Scooter going through it.
I would say yes, to a limited degree, for a limited time, sometimes.
So I have a number of outdoor cats, and there was one time I went outside and one of my cats had died. Idek from what. His brother was just right beside him, sniffing him, trying to get him to move. I was like ooooh, this isn’t good. I quickly grabbed the dead cat & moved out of sight, buried him.
But that damn cat wouldn’t let it go. For a good couple days, he just had this thousand yard stare & a sad moaning meow. He discovered death, he seemed to realize death applies to everyone. Himself included. It reminded me of my own epiphany when I was 7 or 8, I almost wanted to chuckle a bit, it’s like yeah bro welcome to the club. Death is our shared fate. Just try not to fixate on it.
So my cat’s limit was about 2 days. After that, he seemed to move on & he was back to being happy again. Some extra seafood, catnip, and pets helped coax him out of the slump.
I’m weird because I’m very interested in what comes after death. Always been interested in reincarnation and those things.
When the day comes, it will be either nothing or something. Either way it’s the end of working to live, so that’s nice.
Spoiler: you end up worshipping your God. Endless servitude.
I’d laugh if it’s a “congrats, you made it through, now go do whatever you want, reality is infinite so it’s all there somewhere” and the religious ones pick the lamest afterlife where they just sit around singing and not sinning, following a god that they fully believe is jealous, arbitrary, judgemental, and authoritative. But he loves you and proved it by making his own son one of you and then making him get horribly murdered, which, by a technicality, means that you’re no longer doomed because one time a woman wanted knowledge even though she was told she can’t have it!
Either way it’s the end of working to live, so that’s nice.
Not if it’s reincarnation.
Well at least get a break while coming back and growing up and being a teenager again…
“It’s so weird. I shit in the box, and then the next day it’s just, gone. Where does it go? Who is stealing my poop?”
Oh they watch me clean it as they wait patiently to go poop in a fresh box.
I have two cats: they wait while watching me and then slightly ‘fight’ to go in the clean litter box first.
I’d say no, knowledge that we will some day die is unique to humans.
They certainly experience ennui though.
Now I wonder about elephants given that they have funerals and mourn their dead.
Same with crows.
We don’t know that.
every time they look at their food bowl, regardless of how full it is
Yes
I think my neighbours cat experiences existential dread if she hasn’t eaten in 5 nanoseconds…
No. But they do wonder if they should buy a boat.
Furball ennui
Yes I think, certainly every single time I move some furniture.
Cats can’t read Hegel nor Nietzsche, so I say no, they can’t experience existential dread.
It’s true, my cat only reads at a 4th-grade level.
Since they are the land spirit of dread I don’t think they can.
Sigh. It’s morning. Again.
No but they can experience existential fear (first time I took one of my cats on Holiday).
Maybe. But Scooter is experiencing the immediate need for long pats on the back.
