The dogs, witnessing first-hand his opening of the door, stand with their mouths wide open.
“There could be no door-opener when the cat can open the door himself,” they reason. “Our former belief in the door-opener must have been the result of our ignorance, now exposed for what it is.”
The Cat and the House
As for the house issue, that curious cat rummaged around in my closet until he found the blueprints in which I had laid out all the building instructions for the house in detail, specifying each component for both architectural and engineering purposes. The cat, having uncovered these instructions, has extracted from them a set of principles.
Indeed — and I kid you not — he has independently derived the laws of physics, that clever critter.
"Ha!" he exclaims. "This house was built according to a set of scientific principles! The walls contain weight-bearing structures to support the roof. The windows are windows precisely because they are constructed of translucent matter. The paint matches because it all reflects the same color wavelength. The light switch works because it opens and closes an electrical circuit. The heater and air conditioner behave automatically by function of an electric thermostat equipped with a thermometer.
“See? Didn’t I tell you? It’s all there in the blueprints. There is no master, no house-builder. There is simply natural law — and this house obeys each and every one of those natural laws!"
Downtrodden Dogs
The dogs, confronted with such undeniably true scientific evidence, have no choice but to concede that the house really does conform to the blueprints, of course. As a result, one by one, each dog has eventually come to start believing that the cat may be right after all.
Understandably, the dogs have had a hard time getting used to life without the comfort of thinking that someone is taking care of them. But they seem to be adjusting, and I’m glad they’re learning to debate.
His Majesty, the Intelligent Feline
Meanwhile, the cat could hardly be any more smug. He parades around the house these days like he owns it, having “disproven” my existence.
But I can’t quite bring myself to break the news to him about what it takes to prove a negative, which he has obviously not quite grasped just yet. I’d almost feel guilty if he were to find out that, while he can trace the credit card transactions, I hold the card; while he has learned to use the door, I built it; while he can read the blueprints, I wrote them.
Still, I love my intelligent feline as much as ever and am proud that he is so smart. And I still don’t mind running to the store, picking up groceries and doing all the things I do to take care of him, because he, like my dogs, still comes running at mealtime — even if he doesn’t understand why.
S. E. Harrison teaches law and logic in Los Angeles. He is author of Plutonomics: A Unified Theory of Wealth (http://plutonomics.wordpress.com/).
