals that have, or may
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Mammals> why
| would it be so astounding to add a dog to that list?
|
| (NB, I don't know where I saw it but if you look at
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Mammals_3>
| about pigs: "Pigs can use visual information seen in a
| mirror to find food" - someone recently found dogs doing
| the same; finding hidden food with mirrors with
| distinctly better than chance).
| nathias wrote:
| Because it would be astounding to add any creature to the
| list of self aware creatures?
| hoten wrote:
| A good test is to apply a white mark on the subjects head.
| Try to do it in a way they don't notice, and use a safe
| material with no odor. Then see if they start mucking with
| their head after looking in the mirror.
| [deleted]
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Agreed. If an HN poster doesn't start cleaning their hair
| after looking in a mirror, their account should be
| cancelled to prevent further posting. That would work.
|
| (err, that's what you meant, right?)
| rpmisms wrote:
| Well, she's aware it's a reflection of her and not an actual
| dog. She also can look at me in a mirror while knowing where
| I am in real life, and it's pretty clear she understands
| which is real.
| gota wrote:
| I thought no dogs could recognize themselves in the mirror. Are
| you sure?
|
| Also, what breed is your dog? Is it one of the famously clever
| ones like a Border Collie?
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| One of my dogs used to "lie" - he knew he wasn't suppose to be
| on the sofa. But he'd always push boundaries and try anyway
| like a human child. As soon as he'd hear you approaching the
| room, he'd just off (he was a no-fur dog).
|
| What gave away his game was that sometimes his hind leg didn't
| quite get off the sofa. It was like a kid that took cookies for
| the cookie jar, even managed to get it back where it was
| supposed to be but then left obvious crumbs.
| gkop wrote:
| Also the warm spot on the sofa :)
|
| My dog does this too, and it's endearing.
| kizer wrote:
| I think one of the articles shared here recently mentioned
| that dogs are the best animal proxy model for understanding
| mental illness due to their similarity to humans. Dogs'
| domestication is the oldest by far of any living mammal. I
| believe that canines and humans had similar basic social
| structures and that eased their integration. Dogs are
| basically a humanized species.
| edzillion wrote:
| There has been some fascinating work on human canine
| coevolution over the past years - I read a paper (sorry
| can't locate it now) that claimed that humans developed
| such distinct pupils due to it being so useful to survival
| for dogs to be able to see which direction a human is
| looking, for example in a hunting context. That one blew my
| mind.
| bitwize wrote:
| I heard that was so that _other humans_ could see what we
| were looking at (though dogs may also benefit).
|
| What I did notice was that dog sclerae are more visible
| than wolf sclerae, and I believe that to be for similar
| reasons, so a human can read where exactly the dog is
| looking.
|
| What really blew my mind was learning that the "puppy dog
| eyes" look was due to extra orbital muscles that dogs
| have and wolves lack. Dog faces evolved to respond to
| human sensitivity to facial expressions.
| devmor wrote:
| I've seen a lot of cats using those buttons as well, but I
| don't think dogs or cats are actually expressing language with
| them.
|
| They understand making a specific sound produces a specific
| result. It's a bit far from language.
| 0ldskool wrote:
| language is simply a form of communication between 2 beings.
| If those buttons are pushed so that a specific outcome may
| occur through another party (human) I would qualify that as a
| form of language.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Realizing that making the sounds for "outside" allows you to
| go outside is not very far from language. I see people saying
| this every time dog buttons come up and it's very curious to
| me. What exactly do they need to do, model the parts of a
| sentence?
| rpmisms wrote:
| My dog also used "outside" + "water" to express her need to
| pee. I would be inclined to agree with you if she couldn't
| use them in the abstract, but she can.
| [deleted]
| bitwize wrote:
| My cat also seems to understand that his reflection is just a
| reflection, and ignores it.
|
| He gets spooked when he sees his faint reflection in glass, for
| example in front of the fake fireplace.
|
| Part of it is that dogs and cats identify each other by smell
| as much as, if not more than, sight. A reflection may not
| register as a real dog/cat to most of them.
| dominotw wrote:
| I've had cats all my life due to my parents being cat people. I
| have the smartest siberian cat that i got from a breeder (
| because of my partners allergies).
