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John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

theguardian.com

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Re: John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

#131

Post by tasty_freeze »

sigstoat wrote: post #60
tasty_freeze wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love ice cream. But if I had to eat a billion gallons of it, it would lose its appeal. Life is like that too: if we had it in infinite supply, it wouldn't have much value. If I could extend my life by 50 years of good health I might take that offer. If I had to extend it by 500 years, I'm pretty sure I'd decline. If I had to extend it 5000 years I'd certainly say no. 5M years of existence would be torture. When peo…

> If I could extend my life by 50 years of good health I might take that offer. If I had to extend it by 500 years, I'm pretty sure I'd decline. If I had to extend it 5000 years I'd certainly say no. 5M years of existence would be torture. is this a thing you worry might happen? like, if life extension is developed, you're concerned it will come in the form of a 5 million year increment, take it or leave it, no possi…

The Christian idea of an afterlife that I was raised with and apparently most people in the US follow is an eternal afterlife and there is no opting out of it once you get there.

As for the hypothetical, no, I don't worry about for a microsecond because it won't become reality anytime soon.

Re: John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

#132

Post by tasty_freeze »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #61
tasty_freeze wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love ice cream. But if I had to eat a billion gallons of it, it would lose its appeal. Life is like that too: if we had it in infinite supply, it wouldn't have much value. If I could extend my life by 50 years of good health I might take that offer. If I had to extend it by 500 years, I'm pretty sure I'd decline. If I had to extend it 5000 years I'd certainly say no. 5M years of existence would be torture. When peo…

> I love ice cream. But if I had to eat a billion gallons of it, it would lose its appeal. How do you know? Besides, if you had to eat a billion gallons of it, but over a billion years, I'm pretty sure it would've not lost its appeal at all. It's not "too much" but "too frequent" that takes the joy away. To counter your example: I watch more TV series than I probably should. What I've learned is that while there's no…

> Besides, if you had to eat a billion gallons of it, but over a billion years

That is changing the analogy. The billion years of life would be experienced every waking minute of every day.

Re: John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

#134

Post by Kliment »

aitchnyu wrote: post #116
Kliment wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats can count to much more than two. If there are treats on a shelf and our older cat knocks them down, she'll remember how many hit the floor (from the sound) and then not stop looking for them until she's found that many. I suspect being able to keep track of distinct objects is useful when hunting if multiple small prey animals disperse in order to confuse the predator.

I had a mother cat who failed to move one kitten from one nook to another. Is counting a common behaviour?

It might be food/hunting related. I only have a sample size of two cats.

Re: John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

#135

Post by TeMPOraL »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #132
TeMPOraL wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love ice cream. But if I had to eat a billion gallons of it, it would lose its appeal. How do you know? Besides, if you had to eat a billion gallons of it, but over a billion years, I'm pretty sure it would've not lost its appeal at all. It's not "too much" but "too frequent" that takes the joy away. To counter your example: I watch more TV series than I probably should. What I've learned is that while there's no…

> Besides, if you had to eat a billion gallons of it, but over a billion years That is changing the analogy. The billion years of life would be experienced every waking minute of every day.

Why? You won't be experiencing a billion years a minute, you'll be experiencing a minute a minute.

Re: John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

#136

Post by bredren »

freetonik wrote: post #100
bredren wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my cat can count to two. He only goes outside a leash, and we walk together 2-4 times a day. The harness has two plastic clips, and he will sit still until the second clip is secured. After that second sound, he will stand and walk to wait near the door.

This raises the question what counts as counting (sorry). It could be that the cat interprets two actions not as the multiple of one (thus counting 1 → 2), but as a single event with that exact pattern of sounds (thus interpreting "no event" → "event").

This had me curious. From a brief look it seems counting is not so clearly defined as mathematic skills expected by various milestones. [1]

For example,

> Pre-school - Kindergarten

During this stage, children should begin to:

- count aloud

- compute the number of objects in a group

- understand that a particular number of objects has a fixed value despite the size or nature of those objects

- understand relative size and be able to sort objects by size and shape

- follow a sequence of two- and three-step commands

- be able to perform simple addition and subtraction computations

I believe my cat Pip only can only do the “follow a sequence” ability of these mathematical skills, so even if he can “count” he has a ways to go in developing his math skills.

Fortunately, lack of mathematical skill does not get in the way of my adoration for the animal.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/mathbasics.html

Re: John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

#137

Post by MichaelZuo »

keiferski wrote: post #94

All beings so far have created something beyond themselves. Do you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and revert back to the beast rather than overcome mankind? What is the ape to a man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just so shall a man be to the Overman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame. You have evolved from worm to man, but much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, yet even now man is more…

Indeed the long term incentives underpinning the whole of human technological civilization so far requires belief in a better tomorrow. To remove such incentives would have consequences far beyond the first order.

“The grandeur of man is measured according to what he seeks and according to the urgency by which he remains a seeker.” - Heidegger

Re: John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

#138

Post by tasty_freeze »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #135
tasty_freeze wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Besides, if you had to eat a billion gallons of it, but over a billion years That is changing the analogy. The billion years of life would be experienced every waking minute of every day.

Why? You won't be experiencing a billion years a minute, you'll be experiencing a minute a minute.

Here is the difference. If I eat one gallon of ice cream per year, that is 0.1% of my life eating ice cream, whereas I spend 67% of my time experience my life (assuming 8 hrs sleep per day).

Re: John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

#139

Post by longdudefromnl »

meetups323 wrote: post #5
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #3

Live life for its own sake. The gift of life is life itself. What's the alternative? Twice in my life I've grasped the concept of death, and it made my heart race with an exhilarating feeling of suffocating claustrophobic for two reasons: 1. It's coming for me one day 2. Not just the lack of agency in the universe, but the lack of even the realisation of the lack of agency. All of this (wide sweeping hand gesture ack…

Reminds me of an experience where, my brain fully convinced itself for around 4 hours (felt much longer ofc) that I was an outdated Azure "SmartCodeCreator"[1] instance being deallocated for upgrades... it's a strange experience to embrace death. I haven't been the same since. [1] I had no name for it at the time, but that's the gist of it

Beautiful

Re: John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

#140

Post by eggsmediumrare »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #58
tasty_freeze wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love ice cream. But if I had to eat a billion gallons of it, it would lose its appeal. Life is like that too: if we had it in infinite supply, it wouldn't have much value. If I could extend my life by 50 years of good health I might take that offer. If I had to extend it by 500 years, I'm pretty sure I'd decline. If I had to extend it 5000 years I'd certainly say no. 5M years of existence would be torture. When peo…

I'am always intrigue by these "range problems / statements" I guess there are no great insight other than most timelines(ranges) are subjective. My S.O is always complaining that we are spending too little time together( I really don't think so). I asked her once, so if we had to spend 23.5 hours together that will be obviously too much, and spending 0.1 hour together will be too little (we could both agree on the ex…

In my experience, it's almost never actually about how much time but how you spend that time. TV doesn't count, doing dishes doesn't count... Walks, talking, mutual hobbies do.
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