Rene Descartes (1596–1650) famously opined, "Animals are like robots: they cannot reason or feel pain." Four centuries later, biologists are still arguing about where to draw the line between that which is conscious and that which is merely alive. Even human consciousness has become to neuroscientists what the "cosmological constant" is to astrophysicists.

It embarrasses the reductionists to have to acknowledge its existence at all. Some, like Daniel Dennet, regard the "theory of self" or the "theory of mind" to be an antiquated superstition. Many argue that consciousness emerges from biology once a certain, very high threshold of complexity is reached.

But this is deeply inadequate, for its failure to identify the mechanism that distinguishes living organisms from complex, inanimate ones. Is there a certain number of cells, neurons or chromosomes we can all agree on that divides the line between those who are conscious and those that are not? If a bigger brain is always better, what about crows and octopuses? And what about large language models?

The utterly subjective experience of being alive and inhabiting a thinking, feeling mind/body that can sense, intuit, dream, remember, plan, calculate, predict and philosophize is the one thing that any of us can categorically say is real. And yet it's one thing science just can't seem to wrap its head around. It leaves a yawning psychological vacuum. And as we know, nature—especially human nature—abhors a vacuum.

The Mirror Test

According to Wikipedia, "The mirror self-recognition test (MSR) is a behavioral technique developed in 1970 by psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. as an attempt to determine whether a non-human animal possesses the ability of self-recognition/ self-awareness... however there has been recent controversy whether the test is a true indicator."

The first tests involved "manipulating the chimpanzees' appearance and observing their reaction to their reflection in the mirror." This was done by sedating the chimps and marking their faces with a spot of red dye. Once it dried, it had no scent or physical texture to tip off the animal to its presence. When the chimps awakened, the mirror was reintroduced and the scientists observed to see if the chimps noticed the red mark in the mirror, and if they then made the cognitive leap to connect the mark on the chimp in the mirror's face with their own face.

The theory being that if they inspected themselves in the mirror, grew agitated and tried to remove the mark, this would prove that they were aware that the chimp in the mirror was indeed themselves; this by extension, would prove that chimps had a sense of self in the same way that humans have a sense of self.

(Never mind that it clearly seems a better test of vanity than of a sense of self, but whatever...)

Over the years, the MSR test was conducted on every animal that scientists could get their hands on, including humans of every age (FYI, 15 months apparently marks the dawning of self-awareness). While all manner of primates, dolphins and some bird species have unsurprisingly passed the test, so have ants, and that is decidedly not what consciousness-researchers are keen to hear—much less want to write up in a peer-reviewed journal.

Scientists are only human, after all, and I suspect that one prejudice is all but universal—humans want no part of any definition of consciousness that's broad enough to include ants.

But that's not what bothered me about the MSR test. The more I learned, the more annoyed I became about its conclusions and its supposed impact on our interpretation of animal consciousness. I wondered about domestic animals whose lives and physical environments, in contrast with animals in the wild, more often than not, are positively lousy with mirrors.

The Singularity: Cat Becomes Self Aware

When our kitten California was four months old, I came into the bedroom to find her engaged in a hilariously intense, Siamese fighting fish-like exhibition with her newly-discovered doppelganger in the mirrored doors of our closet. She was wild-eyed, darting around like a mongoose engaged in a battle of intimidation against a formidable cobra. I rushed to get my camera and, with the utmost stealth, began recording.

I watched, holding my breath so as not to spook her. Her playful aggression and posturing (fluffing up of fur on the back, tail whipping back and forth wildly, etc.) gradually gave way to sly, sideways, full-body flybys against the mirror.

She rolled over on her back, paws pressed against reflected paws, then bounded back and forth in a series of sneak-up-and-pounce moves from different angles until, finally, rather abruptly, she left the room—as if the mystery had suddenly been solved. That was the only time I saw Cali acknowledge the existence of the mirror.

