41–50 of 123 posts
New cat utterly unresponsive to catnip, wonder if defective. Have never encountered a cat that didn't go cray for the nips until now. Last cat was so into it, I worried whether she experienced withdraw symptoms. Literature on that is pretty mixed though.
There is no incompatibility between proximal and distal, what they call functional, explanations of behavior. Once you have a brain with a reward system, a good way to encourage (discourage) a behavior that is (dis)functional is to make it (dis)pleasurable.
A similar distinction in explanations of human behavior is what anthropologists call [emic/etic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_and_etic). The emic viewpoint is that of the subject themselves; the etic viewpoint is that of the anthropologist (the ethologist in this case). A classical, and beautiful example is Malinowski's description of the [Kula ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kula_ring) in Papua New Guinea. Participants in the ring see themselves as exchanging presents; Malinowski showed that there is a further political and economic significance to the ring. The two perspectives are perfectly compatible.
My cats get high after eating tiny bits of green olives. They roll, are crazy for more, will literally lick my clothes if I spilled a drop of the pickle, and one of the gets a bit playfully aggressive. Just the smell of olives attracts them like crazy. Have also tried catnip, but no observable effect. I don't overdo it, I don't have olives very often in the fridge, and even then they maybe get a tiny piece once a wee…
Another opportunity for a shameless plug of my website: https://ipkitten.com It simply serves you a random kitten GIF (some of which involve catnip) and provides your IP address alongside some other connection information. EDIT: The ARIN JSON endpoints have rate-limited me, so ISP information is currently unavailable.
It only shows IPv4
New cat utterly unresponsive to catnip, wonder if defective. Have never encountered a cat that didn't go cray for the nips until now. Last cat was so into it, I worried whether she experienced withdraw symptoms. Literature on that is pretty mixed though.
> Most scientists and pet owners assumed the only reason that cats roll around in catnip was for the euphoric experience, Miyazaki says. "Our findings suggest instead that rolling is rather a functional behavior.” There is no incompatibility between proximal and distal, what they call functional, explanations of behavior. Once you have a brain with a reward system, a good way to encourage (discourage) a behavior that…
Even in your type example, I doubt that papuan chiefs were oblivious of the political elements gift giving. OTOH, a purely etic viewpoint is (anthropologically) incomplete too. The political/economic machinery that outsiders/scholars find doesn't work, or make any sense, without the emic/cultural perspective. The same could be said of most political processes. The US just changed presidents. Leading up to it was weeks/months of ritual. Processes and procedures in many state chambers, and such. Most of it doesn't have a practical role, yet its culturally essential.
We're often warned not to personify animals. I think more often we make the mistake of personifying people, so to speak. We always have rationalisations, but the way it works is usually after the fact... or only rational within an irrational/cultural frame.
Leonard cohen said that free will is overrated. It exists but is rarely exercised. More often, we act because we are compelled.
If cats were people, they'd roll in catnip because they're compelled to do so... but then cite this article and mosquitos as the "reason."
How were they able to patent this? I've known for 20 years that catnip works as a mosquito repellent; there was a 2001 paper that showed that its essential oil, nepetalactone, was 10 times more effective than DEET[1]. Soon after this a variety of "natural mosquito repellent" products based on catnip appeared on the market. I've made homemade repellent myself by soaking catnip in alcohol and it works great, although i…
Is the high similar to heroin/morphine etc in humans? Because if it is, then is catnip not addictive to a cat? What if a cat discovers whole fields of the stuff and decided to revel in it until death? It's unlikely but it could happen
New cat utterly unresponsive to catnip, wonder if defective. Have never encountered a cat that didn't go cray for the nips until now. Last cat was so into it, I worried whether she experienced withdraw symptoms. Literature on that is pretty mixed though.