|
| She goes out and comes back when i call her and understands
| that she can wander outside only if she comes back when called.
| I put bells at the door that he uses to tell me when she wants
| to go out and rings the bells on the otherside when she is
| ready to come back in. Plays hide and seek, fetch ect with my
| nephew. And above all i feel like her emotional intelligence is
| on another level. She knows how to read minds. Best cat I've
| ever had!!!
| mouzogu wrote:
| I've seen those instagram/tiktok(?) videos where a cat owner will
| put some kind of weird face filter, and the cat will slowly look
| up at its owner in shock/disgust/curiosity.
|
| It convinced me that cats are aware of themselves as reflections
| on a camera or mirror and are much smarter than I thought. To
| realise something was wrong with their owners face.
| krylon wrote:
| When I was young, we had a cat that would sit down next to me as
| I was sitting in front of the PC, and start meowing. I would pet
| her head, and she would move away, a meter or so an continue
| meowing until I got up and petted her again.
|
| Step by step, she would lure me all the way to the kitchen and
| give me a look said that, "Now that we are here anyway, how 'bout
| some of that food?". A bit manipulative, I admit, but kind of
| clever.
|
| Also, I suspect cats tricked humans into starting agriculture so
| they (the cats) would have a steady supply of mice.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > A bit manipulative
|
| No. That would require a theory of mind, intention to deceive
| and a lot of cognitive abilities that cats don't have.
|
| The cat simply learned to walk you to the food bowl.
| tough wrote:
| https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think.
| ..
| colanderman wrote:
| Does "manipulative" describe the behavior itself, or certain
| internal processes (but not others) which can produce said
| behavior?
| mach1ne wrote:
| There is no theory of mind, it's a redundant concept. Apes
| can predict the actions of others as agents of the
| environment without needing an abstract understanding of what
| a mind is. Cats are probably able to achieve similar feats.
| Understanding that other beings and yourself have 'minds'
| only becomes relevant when the entity in question achieves a
| certain complexity of language.
| melling wrote:
| Just say to yourself "I'm here to serve, stand up and follow
| your cat"
|
| My cats often want to be fed or to go outside.
|
| My one cat knows she can simply stare at me and I will get up
| and follow her.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| Omg this is the situation my cat, but instead of food it's
| for laying down with him and cuddling. He'll jump on the
| couch or bed, stare and/or meow until I lay with him.
| devmor wrote:
| One of my cats, who is going on 13-14 years old (he was a
| stray, not sure of his exact age) has a specific pitched meow
| for when he wants me to do something for him.
|
| He'll use that, combined with lifting one paw off of the
| ground to "ask" me to do something for him.
|
| Once I follow him, he'll nudge his head in the direction of
| what he wants. The sink? He wants to drink out of the faucet.
| The counter? He wants treats out of the drawer. The pantry?
| He wants food. If he just sits there and cries I know he
| wants to be pet.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _My cats often want to be fed or to go outside._
|
| Wheelchair-height handle-style doorknobs mean my cat goes
| wherever she wants whenever she wants.
|
| Baby-proof door latches are my friend.
| steanne wrote:
| even round knobs aren't safe. i had a pair that would work
| together: one jumping to turn the knob while the other
| stuck their paw under the door and pulled.
| 0des wrote:
| Mine just flings the dinger and looks at me like "your
| attention will be interrupted until you open this door"
|
| Doyoyoyoyoingggggg
|
| Doyoyoyoyoyoyinnng
|
| OK fine I'll open the door but this is the last time.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| One of my cats observed my partner turning a doorknob on
| the bedroom door and subsequently started jumping and
| pawing the doorknob when the door was closed and they
| wanted in. No question that if it was a handle-type knob
| he'd have gotten in.
| Gare wrote:
| We had to rotate all our handles to vertical because our
| cat learned in 2 weeks how to operate them.
| ineedasername wrote:
| So I guess the difference is that humans are good at training
| dogs, while cats are good at training humans.
| cstross wrote:
| As the old joke puts it: dogs have owners, but cats have
| staff.
| simonh wrote:
| A dog looks up to you and a cat looks down on you, but a
| pig looks upon you as an equal. - Winston Churchill
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Love it.
