Originally Posted by TheSquealer

From a neurological perspective, a cat is likely really only operating on nothing more than a few basic innate, hardwired programs in their brain and likely has next to zero conscious awareness of anything at all, including their owners.

For example:

1) find/stalk/catch jerky things that look like their natural food - i.e. birds or rodents
2) play with them once caught
3) eat them once playing is done
4) shit where you can bury it
5) go to food/stay close to the food source

There isn't much more happening in a cats brain and i would be surprised to learn they have any conscious awareness of their owner - beyond being anything other than that thing that feeds them. All of the rest,... their cuteness, their perceived personality traits etc etc etc is nothing more than our own projection and imagination.

What you perceived to be cutely "playing" with a string or dangling object is likely nothing more than a triggering of the primitive "hunting program" in their brain and the fact that they will do it for so long with no reward, is evidence that they lack the ability for conscious interruption of those instinctive behaviors. Apes are infinitely more evolved than cats and they are basically still full blown retards by any measure of intelligence.

Everyone loves to think their pet is on the brink of publishing their doctoral thesis and graduating with honors, but the simple truth is that is an illusion of the mind.