Cats

For about a decade now, I've been observing my two pet cats.

The problem with observing our pets, especially for those of us without training in behavioral biology, is that we tend to anthropomorphize them and to assume that we humans are the center of their feline universe.  To be sure, we're an important component of it, but their world is not necessarily anthropocentric.

A lot of big words.  What I've observed is that although they do recognize their names - as well as the name of the other cat - their minds work in a language-free manner so that although when one hears the word "Eliot," while he knows that it's a reference to him, he does not think "That's me."  He just knows that I've made a sound particular to him and not the other cat or, for that matter, the toaster, the sofa, or the sound of rainfall in the evening.

Imagine what it's like to think without words, without mental symbols to represent things and actions.  Cats are very attuned to sounds - they have truly remarkable hearing - and they've learned that the sound of the pantry door opening around, oh, 7:00 pm means that dinner is about to be served.  They've also learned that when I make the noise that goes "eat," it means that I'm probably going to go to the pantry to get their food.  But they don't assign that particular "eat" sound to the specific action of them consuming their dinner, or to my mental intention of preparing their meal.   It's just a sound they tend to hear before dinner and they've come to associate with part of the mealtime ritual.  Think of it this way - we don't think of the sound of a car engine starting up as an articulated intention of driving somewhere - it's merely the sound of an internal combustion engine.  Same with that "eat" sound that I make or the squeak of the pantry door. They're both just sounds that they've come to associate with the early onset of the evening meal.

So to go a little deeper, since they don't have language or any other mental symbols for the things in the world or of specific actions, they don't have a way to re-telling themselves stories of past events.  There was that night the scary sounds of thunder were outside, and that very scary night the tree came crashing down on my roof, but they have no means of re-creating those events in their minds.  They haven't forgotten it, necessarily, but it isn't a memory that can be recalled and studied in their minds.

So without language, without a way of separating the universe into discretely identifiable objects, and without stories or any kind of personal history, they really don't have a sense of "self."  Chicken-or-the-egg: do they not have a sense of self because they don't have a personal historical narrative, or do they not have a personal historical narrative because there's no "self" to have that experience?  To apply the question to ourselves, what are we apart from the stories we tell ourselves?

Cats are like human infants before self-awareness and ego consciousness develop.  They can learn by repetition and with enough time they realize that certain sounds, including my words, tend to precede certain actions, like feeding or petting, but they don't have a sense of personal history, a narrative that goes, "I was once a feral cat sleeping on random porches until a kind human let me into his house."  Or even, "two nights ago, there were a lot of scary sounds, but it seems calmer tonight."  

They do experience hunger and fear, they enjoy affection, a meal, and a sunny spot in the afternoon, and they even experience an occasional sense of jealousy or unfairness "The other cat is getting a treat but I am not," although of course it is not articulated like that in their minds.      

It's hard for me to even imagine what the feline experience must be like, to feel, to emote, and even to dream (I've heard them vocalizing in their sleep and seen them moving their legs while unconscious, so I know they dream) without words, without mental models, without a personal history, and without ego awareness.  

The lesson here is that for us humans, our sense of self-identity, the ego, our very so-called "soul," is but a mental construct that arises from a language-enabled mind that recalls experiences and sensations and melds them into a personal history, a narrative, and then identifies the constant presence in that narrative as "I."   Language, as William S. Burroughs famously noted, is a virus from outer space.