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Cat Gap

en.wikipedia.org

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Re: Cat Gap

#21

Post by nakedneuron »

verbify wrote: post #13

I once was thinking that if intelligent machines surpassed human intelligence, the end game would be human intelligence would atrophy but the machines would continue to serve us. Then I had a humorous thought - what if this already happened, i.e. cats were superintelligent, invented humans to serve them and then they had no need for their own intelligence.

This is brilliant.

So, if machines will be decent servants to the cats, will humans get x-ed out of the equation?

Re: Cat Gap

#22

Post by Sharlin »

There are many fascinating things about cats, but one of the things I often think about is how interesting it is that an animal of such solitary nature became domesticated so easily, and how social – and socially intelligent – domestic cats came to be, despite stereotypes. To the point that many housecats, and entire breeds, are called "dog-like" in their demeanor. Female feral cats also form social groups, "colonies", though unfixed males are certainly more territorial. This is evidently an example of neoteny, the retention of juvenile traits in adulthood, seeing that most felids do have a social period while living with their mother and littermates.

Re: Cat Gap

#23

Post by lucketone »

david_shaw wrote: post #19
lucketone wrote: post #16

So during what period cats were missing? Duration is clear, start and end not clear

> The cat gap is a period in the fossil record of approximately 25 million to 18.5 million years ago in which there are few fossils of cats or cat-like species found in North America. 25M - 18.5M years ago.

In my defence, word “ago” was on the other line, so I kind of skipped it.

Re: Cat Gap

#25

Post by gradus_ad »

verbify wrote: post #13

I once was thinking that if intelligent machines surpassed human intelligence, the end game would be human intelligence would atrophy but the machines would continue to serve us. Then I had a humorous thought - what if this already happened, i.e. cats were superintelligent, invented humans to serve them and then they had no need for their own intelligence.

It's funny to think that no matter how our technology develops, cats will be right there along for the ride, completely ignorant of it all. It's humorously comforting to think of an interstellar civilization powered by fusion and AGI serving cats just as they're served now. Scratching posts on starships seems to be inevitable.

Re: Cat Gap

#26

Post by ursAxZA »

I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to dream as a cat. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream where my body actually changed shape. Being loved just for existing seems like a pretty solid evolutionary strategy.

Re: Cat Gap

#28

Post by usrusr »

madaxe_again wrote: post #20
orbital-decay wrote: post #9

I'm surprised that sampling bias is not in the list. Is it possible that these fossils simply haven't been found yet?

That was my first conclusion, too - the absence of something in the fossil record does not mean that it was not there, just that it did not fossilise. For one, predators in general often have more gracile build, high power to weight ratio - and don’t fossilise well. They’re also much rarer than herbivores, of course. This means the signal in the fossil record is much weaker and any deviation seems much greater, as yo…

Similar thoughts crossed my mind as well. But then there's the repopulation with a species that can be traced from Asia. The pre-gap felines just aren't part of the post-gap set. If some were descendants of some endemic low-fossilization branch, chances are they'd be connected across the gap through similarities.

Re: Cat Gap

#29

Post by taneq »

dostick wrote: post #17
corgiorgy wrote: post #6

I used to run a Twitter bot called @itsavailable that would mine interesting strings that were not registered .com domains and tweet them out at a regular cadence. One of its sources was the most-visited English-language Wikipedia page titles in the past hour. One of the only domains I ever bothered purchasing for myself was https://catgap.com

Don’t click that link!

?

Re: Cat Gap

#30

Post by taneq »

verbify wrote: post #13

I once was thinking that if intelligent machines surpassed human intelligence, the end game would be human intelligence would atrophy but the machines would continue to serve us. Then I had a humorous thought - what if this already happened, i.e. cats were superintelligent, invented humans to serve them and then they had no need for their own intelligence.

Maybe the cats were themselves invented by mice?
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