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I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," but they clearly do enjoy the company of people and other animals they like, and react

I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," but they clearly do enjoy the company of people and other animals they like, and react to them no longer being around. The first time I went on a two-week holiday after getting my cat, when I got back, she became super anxious about me leaving. Whenever I left, she would wait near door and meow loudly until I came back. It took a while for her to start to trust that I wouldn't just disappear again when I left. Edit 1: I have no idea idea why people are voting this down. I'd love for somebody to explain to me what about my comment is causing them to do that. Edit 2: I guess the word "grieve" is ambiguous, but I understand it in this context to mean "being upset at somebody else's death." Of course cats are upset if somebody they like isn't around, that's what I'm describing happened with my cat. I just doubt it's because they know that somebody died. Edit 3: I think I might have been wrong, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41182137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41182137 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41182236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41182236

shepardrtc 2y ago
> I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," Cats are very loving animals that can bond deeply to others. They just show it in different ways. Of course they can grieve.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  > Cats are very loving animals that can bond deeply to others That's... that's what I said? That's why I put "grieve" in quotes, because in the article, they used it specifically as a reaction to death. But death is probably not a concept a cat understands. They understand concepts like "absence" and "missing," but I doubt they know that things die.
  - triceratops 2y ago
    > I doubt they know that things die. Killing is what a cat does, left to its own devices.
    - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
      That doesn't mean they understand the concept of death. Animals don't even need to have a brain to kill other animals.
      - triceratops 2y ago
        > understand the concept of death You have to define what this means, because I honestly have no idea what you mean. Animals understand alive vs not alive perfectly well.
  - simion314 2y ago
    >But death is probably not a concept a cat understands. They understand concepts like "absence" and "missing," but I doubt they know that things die. Why are you so confident that cats can understand some concepts but not death, as a predator they kill animals, so do youy think that in their mind they think that after they kill an animal that animal is just sleeping and should wake up soon? I am wondering what a cat that acknowledges a friend died or "is sleeping the long one" is thinking if they dream about them, is that confusing for them, dead cats comming to you in a dream.
    - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
      "as a predator they kill animals, so do youy think that in their mind they think that after they kill an animal that animal is just sleeping and should wake up soon?" This is a very human approach to describing how a cat perceives the world. A lot of animals kill other animals. Some of these animals don't even have brains. I don't think "killing" is a necessary or sufficient precondition for understanding death. "is thinking if they dream about them, is that confusing for them" I think this is an interesting question in general. Cats seem to understand the difference between dreams and reality. When my cat seems to have a nightmare and I wake her up, she calms down immediately, so she must have some understanding that her dream was not real.
      - simion314 2y ago
        >This is a very human approach to describing how a cat perceives the world. So when a cat leaves a dead mouse as an offer she does or does not understand that the mouse will never wake up? I think the cats know that dead is irreversible and a cold dead cat is not sleeping. Do you think then that no other animals understand the concept of death or you think cats are not intelligent enough like monkeys/elephants.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago
    Considering the number of mice my cat has killed, I tend to disagree that they have no concept of death at all. The extent to which they "understand" it is open to debate for sure. But whenever my cat catches one, he deliberately leaves it alive for a while to play with until he gets bored, at which point he promptly cracks its skull between his teeth to finish it off and tries to eat it(I usually stop it if I can so he doesn't get parasites). There's certainly some concept there. Probably not the same concept we have, but it's there in some form.
