So like,
Recently, a reader has commented:
why you like cat???and like, I'm not even sure how to BEGIN answering that one.
I'm like ... okay ... why you like air???
why you like sunshine???
why you like food???
why you like designer handbags???
why you like
1954 Maserati A6GCS with Pininfarina coachwork???
why you like 2 plus 2 to equal 4???
It's, like, just totally not something you CAN'T do.
Or to put it another way,
It's like this. Sentient living beings are fundamentally motivated to perpetuate life. That is, life - being an open system sustained by negative entropy - functions such that, rather than progressing towards a more stable form, it undergoes processes to sustain or enhance its inherent instability. Life is a self-sustained process. And in sentient living beings (among which I would number cats and some monkeys), that self-sustenance is enhanced by the ability to choose, among every array of opportunities, whichever alternative is most probable to achieve self-sustenance. Of course, non-sentient beings (among which I would number dogs, birds, fish, Matt Damon, and water buffaloes) also possess this ability, but in sentient beings it is augmented by the evaluative ability to assess not only choices in the present, but also the probable outcome of those choices and the comparative likelihood that any one choice will lead to a desirable outcome. Necessarily, the more an outcome tends to maximize negative entropy, the more desireable the outcome. In short, sentient beings have the ability to
rationally and
evaluatively self-perpetuate.
Thus, sentient beings are self-motivated to choose between alternatives, and label those that tend to maximize self-perpetuation as "good" (or variants thereof), while designating those that tend to defeat self-perpetuation as "bad" (or variants thereof). Good and bad, therefore, are not simply subjective opinion but represent actual, quantitative value judgments based on the desired outcome of continuing to live. Alternatives that are "good" MUST be chosen while those that are bad MUST be rejected, in order for the sentient being to continue its self-sustained life processes.
The question thus becomes, what kinds of alternatives are, in fact, desireable and good - what are "values"? To answer that we must consider the nature of sentient beings: because they operate on biological and chemical processes, their values must tend to aid in biological or chemical processes. Thus food, water, air, shelter - constructs which create or enhance biological processes - are considered values, to obtain which sentient beings employ rational or heuristic decision-making processes - again, with the ultimate end of self-perpetuation through the maximization of negative entropy. However, the complexities of sentient being - characterized by aggregate learning and multilevel decisionmaking - result in more complex values as well: for instance, whereas a (non-sentient) dog would eat any food it finds, a (sentient) monkey might plant a seed, rather than eating it, based on his ability to reason and infer that one seed planted would lead to harvest of many seeds later - maximizing his life-sustenance by considering the future outcome of his actions.
Thus, the function of cats as "value" is twofold - one, in the base-level sense of value, that cats are sentient beings whose primary purpose is perpetuating themselves - they ARE their primary value, and all decisionmaking is done with the purpose of obtaining sustained cats (or cat-ness). On a secondary level, cats function as a value to monkeys and the like, because they tend to enhance the chemical and biological functions thereof. The basic construct of "shelter" (or "home") is amplified in its effectiveness when a cat is introduced - though its requires the multilevel decisionmaking of a truly rational sentient being to appreciate this (that is, at first glance, a stupid monkey (I use the term precisely) might consider a cat in the home to add mess, noise, distraction, even allergens, while taking away from resources available for other values such as food, clothing, video games, etc. However, clever monkeys - rational monkeys - see beyond this first level of thought to the ultimate benefit derived from a cat in the house, including companionship, purring, snuggles, nighttime meows, mouse-catching, and ankle bites). Thus, cat equals value, and value equals good, when "life" is the goal by which these things are to be judged (as it must be).
Why, then, should what is "good" and "valuable" be liked? First we must define "like" - in the sense in which it is used here, it denotes an attraction, which rewards the actor with a feeling of happiness when the desired object is obtained. This process - attraction, action, and happiness - is inextricably twined with the process of decisionmaking described above. Rational consideration, and emotional attraction, are simply two facets of the same basic operation. Thus, we "like" what is "good," because it is a value which will lead, with the certain logic of physical law, to cat perpetuity.
As Aristotle put it in his work on Metaphysics, "Now 'why a thing is itself' is a meaningless inquiry (for—to give meaning to the question 'why'—the fact or the existence of the thing must already be evident—e.g., that the moon is eclipsed—but the fact that a thing is itself is the single reason and the single cause to be given in answer to all such questions as why the man is man, or the musician musical, unless one were to answer, 'because each thing is inseparable from itself, and its being one just meant this.'...)"
That is all there is to say - cat is cat.
So,
why you like cat???you can't NOT like cat!!!
It's irrefutable!
