Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Roy Witt:

     [re what cats are thinking]
ak>  The answer is of course that nobody knows.


           On the surface of it, yes.  Together with the British & the Chinese,
 cats are said to be inscrutable... OTOH such a remark often tells me more
about the observer than it does about them!  Several years ago, for example,
Dallas & I watched a fictional account on TV of what went wrong between Prince
Andrew of the UK & his wife Sarah (AKA "Fergie".  In one particular scene
Fergie screams at the Queen's secretary that he's ruined her marriage.  Without
 doing a frame- by-frame analysis I can't tell you exactly what the male actor
did to give both of us the same impression.  As a servant this man would be
expected to keep his feelings to himself until asked to offer an opinion, but
the actor let the mask slip just enough to let *us* know he was glad to hear
what Fergie said....  :-)



ak>  But looking at the cats' faces during such moments we

ak>  certainly can suppose that they are deep in thoughts.


           Yes, like the guy who shouted "EUREKA!" in the bathtub... [chuckle].



ak>  If we consider the first variant we can suppose that

ak>  when a human washes a cat the whole life flashes through
                               |its

ak>  its mind and a state of consternation is the aftermath

ak>  of the washing process.


           Nice description.  People often say their whole lives flashed before
 their eyes when they thought they were about to drown... [grin].

           I also like your use of the word "consternation" here.  From the POV
 of a scientist we may be anthropomorphizing, i.e. attributing feelings
(perhaps incorrectly) to other species on the basis of how we might feel if we
were in a similar situation.  While I can't say exactly what's going on in the
cat's mind I know from personal experience that the cat will try to escape &
the scratches on the bather's arms may take weeks to heal.  In short stories
where every word is important I'd give "consternation" full marks for
functional elegance.  :-))

           The cats I've known certainly seemed to dislike getting wet, anyway,
 unless it was their idea!  We can use the reflexive for clarification by
saying

                   when, while washing themselves, they suddenly freeze.



ak>  I can't vouch for the second variant - I've never observed

ak>  cats freezing when they wash themselves.


           I have seen them pause in mid-action & gaze into space for a moment.
 And when a schoolteacher says "Freeze!" it means s/he wants all the kids
within earshot to stop action... right now this second.  ;-)



ak>  But who knows - maybe the process wakes up some thoughts

ak>  inside their brains. After all people are often

ak>  deep in thoughts after scratching their heads. ;-)
     |there's another idiom... "deep in thought [singular]"


           Such repetitive motions can help people relax & enhance the activity
 of alpha rhythms in the brain.  That's one way to stimulate intuitive
thinking, and improve their chances of a "brainwave".  Maybe it works with cats
 too.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)