| dvtrn wrote:
| I know that certain "redditisms" like "username checks
| out" probably don't fly here...but seeing someone named
| "RobWilliams" responding positively to a cat joke just
| puts a warm smile on my face.
| lokimedes wrote:
| Now that is indeed a profound insight on what is deemed
| intelligence. If the "Observer" in unable to comprehend the
| article objectives of the subjects, how will the fulfillment
| of the objectives ever be recognized as intelligence? Decades
| ago, I read some article on how people with more than 30 IQ
| points of separation, effectively were incomprehensible to
| each other. Whether it is true or not, it also highlights a
| fallacy that the superior intellect can somehow
| "emulate/simulate" the lesser, and thereby understand the
| person.
| tough wrote:
| If you have a high IQ, you can get high and wasted and
| lower it temporarily.
|
| No way to do that the other way around.
| bckr wrote:
| Hmm, I think it's possible to raise your IQ by practicing
| and applying certain thinking strategies. Especially
| given that IQ is an artificial measure of intelligence.
| tough wrote:
| Like any target, when it becomes a target, ceases to be a
| good measure. But I remember some of the parts. most
| where pattern matching. or memory retention.
|
| Most humans cannot get better at this easily at least.
| You can always try...
|
| On working memory, I think the average is 7, or something
| like that, Try to remember a number in inversed order and
| see if you get past that to 9-10 that's pretty hard to
| learn too
|
| I remember the day our class was asked about a dice. I
| was the only know that knew by observation the response
| to which number was under the dice not being visible.
|
| PS They always add up to seven
|
| YMMV
| Alan_Dillman wrote:
| Except when they don't.
|
| I had dice as a kid that did not follow this rule.
| NateEag wrote:
| Not temporary, but IIRC muy mother's measured IQ went up
| by twenty points when she learned how ratios work.
| mlyle wrote:
| Temporarily becoming intoxicated doesn't fix this.
|
| If your IQ is very high or very low, you likely have not
| spent a whole lot of time practicing things and pursuing
| things that typical people have. So the shared social
| language and thread of common experience that people
| depend upon to relate is limited.
| csa wrote:
| > Decades ago, I read some article on how people with more
| than 30 IQ points of separation, effectively were
| incomprehensible to each other.
|
| It's more like "fundamentally perceive the world in a
| different way", and generally leads to a lack of empathy
| towards the other group due to this difference of
| perception.
|
| This is one reason why, at least until recently, US
| generals were not known for their high IQ.
| 0des wrote:
| A lot of marriages are this way and do fine. A diverse
| but comprehensive worldview is helpful when operating as
| a singular unit. You can be smart and ignorant at the
| same time in some ways, and that's okay.
| trmonx wrote:
| No they are not, most marriages are not between people
| with that different IQ. Most people are not that
| different even. What a weird thing to say.
| dageshi wrote:
| There's a saying in our house, "All cats are very intelligent
| when it comes to food".
| Beltalowda wrote:
| When I lived in Asia I "adopted" a lost kitten near my house.
| As I now had cat food in the house, the local streetcats know
| how to find me!
|
| I had these two little kitten siblings; no idea where their
| mother was but they hung around the house, because food. If
| the food was out they would meow and whine for food, so I
| would get up to bring them food and they would hiss at me for
| getting too close to the food bowl before I even had a chance
| to put any food in.
|
| I never thought that was especially intelligent; "biting the
| hand that feeds you" and all that.
|
| After dealing with many cats for two years I don't rate cats
| as very high on the intelligence department. They're
| basically autistic dogs. They are cuter though. And they
| don't eat poop off the street.
| ptr2voidStar wrote:
| IncRnd wrote:
| Yet, you kept feeding a neighborhood full of cats in the
| way they had trained you.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| This. Cats seem stupid when convenient and are annoying
| but in the end they seem to get what they want.
| mach1ne wrote:
| Certainly domesticated cats are much more adept at
| predicting the behavior and actions of humans.
| QuantumYeti wrote:
| We had two cats, a tortoise-shell and a tabby. The tortoise-
| shell would come running when it was time for dinner, and the
| tabby would take his time. Once, I noticed that the tortoise-
| shell kept switching back and forth between dishes until the
| tabby got there, and I wondered why. It was probably so she
| could eat as much from both plates before having to finally
| commit to one. Kinda clever for a cat, in my opinion :)
| ollifi wrote:
| If me and a cat were thrown into random woods my money would be
| on the cat surviving for longer period. I think humans are pretty
| fit in groups, but cats are functional enough to make it on their
| own.
