Hypothetical Cats - mindfulness

Imagine you have a cat. The cats name is David. David, is a good cat. A great companion to your lonly life. David will do all the nasty things that other cats do. It will drop the vass from the table, chase a mouse and knock a radio, or bring mud into the home. Yet David will be the first one to come and greet you when you come after a vacation. So you take a good care of David. But let's stop this hypothetical scenario for a moment and think about a bit of practical philosophy about cats.

David

Philosophy of cats

You may wonder, is there any philosophy at all about cats? I will say good amount indeed. But non of that is labeled as cats.

So if someone asked you who is David. You would point to your cat, not your husband Peter. As for you David is the cat. If I asked you what is a cat, you would again point your finger to David. Not husband, as your husband is a human not a cat. But have you ever thought why he is a human and not a cat? What makes a cat a cat?

Now we can list out characteristics of a cat, without ever wanting to point out to any.

What is a cat?

So what is a cat has a definite answer. Well I asked chatgpt.

A cat is a small, domesticated mammal known for its agility, sharp senses, and independent nature. Cats are commonly kept as pets for companionship and for their ability to control pests, especially rodents. They have soft fur, retractable claws, and expressive behaviors such as purring, meowing, and body language to communicate with humans and other animals.

You may or may not have thought about everything which mounts to a cat. But the fact that I am trying to illustrate is that it is just an abstract idea. A cat is just an abstract concept. Abstract concepts do not exist outside human mind, yet you might disagree as David is in front of you. And everyone of the humans in the world would agree it is a cat. What you are seeing is just one instance or application of more general idea of a cat. Although cat is a collection of characteristics, individual cat is different from another cat. Further proving the point. If we had no prior knowledge about cats, we would never be able to see any similarity between two David's. They would be two things.

Now we don't have to go far to see this phenomenon at work. It's just few decades ago that we were toddlers. And as a toddler we didn't know what is edible and what is not. There was nothing called food. It was just an abstract concept. But we learned that by experimenting by putting everything in mouth indiscriminately.

A mouse

How to know a cat?

Phew... that was a lengthy discussion about hypothetical cats. As this blog is dedicated to philosophy and mindfulness, I will leave a message. At this point if you're confused to a level that you ask yourself "do cats really exist then?" I am glad. You have made progress. Yes cats do exist. But not in the form our mind says that they do. David is your cat, a unique one. Similar to David other cats exist, but they are just unique. As for cats in general it's just a concept. The reality is not a concept.

To know what truly mounts to a cat, one has to forget all the learned concepts about cats and look at David. That experience you get while mindfully observing is the only thing which can be named as a cat. And the name even doesn't matter.

You are just one step away from using this wisdom. We just have to generalise this thinking to everything else we observe through our mind. It may be a tree, a hen or anger or time. And that is a fine way to magical mindful living.