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Sometimes you don't have to overthink it everything. The explanation for the behavior is simple. Cats have a natural instinct to hunt, and when you throw a toy

Sometimes you don't have to overthink it everything. The explanation for the behavior is simple. Cats have a natural instinct to hunt, and when you throw a toy for them, they get to exercise that instinct. After they've done it once, the sense of reward drives them to seek the reward again. Therefore, they attempt to repeat it by prompting the thrower to throw again by bringing them the toy.

chatmasta 3y ago
Instincts are such a weird concept. It's incredible how so many specific behaviors can be genetically encoded, to the point they're visible even in animals that are raised in human households. Their parents aren't passing down cultural memes to them, and yet they still know exactly what to do. It makes me wonder how much instinctual human behavior we're conflating with learned behavior. Since we have language it's easy to assume that we do things because we learned them. But what about a Tarzan situation? How would a human behave if raised in total isolation, or even under the purview of other animals like the legendary Remus and Romulus (at least they had each other)? If the role of cat and human were reversed, what would humans do that the cats found endearing and "just human instinct?"
- endominus 3y ago
  I would encourage you to look up the history of feral children, but the results are quite saddening (confounded, of course, by the fact that any child raised this way would by definition have grown up in an abusive environment). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
  - vanderZwan 3y ago
    Oliver Sacks argues in his book Seeing Voices (about sign language, and why it is important that we let the deaf speak it (which, yes, was controversial among the hearing up until a few decades ago)), that this is because our brain evolved to the point that it needs to acquire language from the human tribe we are born into to fully function. It is basically "incomplete" without it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Voices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Voices
    - dsubburam 3y ago
      Ludwig Wittgenstein's no-private-language argument also applies here. He wrote that you can't make up your own words or concepts, absent any interaction with others, because there's nothing to stop you from changing your mind on what that word means the next day. (No "criterion for identity".) Sounded controversial to me when I first encountered it, but apparently accepted by modern philosophers as a legit argument. (That language is necessarily a public/communal thing.)
      - vanderZwan 3y ago
        > because there's nothing to stop you from changing your mind on what that word means the next day. Ok, that is interesting and I can kind of see it, but this is basically assuming you already have acquired language and talks about the actual act of using language. Otherwise it's a bit of a circular argument: consciously deciding what a word means, as opposed to intuiting its meaning from experience, context and memory, requires being able to consciously structure and organize thoughts. And for that you need to be able to categorize the thoughts, which requires labeling them, which already presupposes a rudimentary form of language. (Also, if I were to "make up a word with a meaning", use it in a sentence I write down, then read it again the next day, then there is something stopping me from changing my mind on what it means: making sense of my own past thoughts. But this is a bit of a cheat because "past me" and "current me" are arguably two different entities) The problem I have with Wittgenstein (and many philosophers) is that they rarely, if ever, seem to leave the domain of language and semiotics to consider the world outside of the signposts that the signposts actually point to. They're having too much fun with their language games. Meanwhile, Sacks is always trying to stay grounded in what we know from research and case studies. For example Seeing Voices describes accounts of the prelingual deaf who acquired sign language later in life, and therefore were able to describe what their experience of acquiring language was like (since childhood amnesia[0] did erase the memories of this process). I can't fully recall the details on the spot here, but living without language essentially is like suffering from an absence of mental "scaffolding", making it impossible to compose ideas together to build cohesive, complex lines of thought. So sacks also concludes that we need other humans to acquire language (really, to become human in general), but it's more of a matter of bootstrapping: in order to acquire language you need a dialogue, and you can't have that if none of the participants of the dialogue posses a language! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia
lofaszvanitt 3y ago
Plus it keeps them sane. Being locked in a flat 24/7 is not good for a cat..
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Have had 2 cats in life: 1 would always want to go outside (my record of going toward the front door, then U-turning toward the back door and them following me throughout was 17 return trips until I got tired out and let them out). -10C outside? Still wanted to sit on the patio for 10 minutes. Cat2: completely afraid of anything and everything outdoors. Will follow you around the house, but absolutely not follow you outside.
- TalEs 3y ago
  Much better for the surrounding native animals though. You of course need to provide them with enough stimulation, play with them and keep them active. Their concept of sanity is not like human sanity, cats like to be in enclosed spaces that have their scent and they feel safe in the environment. It's partially how they were raised and genetics, if they would prefer staying indoors or trying to stay outdoors. Keeping them indoors since young makes them accustomed to it, and is the best age to train them with good habits.
bmitc 3y ago
I don't think that explains it at all. There are plenty of rewarding behaviors that cats don't give two shits about. And it also doesn't explain why some do it and others don't. Plus, cats have individual personalities. Not everything is driven by instinct.
compiler-guy 3y ago
This is a borderline “just so” story. And many just-so stories end up wrong. It might be right, but the article is dealing in science and evidence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story