|
| I think human style intelligence we appreciate so highly is
| useful mostly in relation to other humans.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Nah, there's an app for that.
| goldenkey wrote:
| cat survival-guide.txt
| pugworthy wrote:
| As opposed to say, "man survival"
| paganel wrote:
| We have a cat and a border collie, we love them both to the moon
| and back. That said, me and my SO both agree that our cat is
| "smarter" than our dog, he (meaning the cat) "invents" games with
| our dog which the latter very heartily "adopts" but,
| nevertheless, are not "invented" by him (by the dog).
|
| Also, our dog being a BC that means that, at times, he wants to
| herd our cat, after long bouts of staring at said cat. In
| response to all that the cat has invented and performed very
| smart avoidance techniques that he hadn't use with us before the
| BC came into our life (the cat was with us first, for about two
| years).
|
| And that's just two quick things that sprung to my mind on
| learning the article, there are many others. There's also the
| misconception of "cats don't love/care about their owners" which
| is just a stupid stereotype.
| reiichiroh wrote:
| Just in time for Caturday
| steveBK123 wrote:
| In the days of mini-cassette operating phone answering machines..
| We had a cat who liked the sound of peoples voices. It took us a
| while to figure out what was happening as we'd have missed
| messages but one day in my tweens when I was home alone but too
| busy gaming to answer the phone I observed the following:
|
| * Phone ringing, getting on towards 3-4 rings
|
| * Cat sprinting down the stairs, jumps up onto bookshelf and
| waits
|
| * Cat listens to the machine pick up the caller and the message
| they leave
|
| * Caller hangs up and the cassettes go all clickety-clack
|
| * Cat then reaches with his paw around the bookshelf to smack the
| big blue button
|
| * Message plays back again and is now marked read, light goes
| out, and no one knows we were left a message
|
| Over the years we saw him do this a number of times! Once he hit
| the wrong button and overwrote the outgoing message with the
| sound of himself purring.
| ianai wrote:
| Still reading, but this seems counter factual:
|
| "Whereas dogs have been bred for utility, cats have been bred
| solely for appearance."
|
| My understanding was cats largely served as pest control from the
| human perspective. It's probably why they continue to hunt even
| when well fed.
| IncRnd wrote:
| You're reading the sentence incorrectly, regarding the order of
| the focusing adverb, solely. The meaning changes depending on
| the adverb's placemment. For ex: "bred solely for appearance"
| does not mean the same as "solely bred for appearance" in the
| context of the full sentence. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wc/adverb-placement-
| gene...
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Not sure if it is counterfactual.
|
| We know that dogs were definitely bred for utility.
|
| But cats were already effective pest controllers and may simply
| have moved in with humans after being tolerated.
|
| Cats never needed selective breeding for the jobs they already
| did; they definitely have been bred for appearance more
| recently.
| exizt88 wrote:
| I think the point is that when cats were intentionally bred, it
| was for appearance. The natural selection of feral/domestic
| non-bred cats took its own course.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Many cat breeds enjoy human companionship much more so than
| non-pedigree cats. And they're not as scared of everything
| around them (e.g. Maine Coon).
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Anectodal, but I've have many cats over the years. The two
| Maine coons I've had (unrelated to each other) were by far
| the least intelligent in my opinion and observation. All
| the others have been mixes.
| ianai wrote:
| Cats have been following people around for millennia whereas
| "breeding" is more of a last couple centuries thing. Some
| breeds do have personality differences like ragdolls. They're
| also generally harder to breed because they're more likely to
| crossbreed with wild cats-which is how we think we got Maine
| coons.
| bell-cot wrote:
| +1...but most farmers I've known who did have "barnyard" cats
| seemed quite aware of which cats were or were not good at
| vermin control. None of the farmers have (that I've heard)
| "intentionally bred" barnyard cats. But they may not hesitate
| to, ah, "strongly influence" which barnyard cats enjoy
| reproductive success. Sometimes in ways which non-farmers
| with pet cats might prefer not to hear about.