    - EdwardCoffin 2y ago
      One theory as to why cats toy with their prey is they are tiring out and confusing it so they (the cats) reduce their chances of getting injured when they close for the kill.
      - mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago
        That's an interesting theory, though it doesn't match my experience. My cat tends to bring the mouse inside through the flap, holding it in his mouth, and then will repeatedly grab it in his mouth, move somewhere else and let it out again. He has the option of killing it just by biting down at any moment. My own hypothesis is that cats catch prey and play with them for a while as a way of getting more training per kill. They probably find some enjoyment in it, which is likely evolved as an incentive to practice. Cats are certainly well known for their playfulness, which tends to be stronger at a young age. I suppose both theories might be true at different times, depending on the context or the prey. I guess mice aren't particularly capable of doing any real harm to a cat.
  - Timon3 2y ago
    > But death is probably not a concept a cat understands. This is anecdotally wrong (see below), but also doesn't make much sense on its face. Why would social animals not recognize death? A dead animal poses many dangers to a social group, so there is evolutionary pressure to recognize death. I also don't see a reason to assume that understanding death requires more intelligence than a cat has. But aside from that, I'm anecdotally sure that cats understand death and grieve. I've seen a bonded cat search for their friend who died earlier, but the cat didn't yet know. Once the cat saw and smelled the others body, this searching stopped. They instead became lethargic for multiple weeks, in a human I'd have said depressed, and they looked for much more human contact than they had before (even when the two were separated for a couple of days). If you're correct, why did the cat suddenly stop searching everywhere, when it didn't stop searching during previous separations? Why did it not try to "wake" their friend? Why did it eat less, play less, and search for more human affection in the following weeks, even though it never did so during previous separation?
    - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
      Thank you for providing a thoughtful response. What you're saying makes sense.
actionfromafar 2y ago
I think it is an evolutionary benefit for a social creature to understand a difference between "not currently here" and "not functioning anymore" (i.e. "died"). This is the "why". The "how", apparently is by feelings or emotions or whatever you want to call it.
triceratops 2y ago
> I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," Why wouldn't they understand it? Death is a natural process. They may not be aware of their own mortality. But they can tell if another animal has died. And that if it has died it isn't coming back. It's common advice to let dogs see and smell the bodies of their deceased companions, so they know they aren't coming back. You've already said they react in a particular way when people or other animals they care about aren't around anymore. That's grieving. > I have no idea idea why people are voting this down Because you're stating something incorrect, confidently.
- _a_a_a_ 2y ago
  That's unfair. "I very much doubt…" Is a statement of his opinion and not fact.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  >Because you're stating something incorrect, confidently. I've read about this, though, and the scientific consensus seems to be that cats do not, in fact, understand the concept of death, because they tend to wait for deceased owners to return. The same applies to dogs. They understand the concept of absence, obviously, and they find it upsetting, but I think calling it "grief" is misleading, because it implies that they know that the person they miss is actually dead.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    But have these cats inspected the corpse of the deceased owner? Also, it's pretty common for humans to expect their loved ones to return, at least for a while until the reality sets in. Certain situations (like returning from a trip or visiting a place where they used to be) can trigger it long after acceptance.
  - triceratops 2y ago
    You're saying if they see and smell the dead body of a person or animal they knew, they don't know it's permanent?
_a_a_a_ 2y ago
