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A comment on Scientist: Cats think you are just a big, stupid cat. Parent comment

Re:Scientist: Cats think you are just a big, stupid cat by KingMob on Sunday January 12, 2014 @11:50PM (#7048979)
A hundred times this. Humans find it incredibly difficult to avoid anthropomorphizing things. While it's bound up with Theory of Mind (predicting others' mental states), one of our biggest talents, it goes a bit awry when applied to non-human species.

Just because we know what a human's intentions would be if it did what a cat did, does not mean we ascribed the same quality or depth of intention to a cat.

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Re:Scientist: Cats think you are just a big, stupid cat by jkestner on Monday January 13, 2014 @12:07AM (#7049015)
> Humans find it incredibly difficult to avoid anthropomorphizing things.

But this one takes the cake - they've even assigned similar (aeluromorphous) intent on the part of cats. Which is extra cute.

Dogs' motivations are well understood, while cats are less scrutable, and so we pretend they're complex, and therefore like ourselves.

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Re:Scientist: Cats think you are just a big, stupid cat by headlights on Tuesday January 14, 2014 @01:46PM (#7058859)
What is an alternative model of the cat?
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