| garbagetime wrote:
| Maybe that's why cats like to bring dead bodies to their
| owners. Because cats that do that were noted as good
| hunters.
|
| I mean, probably not, but wahtever.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Back in the day (~1930), my grandparents had a "semi-pet"
| rat terrier (a small working dog), and kept a fair number
| of animals (chickens, a few pigs, cow, etc.). When the
| rat terrier was feeling ignored/unloved, it would head
| back to the barn and start hunting rats. _Lots_ of rats.
| Which were all brought back up to the house (dead), and
| lined up on the little walk to the kitchen door - for
| grandma to notice, and happily fuss over the dog for
| having killed.
|
| When the dog was not feeling insecure/unappreciated, it
| didn't seem all that interested in hunting rats.
| ianai wrote:
| That's their behavior when a kitten needs to learn to
| hunt and kill. They're literally saying they've never
| seen you hunt and kill prey so they want you to learn.
| scotty79 wrote:
| It's possible it's both. Natural instinct to bring prey
| animals for the kitten so it learns might have been
| adopted to gives proofs to humans that cat serves useful
| purpose.
| ianai wrote:
| We had a cat who would line up his kills in a line on the
| grass. Very much as a "presentation."
| jfk13 wrote:
| My wife used to have one day a week when a succession of
| music students would come to the house. She insists that
| _on that specific day of the week_ her cats would line
| the front path with "offerings" for the expected
| visitors. They had a keen sense of hospitality.
| toast0 wrote:
| My semi-barn cat would present me with mouse entrails;
| arranged like an anatomical model. Once he even presented
| them on a bed of grass like a fancy chef! He had to bring
| the blades of grass up a cat ramp and through a cat door.
| I think he'd predict when I would visit so as to have a
| display ready for me. Once I came early and a lot more
| mouse was present, but I came back in a bit and it was
| just entrails.
|
| Although he has been spending a lot of time in the house
| this winter, and it's been months since I've gotten a
| present.
| darkerside wrote:
| So dogs are tools and cats are art?
| dylan604 wrote:
| art typically appreciates in value while a cat's value is
| appreciated
| vixen99 wrote:
| Surely not solely for appearance. Cats play pretty well with
| humans in both senses of the phrase.
| rollcat wrote:
| Cats also show a form of... empathy? Consideration?
|
| One of my cats wakes me up every day around 5-6AM to get food.
| She does so by making _just enough_ noise to wake _me_ up, but
| not my partner (she 's doing it on my side of the bed, etc). She
| also does that when she's not hungry, but her sister is.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Absolutely not. Cats do not have a theory of mind.
| GordonS wrote:
| We had a wonderful cat when I was a kid, and she definitely
| showed something like empathy - whenever one of us was sad or
| hurt, she would come over and rub up against you, making a very
| particular mewling sound that almost sounded like _she_ was
| hurt.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| One of my cats wakes me up by just barely touching me with a
| paw.
|
| The other cat - of course, orange one - wakes me by trying to
| totally destroy something.
| supertofu wrote:
| My orange boy is an absolute sweetheart except for at 5am
| when he's hungry. He will sit right by my head and moan like
| he's dying until I get up. If I don't get up fast enough
| he'll start pawing at my toes.
| willis936 wrote:
| Funny, my cat will try to wake me up but when I'm lethargic
| will start to attack my SO knowing the threat of that will
| animate me.
| sundvor wrote:
| That sounds about right. :) I have two very smart cats
| myself. 16 years old now though, so mostly sleeping. One of
| them loves snuggling up in my armpit in my office bed, and
| will get really upset when I don't come at his calling.
| Burmese can truly get vocal.
| smilespray wrote:
| Tell me more about this office bed concept.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| it's spelled "keyboard"
| t-3 wrote:
| I have two cats, one ~3-4 years old, the other nearing 20. The
| younger one will often fetch me to get milk for the old one.
| dcdc123 wrote:
| There is at least one [0] myth that has never had scientific
| standing or proof stated as factual in that article, so take it
| with a grain of salt. Several other statements seem iffy to me
| but I do not know enough those specific subjects to know for
| sure.
|
| [0] https://sciencenorway.no/ulv/wolf-packs-dont-actually-
| have-a...
