this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
310 points (98.4% liked)

cats

19233 readers
781 users here now

typical internet cats. videos, pics, memes welcome!

rule 1) be kind

lemmy.world rules:

other cat communities midwest.social cats

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

It really looks like he's smiling in his sleep 🥺

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm sure its just the lighting, his face being smooshed into the blanket and also part of his face being obstructed by the blanket.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Could be. But that seems more elaborate than “as you’d expect, cat smiles look like human smiles and mean the same thing”

It just means smiling appeared before our common ancestor, or that we co-evolved like bees and flowers to have a working interface for emotional communication.

It’s in all organisms’ best interest to succeed in communicating with other organisms. There’s a universal selective pressure toward universal empathy. Like you can tell when a hornet’s anxious or a spider is scared.

It just so happens we’ve been next to cats for long enough we got highly specialized at reading each other.

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

I appreciate this thoughtful explanation.