chatmasta 3y ago

Instincts are such a weird concept. It's incredible how so many specific behaviors can be genetically encoded, to the point they're visible even in animals that are raised in human households. Their parents aren't passing down cultural memes to them, and yet they still know exactly what to do. It makes me wonder how much instinctual human behavior we're conflating with learned behavior. Since we have language it's easy to assume that we do things because we learned them. But what about a Tarzan situation? How would a human behave if raised in total isolation, or even under the purview of other animals like the legendary Remus and Romulus (at least they had each other)? If the role of cat and human were reversed, what would humans do that the cats found endearing and "just human instinct?"

endominus 3y ago
I would encourage you to look up the history of feral children, but the results are quite saddening (confounded, of course, by the fact that any child raised this way would by definition have grown up in an abusive environment). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
- vanderZwan 3y ago
  Oliver Sacks argues in his book Seeing Voices (about sign language, and why it is important that we let the deaf speak it (which, yes, was controversial among the hearing up until a few decades ago)), that this is because our brain evolved to the point that it needs to acquire language from the human tribe we are born into to fully function. It is basically "incomplete" without it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Voices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Voices
  - dsubburam 3y ago
    Ludwig Wittgenstein's no-private-language argument also applies here. He wrote that you can't make up your own words or concepts, absent any interaction with others, because there's nothing to stop you from changing your mind on what that word means the next day. (No "criterion for identity".) Sounded controversial to me when I first encountered it, but apparently accepted by modern philosophers as a legit argument. (That language is necessarily a public/communal thing.)
    - vanderZwan 3y ago
      > because there's nothing to stop you from changing your mind on what that word means the next day. Ok, that is interesting and I can kind of see it, but this is basically assuming you already have acquired language and talks about the actual act of using language. Otherwise it's a bit of a circular argument: consciously deciding what a word means, as opposed to intuiting its meaning from experience, context and memory, requires being able to consciously structure and organize thoughts. And for that you need to be able to categorize the thoughts, which requires labeling them, which already presupposes a rudimentary form of language. (Also, if I were to "make up a word with a meaning", use it in a sentence I write down, then read it again the next day, then there is something stopping me from changing my mind on what it means: making sense of my own past thoughts. But this is a bit of a cheat because "past me" and "current me" are arguably two different entities) The problem I have with Wittgenstein (and many philosophers) is that they rarely, if ever, seem to leave the domain of language and semiotics to consider the world outside of the signposts that the signposts actually point to. They're having too much fun with their language games. Meanwhile, Sacks is always trying to stay grounded in what we know from research and case studies. For example Seeing Voices describes accounts of the prelingual deaf who acquired sign language later in life, and therefore were able to describe what their experience of acquiring language was like (since childhood amnesia[0] did erase the memories of this process). I can't fully recall the details on the spot here, but living without language essentially is like suffering from an absence of mental "scaffolding", making it impossible to compose ideas together to build cohesive, complex lines of thought. So sacks also concludes that we need other humans to acquire language (really, to become human in general), but it's more of a matter of bootstrapping: in order to acquire language you need a dialogue, and you can't have that if none of the participants of the dialogue posses a language! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia

lofaszvanitt 3y ago

Plus it keeps them sane. Being locked in a flat 24/7 is not good for a cat..

Scoundreller 3y ago
Have had 2 cats in life: 1 would always want to go outside (my record of going toward the front door, then U-turning toward the back door and them following me throughout was 17 return trips until I got tired out and let them out). -10C outside? Still wanted to sit on the patio for 10 minutes. Cat2: completely afraid of anything and everything outdoors. Will follow you around the house, but absolutely not follow you outside.
TalEs 3y ago
Much better for the surrounding native animals though. You of course need to provide them with enough stimulation, play with them and keep them active. Their concept of sanity is not like human sanity, cats like to be in enclosed spaces that have their scent and they feel safe in the environment. It's partially how they were raised and genetics, if they would prefer staying indoors or trying to stay outdoors. Keeping them indoors since young makes them accustomed to it, and is the best age to train them with good habits.

bmitc 3y ago

I don't think that explains it at all. There are plenty of rewarding behaviors that cats don't give two shits about. And it also doesn't explain why some do it and others don't. Plus, cats have individual personalities. Not everything is driven by instinct.

compiler-guy 3y ago

This is a borderline “just so” story. And many just-so stories end up wrong. It might be right, but the article is dealing in science and evidence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story