| lionkor wrote:
| Literally too long, didnt read entirely. But!
|
| > Other tests include the ability to learn and remember. Is the
| ability to learn by rote a sign of intelligence? If so, any avian
| mimic is intelligent.
|
| I would argue this shouldnt just be dismissed like that. I would
| argue that mimicking is a sign of intelligence - The fact that a
| toddler can mimic an animal, even if that animal has vastly
| different anatomy, seems very intelligent. It suggests an
| understanding of the similarities between function of body parts,
| even if the form differs significantly. Why would an avian mimic
| not be a sign of significant intelligence, such as understanding
| vocalizations and how they happen? A bird rarely has to sit there
| for hours trying random sounds to mimic another sound, it
| understand and knows what to do, does it not?
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Bird species that mimic tend to be considered the most
| intelligent ones by other factors as well (corvids, parrots).
| That dismissal seems quite ignorant.
| goldenkey wrote:
| My family's African Grey mimics telephone sounds, sirens, and
| human voices and phrases. But he does it mainly to fuck with
| everyone and will literally laugh after fooling someone. If
| an animal enjoys messing with another animal, is that a sign
| of intelligence?
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| I'm not sure whether liking it is a sign of intelligence,
| but I'd say that you certainly have to be intelligent to be
| able to intentionally fool someone this way.
| [deleted]
| anthomtb wrote:
| My cat tells me when she wants to play. She will scratch a
| specific spot on our engineered wood floor where the top layer is
| flaking off. As I have no desire to replace a piece of flooring
| in the middle of the room, this action gets an near instant toss
| of whatever toy is nearby.
|
| Interesting that female cats form more social, cooperative
| groups. I wonder if this explains why our female cat seems more
| sociable and human while our male cat is more aloof.
| chiph wrote:
| I've been watching Billi off and on. And her vocabulary has
| increased over the years.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_ChDCS_z2o
|
| Her favorite word? Mad.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| This cat can communicate not only specific wants, but feelings
| and abstract concepts such as the passing of time. She also
| likes to plan her play and cuddles ahead of time and will
| remind her owner with "later" if it's not yet that time.
| taosx wrote:
| I don't know about Intelligent but I had a cat that was bringing
| me mice every so often in the morning and was knocking the door
| for like 10 minutes with her back leg!
|
| The first time I got scared cause I didn't want the mouse to get
| in the house and I didn't know who was knocking on the door but I
| think it was half-dead...oh yeah I forgot to mention that all the
| mice were still alive.
|
| I'll never understand that behavior..she was well fed.
| sva_ wrote:
| Some say it is their way of showing appreciation.
| zabzonk wrote:
| That first picture of a kitten in a maze reminded me of my
| A-level (final year pre-university, for non-UK people) Bio
| project on animal learning. I used gerbils (too scared to use
| rats) but I can assure people that whatever the animal, the trick
| is working how to keep the little bastards in the maze, not how
| to train them.
| jsz0 wrote:
| Most animals are smarter than we give them credit for. What they
| are lacking in is intellect and the ability to understand events
| that occur over longer periods or time. For example a cat isn't
| planning its meals for next week but it's smart as hell when it
| wants a meal right now.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > Whereas dogs have been bred for utility, cats have been bred
| solely for appearance.
|
| This strikes me as a dubious statement. Or perhaps I am reading
| more into it than is really there. Perhaps it was true a hundred
| or more years ago, but now it seems to me that dogs are
| overwhelmingly bred for appearance.
| IncRnd wrote:
| My cat, Felix, brought his iPad pro from the other room, logged
| into HN (because Felix doesn't trust persistent logins), read the
| article to me, then discussed the implications before demanding I
| open the door for him, because he is a cat and doesn't want to
| open the door himself.