There are now numerous videos on Youtube capturing the “Skynet moment” when a cat becomes self-aware. Many of them, far better than mine, capture the complex spectrum of reactions as the cat tries to figure out what exactly is going on—the initial alertness, building up to a confrontation (thinking it’s another cat)… aggression, confusion, playfulness, thoughtfulness—the still, probing stare into its reflected image, an experience unlike any their tiny brain was prepared for.

20 Years Earlier

I had only ever witnessed a cat noticing its own reflection once before, in college, when I brought a very young kitten home from my aunt’s farm. She had lived in the barn her entire short life. One morning I was seated on the floor doing my makeup in front of a flimsy, full-length mirror—the kind that's meant to be mounted to the back of a door, unless you're renting an apartment from Student Housing and drilling holes in doors is strictly forbidden.

The mirror was leaning up against the wall, which created an eight-inch gap behind it. I sat cross-legged on the floor while my cat ran around the bedroom playing. She slid behind the mirror, crouched briefly and then curled around to the front, where she was met with her own reflection, a shocking face-to-face that caused her to leap back as if electrified. Every hair on her back stood on end.

My cat mother instinct took over instantly, extinguishing any scientific curiosity for the moment. I picked her up and comforted her, assuring her that there was nothing to fear. It was just her beautiful reflection, and she would eventually get used to seeing it—maybe she would even come to love looking at herself, just like her mother. LOL

But that was the last time I ever saw her acknowledge the mirror. Maybe she had an episode just like Cali's—all by herself, off-camera and away from the anthropomorphizing eyes of her human family—or maybe not. I'll never know. But I always remembered that moment of shock and the years of utter disinterest that followed. 

Cats Gonna Cat

Much later, when I learned about the "Mirror Test" for self-awareness in animals, I wondered what they thought they knew about cats based on such tests. It turns out, cats supposedly “fail” the mirror test, but I always suspected it was because, once they realized it wasn’t another cat, who cares? 

If any domesticated animal sees their reflection every day without paying it the slightest attention, it's obviously because they know it's their own reflection. Otherwise, there would be a constant battle of wits, like when they put a large mirror in the jungle and wild animals go crazy attacking it, thinking their territory has been invaded. (Hey, it's another guy—how'd he get in here? Is he threatening me? Is he a she? Is she into me? And if so... Hey, how you doin'??)

The fact that they don't do any of this, is proof enough for me that cats and dogs are self-aware. (Don't any of these scientists have pets?) I came to regard my college kitten's utter lack of interest in mirrors as proof that cats are more intelligent than we give them credit for.

I wondered what she thought of me and my endless daily rituals in front of the mirror… my repetitive, obsessive grooming and compulsive inability to pass one without acknowledging my reflection, as if I hadn’t done so just a few moments ago.

Maybe she drew the not-entirely-illogical conclusion that human self-recognition was a bit fragile and tenuous, in need of constant reminders and reinforcement (which would also explain the many photos and drawings of ourselves on the walls!).

The Art and Science of Self-Awareness

So when I caught Cali in front of the mirror, puffing herself up in threatening postures, lunging at herself, then retreating, stalking, pouncing and skittering sideways like a damned hyena, I thought, Yikes, this one's not very bright! My mother, a classically trained ballet dancer and choreographer, had a very different take on it. After watching the video, she was quick to declare, “She's just a dancer!"

Watching the video again, I noticed something I hadn't picked up on before. There's this part in the middle when she goes to the far end of the room and stands off to the side, out of sight of the mirror, where the short wall that forms the outside of the closet meets the bedroom door. There's an 8-inch return that frames the closet and she sits there staring at the corner for a long time.

What became abundantly clear to me was that she was trying to look behind the mirror, where the other cat would be. She's doing her own little experiment, right?

Shortly after that, she flops down in front of the gap where the closet door hinges, where she can peer inside the closet and, at the same time, see her reflection in both sides of the closet door. She doesn't register any alarm at the prospect of two identical foreign cats in her environment, and soon after that, she leaves the room (possibly to write up her results).

I have no problem with the hypothesis that Cali is a dancer, but maybe—just maybe—she's a scientist too.