Not a down voter but > I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," My guess is someone disagrees with both of these claims. To be fair, your doubting that they can grieve is a bit ambiguous – of course they can grieve but whether they can grieve over a death, assumes they understand death as distinct from 'where have they gone?'.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  I guess the word "grieve" is ambiguous, but I understand it in this context in the sense of "being upset at somebody else's death." Of course cats are upset if somebody they like isn't around, but it's not because they know that this person is dead.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41182137&goto=item%3Fid%3D41181610%2341182137 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41182137&goto=item%3Fi...
    - _a_a_a_ 2y ago
      Oh, ok, thanks. Interesting.
consf 2y ago
While the concept of "grieving" in animals, particularly cats, might be different from human grieving, it’s clear that they do experience significant emotional responses to changes in their social environment
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  Yes, that's what I'm describing happened with my cat. I never denied that, I provided relatively objective evidence that this is true, because the article suggests that people might overstate how their cats react to absence, which I do not believe to be true.
  - consf 2y ago
    [dead]
tsunamifury 2y ago
I’ve noticed pet owners get angry when you point out the mid-anthropomorphic ideas they have about their animals. I assume they take it as disrespect that their pet is an animal that is different than them. Rather than accepting they are simply another form of life with whole different motivations and concepts.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  It's not that. Cats and dogs are very different to us, but when you live with them, you might learn how nuanced and complex they can be.
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    But that's what I'm pointing out in my original comment... Cats definitely experience love, they notice the absence of people or animals they love, and they react to it. All I'm saying is that I don't think the word "grief" is the correct word in this context, because grief implies an understanding of the concept of death, which is a very human idea that we had to learn. We weren't born with this understanding, learning about death is something very upsetting that children have to go through.
    - actionfromafar 2y ago
      I'm not saying other social animals have some kind of abstract understanding to death, but that they very, most, extremely, likely have an innate response to seeing dead members of their "pack" or other social structure. And if so, it would be very strange if humans did not have it too. You may believe it is not so, but maybe you now understand my position?
    - Jtsummers 2y ago
      > Grief is the anguish experienced after significant loss, usually the death of a beloved person. Grief often includes physiological distress, separation anxiety, confusion, yearning, obsessive dwelling on the past, and apprehension about the future. -- https://www.apa.org/topics/grief https://www.apa.org/topics/grief That seems to describe the behavior people have seen cats display after the loss of someone or another animal in their homes. Maybe they don't know it's death, but they know it's a loss and exhibit signs of distress, anxiety, and confusion. We can't really ask them to find out if they're dwelling on the past or apprehensive about the future though.
poszlem 2y ago
It's pretty gross to see a perfectly fine post get downvoted. I bet it's just people having a knee-jerk reaction to something they don't agree with, or maybe some weird psychological thing. I see this stuff all the time, and it bugs me that people here can't seem to keep their emotions in check. Instead, they hit that downvote button like it's a "La la la, I can't hear you!" switch.
yungporko 2y ago
i dont know to what degree they do or don't understand death, but i definitely wouldn't be surprised to learn that they do. rats certainly do, and i can't imagine it's a huge leap between them. actually now that i think about it, having owned plenty of both as pets, cats are definitely a lot dumber than rats so now i'm definitely not sure.
colechristensen 2y ago
>I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," You're putting a lot of weight with the philosophical definitions of grieve and death for a cat. Yeah, it's probably not the same understanding as a human, as a social animal it's probably not the no understanding at all either. The article is like "cats react to death like they understand what it is" and you're ambiguously insinuating that they don't without defining your terms or actually adding any substance. "Cats might understand death but not the same way I do" is both obvious and probable and not particularly interesting.