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| Any chance your cat has a black and white fur, a bag of tricks
| and a world-renowned reality TV show?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Sounds more like this particular cat's image was stamped on a
| sheet of blotter and the person has partaken in a couple of
| squares.
| shagie wrote:
| I'd suggest a read of https://everything2.com/user/sensei for
| one such tale.
| jes5199 wrote:
| aw, good old sensei. That's a blast from the past
| kingcharles wrote:
| My old cat loved all those cat games on the iPad with the fish
| swimming around, etc. My cat was more of a hardcore gamer than
| me.
| Giorgi wrote:
| How would we know this is not cat's comment?
| IncRnd wrote:
| My cat has the account names Felix1 through Felix22 and
| Anonymouse0, so you can trust me.
| torcete wrote:
| on the internet, nobody knows you're a cat.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| My cat seems to visit a website that is made for cats.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Except on those pesky sites where you have to use your real
| name instead of being able to use an alias.
| throwanem wrote:
| You can tell cats are smarter than humans by the way
| there are none of them on Facebook.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Except there are plenty of facebook profiles for both
| cats & dogs
| throwanem wrote:
| There's a Facebook profile for probably just about every
| human alive, but that doesn't mean just about every human
| alive is _on_ Facebook. Some shadow profiles get more
| intensive curation than others, is all.
| efdee wrote:
| Is he still halfway through the door, making up his mind as to
| whether to go outside it start inside?
| hownottowrite wrote:
| The real question isn't how intelligent cats are but whether
| we're smart enough to really tell.
| https://wwnorton.com/books/Are-We-Smart-Enough-to-Know-How-S...
| arwhatever wrote:
| Anecdote, but I met a random cat on a neighborhood sidewalk in a
| random town and stopped to love on him for a moment.
|
| When I would walk away, several times he would anticipate my path
| and run in front of me and lay down to block my path, apparently
| to receive some more affection.
|
| I've had some super affectionate and at least not-dumb cats, but
| I was still really surprised by this guy's apparent
| intentionality. And all for affection - it's not like I'd had any
| cat treats on me to give him.
| dmix wrote:
| Getting an HTTPS error in Firefox:
|
| https://archive.ph/Mbufh
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| There is a lot of 'wild' left even in domesticated cats compared
| to dogs. Any animal that still retains the instinct to hunt for
| survival has to be intelligent. Since the time of pyramids and
| pharaohs, cats have remained wild and have domesticated the
| humans.
|
| What we now know as domesticated cats have extra special set of
| skills..they know how to create and retain memories. They
| understand reward based stimuli.
|
| There has been enormous research done in the field of cat
| genetics. UC Davis leads with the cat genetics lab and esp for
| their work on cat coat genetics.
|
| But we also know what genes changed and evolved for their
| intelligence as they morphed from feral to domestic.
|
| The most relevant one to intelligence are glutamate receptors
| that aids learning and memory. Domesticated animals have evolved
| to developed more coat variations and pigmentations than wild
| animals. This is why you don't find a calico tiger but not only
| are there calico cats, but we also know that their genes
| guarantee that almost all are also female. Male calicos are
| sterile and short lived.
|
| It is in the area of cat coat genetics that UC Davis VGL has made
| enormous strides. There are five key traits that facilitate
| domestication and one of them is the wide variability in
| pigmentation/texture of coats.
|
| Even though cats have been around humans, they were allowed to be
| 'wild' and have resisted the intense pressure to adapt for full
| on domestication.
|
| In a way, they have been more useful in agrarian societies in
| their undomesticated state and largely due to their hunting
| instincts.....which once tamed and trained is no longer as
| effective. Hunting rodents is a far different job that herding
| docile domesticated sheep.
| pdpi wrote:
| Speaking of cat genomics, cats have the interesting property of
| being the only animal where you can easily read their phenotype
| from their genotype.
|
| If you look at the base sequences in their DNA you can clearly
| see whole runs that just spell out "CATCATCATCAT".
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| This is true for yeast, fruit fly and humans too!
| eternalban wrote:
| > Since the time of pyramids and pharaohs, cats have remained
| wild and have domesticated the humans.
|
| It certainly appears that way. Dignity in domestication.
| Psychologically, cats seem to have a very healthy sense of
| self-respect.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| [..] Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the
| snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were
| worshipped as gods.[..] - P.G.Wodehouse.
|
| All of my favourite authors are cat slaves.. notably adore
| their extensive cat quotes..Heinlein, Mark Twain..and of
| course, P.G.Wodehouse
|
| and not to forget the illustrator of my namesakes..Edward
| Gorey
|
| And of course, even Spock approved.
