5) Dogs, cats, cows, and many other mammals are capable of linguistic reasoning and have made many efforts to communicate with us, but humans are only capable of recognizing other humans as capable of thought.
A variant: Some “domesticated” animal is controlling humans for their own benefit. (Cats, perhaps?)
I’ve had a dog make non-trivial progress teaching me to fetch.
I was throwing a ball and it was bringing it back. Each time, it brought it a little further from me. I had to lean out of the couch I was sitting in after a little bit. I still don’t know how far it would have gotten if the dog didn’t blatantly move the ball back further when I reached for it some of the time.
It’s also possible that the dog was trying to figure out exactly how close it had to bring the ball.
A variant: Some “domesticated” animal is controlling humans for their own benefit. (Cats, perhaps?)
Indeed they do.
Good guess, but it’s mice. 42.
I’ve had a dog make non-trivial progress teaching me to fetch.
I was throwing a ball and it was bringing it back. Each time, it brought it a little further from me. I had to lean out of the couch I was sitting in after a little bit. I still don’t know how far it would have gotten if the dog didn’t blatantly move the ball back further when I reached for it some of the time.
It’s also possible that the dog was trying to figure out exactly how close it had to bring the ball.
Just passing by but happened to see this today: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=cat-call-coerces-can-opening-09-07-14
(So maybe the mice thing was just Douglas Adams’ cat trying to put us off the scent)