shepardrtc 2y ago

> I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," Cats are very loving animals that can bond deeply to others. They just show it in different ways. Of course they can grieve.

InsideOutSanta 2y ago
> Cats are very loving animals that can bond deeply to others That's... that's what I said? That's why I put "grieve" in quotes, because in the article, they used it specifically as a reaction to death. But death is probably not a concept a cat understands. They understand concepts like "absence" and "missing," but I doubt they know that things die.
- triceratops 2y ago
  > I doubt they know that things die. Killing is what a cat does, left to its own devices.
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    That doesn't mean they understand the concept of death. Animals don't even need to have a brain to kill other animals.
    - triceratops 2y ago
      > understand the concept of death You have to define what this means, because I honestly have no idea what you mean. Animals understand alive vs not alive perfectly well.
- simion314 2y ago
  >But death is probably not a concept a cat understands. They understand concepts like "absence" and "missing," but I doubt they know that things die. Why are you so confident that cats can understand some concepts but not death, as a predator they kill animals, so do youy think that in their mind they think that after they kill an animal that animal is just sleeping and should wake up soon? I am wondering what a cat that acknowledges a friend died or "is sleeping the long one" is thinking if they dream about them, is that confusing for them, dead cats comming to you in a dream.
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    "as a predator they kill animals, so do youy think that in their mind they think that after they kill an animal that animal is just sleeping and should wake up soon?" This is a very human approach to describing how a cat perceives the world. A lot of animals kill other animals. Some of these animals don't even have brains. I don't think "killing" is a necessary or sufficient precondition for understanding death. "is thinking if they dream about them, is that confusing for them" I think this is an interesting question in general. Cats seem to understand the difference between dreams and reality. When my cat seems to have a nightmare and I wake her up, she calms down immediately, so she must have some understanding that her dream was not real.
    - simion314 2y ago
      >This is a very human approach to describing how a cat perceives the world. So when a cat leaves a dead mouse as an offer she does or does not understand that the mouse will never wake up? I think the cats know that dead is irreversible and a cold dead cat is not sleeping. Do you think then that no other animals understand the concept of death or you think cats are not intelligent enough like monkeys/elephants.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago
  Considering the number of mice my cat has killed, I tend to disagree that they have no concept of death at all. The extent to which they "understand" it is open to debate for sure. But whenever my cat catches one, he deliberately leaves it alive for a while to play with until he gets bored, at which point he promptly cracks its skull between his teeth to finish it off and tries to eat it(I usually stop it if I can so he doesn't get parasites). There's certainly some concept there. Probably not the same concept we have, but it's there in some form.
  - EdwardCoffin 2y ago
    One theory as to why cats toy with their prey is they are tiring out and confusing it so they (the cats) reduce their chances of getting injured when they close for the kill.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago
      That's an interesting theory, though it doesn't match my experience. My cat tends to bring the mouse inside through the flap, holding it in his mouth, and then will repeatedly grab it in his mouth, move somewhere else and let it out again. He has the option of killing it just by biting down at any moment. My own hypothesis is that cats catch prey and play with them for a while as a way of getting more training per kill. They probably find some enjoyment in it, which is likely evolved as an incentive to practice. Cats are certainly well known for their playfulness, which tends to be stronger at a young age. I suppose both theories might be true at different times, depending on the context or the prey. I guess mice aren't particularly capable of doing any real harm to a cat.
- Timon3 2y ago
  > But death is probably not a concept a cat understands. This is anecdotally wrong (see below), but also doesn't make much sense on its face. Why would social animals not recognize death? A dead animal poses many dangers to a social group, so there is evolutionary pressure to recognize death. I also don't see a reason to assume that understanding death requires more intelligence than a cat has. But aside from that, I'm anecdotally sure that cats understand death and grieve. I've seen a bonded cat search for their friend who died earlier, but the cat didn't yet know. Once the cat saw and smelled the others body, this searching stopped. They instead became lethargic for multiple weeks, in a human I'd have said depressed, and they looked for much more human contact than they had before (even when the two were separated for a couple of days). If you're correct, why did the cat suddenly stop searching everywhere, when it didn't stop searching during previous separations? Why did it not try to "wake" their friend? Why did it eat less, play less, and search for more human affection in the following weeks, even though it never did so during previous separation?
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    Thank you for providing a thoughtful response. What you're saying makes sense.

actionfromafar 2y ago

I think it is an evolutionary benefit for a social creature to understand a difference between "not currently here" and "not functioning anymore" (i.e. "died"). This is the "why". The "how", apparently is by feelings or emotions or whatever you want to call it.

triceratops 2y ago

> I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," Why wouldn't they understand it? Death is a natural process. They may not be aware of their own mortality. But they can tell if another animal has died. And that if it has died it isn't coming back. It's common advice to let dogs see and smell the bodies of their deceased companions, so they know they aren't coming back. You've already said they react in a particular way when people or other animals they care about aren't around anymore. That's grieving. > I have no idea idea why people are voting this down Because you're stating something incorrect, confidently.

_a_a_a_ 2y ago
That's unfair. "I very much doubt…" Is a statement of his opinion and not fact.
InsideOutSanta 2y ago
>Because you're stating something incorrect, confidently. I've read about this, though, and the scientific consensus seems to be that cats do not, in fact, understand the concept of death, because they tend to wait for deceased owners to return. The same applies to dogs. They understand the concept of absence, obviously, and they find it upsetting, but I think calling it "grief" is misleading, because it implies that they know that the person they miss is actually dead.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  But have these cats inspected the corpse of the deceased owner? Also, it's pretty common for humans to expect their loved ones to return, at least for a while until the reality sets in. Certain situations (like returning from a trip or visiting a place where they used to be) can trigger it long after acceptance.
- triceratops 2y ago
  You're saying if they see and smell the dead body of a person or animal they knew, they don't know it's permanent?

