Do Cats Think?

by Richard Rowell, Staff Writer

Back in junior high school, a dear friend of mine wanted to base her Science Fair project around the question "Do Cats Think?" The teachers thought it was a ridiculous idea, and because the topic for the Science Fair was due, they made her do something more traditional and boring. I can't remember what subject they had her do instead, but it stuck with me for a long time that they were incredibly unfair to her for not letting her research what actually is a pretty interesting question.

My love of cats has grown much over the years. Everything I have learned about them over the years would seem to prove that cats indeed do think. They don't think like humans, of course, but there is definitely a thought process to what they do. They are highly intelligent animals, and they always seem to know how to get what they want. That's what makes them such fascinating creatures. They truly have minds of their own. Whether they have any sort of actual sentience - well, sometimes I'd like to believe so, and thus I have had feline characters in my creative projects that actually are!

But back to answering the question, I seem to remember one of the excuses for not letting her choose that topic was that "Cat's don't talk." First of all, that's an incredibly stupid argument. Actually, the teacher who made it wasn't even the science teacher - she was the math teacher, and she was a piece of work. The fact that the science teacher, who I actually liked before this debacle, didn't stand up for her really disgusted me. You don't have to talk to be able to think. Thinking is an internal process, of course. Cats do seem to have their own language, in fact. Oftentimes, cats will communicate with their owners with the same sounds they made as kittens, but with other cats their sounds are quite different. After a while, owners pretty much know what their cats are saying. And the way that they try (and often succeed) in manipulating owners to do what they want, it's clear that they have secret little plots going on in their head.

I know that the question "do cats think" gets some people to be incredibly rude and dismissive of the whole idea that it's possible. But I read something today that scientists have found that cats have the same sort of brain activity when in a deep sleep as humans have. So I think there's a lot we still don't understand about the feline mind. Maybe one day they'll take over - probably not, but it's funny to think about. Besides, cats have a great life right now. They get everything they want, so why not act content?

If you have a cat, be mindful of the fact that he or she's probably plotting right now!

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