| [deleted]
| can16358p wrote:
| Agreed with the article. Also I was slightly disappointed with my
| cat when I thought her to look into inside the house and meow at
| something for months as speaking to something that I can't see,
| only to realize that she was seeing reflection of some birds on a
| light pole and was talking to them, thinking that they are inside
| the house.
| ddaalluu2 wrote:
| On the side, what I love about this page is that there is no
| styling, no share this, no comments, no cookie banners or similar
| "paywalls", no other distractions. Just content.
|
| It's so refreshing.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Sarah, OP: What a great summary! I learned a lot from these two
| long pages.
|
| Appreciate with some reservations this lead:
|
| "I personally consider these experiments cruel and gratuitous
| (their medical benefit to humans is too often dubious) and though
| some such experiments are referenced here, Messybeast.com does
| not support this form of experimentation."
|
| I understand the political context of starting this way, and as a
| cat lover it resonates too easily even with me.
|
| But in essentially all western-eastern-northern-southern
| societies (modern or ancient) that routinely kill and eat such
| clever beasts as cows, pigs, monkeys, horses, sheep, goats, bunny
| rabbits, octopi, and all manner of birds, I wonder if "gratuitous
| and cruel" are the right words. And this wuestion is especially
| relevant when, as you admit, so much of your cool overview relies
| on that scientific work. This is cognitive dissonance at its best
| ---well intentioned but still unrooted. Too "woke" for me.
|
| I would say no: You cannot have this particular cake and eat it
| too!
|
| And definitely not true the this "gratuitous and cruel" work was
| either gratuitous and cruel or that it has not contributed
| greatly to clinical care of humans. It has. Half of what we know
| (a bit rhetorical) about brain plasticity and repair following
| brain damage comes from exactly this type of work.
|
| It is intellectually disingenuous to be squeamish, even if a cat
| lover, if you then use these finding.
|
| And if one is NOT also a strict vegetarian, then please stay
| silent---you have no standing in this court of ethical
| conundrums.
| nineparts wrote:
| I am firmly convinced that all technology which you (and people
| who think like you) acquired after making contact with Western
| Civilization needs to be confiscated from you. Cannibals should
| have no rights.
| jokoon wrote:
| I often think intelligence is an anthropo-centered definition,
| and even then, intelligence is often badly defined for
| mathematics.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| They are very intelligent at communicating different things to us
| and at learning through observation.
|
| For instance, my experience is that they can quickly understand
| the function of a door handle and even learn to operate it in
| order to open the door.
| coward123 wrote:
| I have a cat who will deliberately create a diversion so that she
| can steal my chair. I know when she's doing it, but I go along
| anyway because it's fun. The first time I saw her do this, it
| involved pushing the lift button on the motorized standing desk.
| I stood up, she jumped into my seat. She does similar tricks with
| other chairs around the house.
| chrischen wrote:
| That could be Just a pavlovian response, unless she is creating
| different diversions every time.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| Our cat does something similar to wake us up. When he wants
| to do this, he looks for something that can make a lot of
| noise with minimal effort. It might be something crinkly, or
| something that can be dropped, or a rug that can be
| scratched.
|
| So we aim to prevent this by inspecting the area prior to
| bed, is there anything like that out?
|
| The cat, then, surprises us sometimes by finding new objects
| he has not previously used, or out of sight. A recent example
| was finding a plastic bag in a crevice.
|
| Touche
| kingcharles wrote:
| My dog has made the same realization. He's figured out if
| he knocks something that makes a lot of noise I'll come
| running to find out what is going on.
|
| One of my cats is a whole another level though. Yesterday I
| saw he'd figured out that he can hold a Tupperware
| container between his front paws and then use his teeth to
| pry the lid off. Jerk!
| bitwize wrote:
| It could be, but given how complex cat brains are, it
| probably isn't.
|
| I've seen my cat attempt to plot a route into my home office
| (which is off limits to him) with his eyes. The last tricky
| bit is finding a way to get on top of the HVAC piping to jump
| off to the high (unglassed) window leading into my office. If
| he can solve that, he's in -- and he knows it.
| GWBullshit wrote:
| diamondage wrote:
| There is Pavlov's dog study but you never hear about Pavlov's
| cats...funniest comedy by Eddie Izzard:
| https://youtu.be/lf9Jy9JQgnY
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