_a_a_a_ 2y ago

Not a down voter but > I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," My guess is someone disagrees with both of these claims. To be fair, your doubting that they can grieve is a bit ambiguous – of course they can grieve but whether they can grieve over a death, assumes they understand death as distinct from 'where have they gone?'.

InsideOutSanta 2y ago
I guess the word "grieve" is ambiguous, but I understand it in this context in the sense of "being upset at somebody else's death." Of course cats are upset if somebody they like isn't around, but it's not because they know that this person is dead.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41182137&goto=item%3Fid%3D41181610%2341182137 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41182137&goto=item%3Fi...
  - _a_a_a_ 2y ago
    Oh, ok, thanks. Interesting.

consf 2y ago

While the concept of "grieving" in animals, particularly cats, might be different from human grieving, it’s clear that they do experience significant emotional responses to changes in their social environment

InsideOutSanta 2y ago
Yes, that's what I'm describing happened with my cat. I never denied that, I provided relatively objective evidence that this is true, because the article suggests that people might overstate how their cats react to absence, which I do not believe to be true.
- consf 2y ago
  [dead]

tsunamifury 2y ago

I’ve noticed pet owners get angry when you point out the mid-anthropomorphic ideas they have about their animals. I assume they take it as disrespect that their pet is an animal that is different than them. Rather than accepting they are simply another form of life with whole different motivations and concepts.

actionfromafar 2y ago
It's not that. Cats and dogs are very different to us, but when you live with them, you might learn how nuanced and complex they can be.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  But that's what I'm pointing out in my original comment... Cats definitely experience love, they notice the absence of people or animals they love, and they react to it. All I'm saying is that I don't think the word "grief" is the correct word in this context, because grief implies an understanding of the concept of death, which is a very human idea that we had to learn. We weren't born with this understanding, learning about death is something very upsetting that children have to go through.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    I'm not saying other social animals have some kind of abstract understanding to death, but that they very, most, extremely, likely have an innate response to seeing dead members of their "pack" or other social structure. And if so, it would be very strange if humans did not have it too. You may believe it is not so, but maybe you now understand my position?
  - Jtsummers 2y ago
    > Grief is the anguish experienced after significant loss, usually the death of a beloved person. Grief often includes physiological distress, separation anxiety, confusion, yearning, obsessive dwelling on the past, and apprehension about the future. -- https://www.apa.org/topics/grief https://www.apa.org/topics/grief That seems to describe the behavior people have seen cats display after the loss of someone or another animal in their homes. Maybe they don't know it's death, but they know it's a loss and exhibit signs of distress, anxiety, and confusion. We can't really ask them to find out if they're dwelling on the past or apprehensive about the future though.

poszlem 2y ago

It's pretty gross to see a perfectly fine post get downvoted. I bet it's just people having a knee-jerk reaction to something they don't agree with, or maybe some weird psychological thing. I see this stuff all the time, and it bugs me that people here can't seem to keep their emotions in check. Instead, they hit that downvote button like it's a "La la la, I can't hear you!" switch.

yungporko 2y ago

i dont know to what degree they do or don't understand death, but i definitely wouldn't be surprised to learn that they do. rats certainly do, and i can't imagine it's a huge leap between them. actually now that i think about it, having owned plenty of both as pets, cats are definitely a lot dumber than rats so now i'm definitely not sure.

colechristensen 2y ago

>I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," You're putting a lot of weight with the philosophical definitions of grieve and death for a cat. Yeah, it's probably not the same understanding as a human, as a social animal it's probably not the no understanding at all either. The article is like "cats react to death like they understand what it is" and you're ambiguously insinuating that they don't without defining your terms or actually adding any substance. "Cats might understand death but not the same way I do" is both obvious and probable and not particularly interesting.