• yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 hours ago

    Yeah, when my cat meows, it is “asking” for snacks. But it’s not inquiring about snacks, or curious about where the snacks come from or why cats enjoy snacking so much.

    Granted, many humans don’t ask such questions either, but that’s because intellectual acuity is on a spectrum also occupied by non-human animals, at least in the realm of being an incurious dumbass.

    • fascicle@leminal.space
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      5 hours ago

      How do you know your cat isnt curious, is it survival bias. All the curious cats died

    • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 hours ago

      Cats don’t need to ask questions about the world because they are scientists and will figure it out for themselves if they don’t get shown the answers. They know where the snacks come from, at least in regards to their own world, that’s why they come running when they hear the package.

      They knock stuff over to see what happens. They meow for treats to see what happens. They sit on your face to wake you up to see what happens. They get into things just to see what’s in them.

      And when the result is something they want, they try it again to see if the result is consistent. Reproducible.

      That’s why the best way to get a cat to stop doing something they do to you is to ignore them. They meow to wake you up for food? They do that because it’s been working. Stop responding, and the behavior will also stop.

      • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        45 minutes ago

        It’s not that cats can’t ask questions. It’s that they can’t ask abstract questions. That’s quite different.