Originally Posted by TheSquealer

I take it you've never studied anything even remotely close to brains, neuroscience or the experience of consciousness. The illusion is powerful,... I get that. Many animals such as cats do in fact possess mirror neurons (to an far lessor degree than humans) which allow them to experience emotions/feelings of others as well as intentionality and as such, they can respond accordingly. That response however is not a conscious response that comes after conscious reasoning. There is little to zero evidence to prove they experience any real degree of consciousness. Just because you are upset at your dog and he reflexively responds correctly with his behavior, doesn't mean he has any conscious awareness of what's happening as these behaviors are all unconscious and instinctive. Again, I fully understand the illusion is powerful, people want to believe it. People are biased to believe it. Many people who replace animal relationships with human relationships need to believe it. But it is, for the most part nothing more than ones own projections.

I grew up with a house full of cats and dogs. My personal observations and experience have nothing to do with the primitive brains and limited function of those of lower animals such as cats.

As I've said, primates are infinitely more intelligent than cats or dogs and have much more evolved brains. They are still full retards by any measure of intelligence. They are not capable of cooperative behaviors. They are not capable of recursive language. They are not capable of a million things that we'd disagree with as we observed them and our minds are tricked into believing something is happening that isn't, as our biases kick in.

I've always been deeply fascinated with the extent to which we attribute human traits to animals which clearly aren't even possible.

Originally Posted by SilentKnight

I genuinely feel sorry for you.