I would say yes, to a limited degree, for a limited time, sometimes.
So I have a number of outdoor cats, and there was one time I went outside and one of my cats had died. Idek from what. His brother was just right beside him, sniffing him, trying to get him to move. I was like ooooh, this isn't good. I quickly grabbed the dead cat & moved out of sight, buried him.
But that damn cat wouldn't let it go. For a good couple days, he just had this thousand yard stare & a sad moaning meow. He discovered death, he seemed to realize death applies to everyone. Himself included. It reminded me of my own epiphany when I was 7 or 8, I almost wanted to chuckle a bit, it's like yeah bro welcome to the club. Death is our shared fate. Just try not to fixate on it.
So my cat's limit was about 2 days. After that, he seemed to move on & he was back to being happy again. Some extra seafood, catnip, and pets helped coax him out of the slump.
I'm weird because I'm very interested in what comes after death. Always been interested in reincarnation and those things.
When the day comes, it will be either nothing or something. Either way it's the end of working to live, so that's nice.
I'd laugh if it's a "congrats, you made it through, now go do whatever you want, reality is infinite so it's all there somewhere" and the religious ones pick the lamest afterlife where they just sit around singing and not sinning, following a god that they fully believe is jealous, arbitrary, judgemental, and authoritative. But he loves you and proved it by making his own son one of you and then making him get horribly murdered, which, by a technicality, means that you're no longer doomed because one time a woman wanted knowledge even though she was told she can't have it!
“It’s so weird. I shit in the box, and then the next day it’s just, gone. Where does it go? Who is stealing my poop?”
I have two cats: they wait while watching me and then slightly 'fight' to go in the clean litter box first.
I think my neighbours cat experiences existential dread if she hasn't eaten in 5 nanoseconds...
I'd say no, knowledge that we will some day die is unique to humans.
They certainly experience ennui though.
Outside of the occasional startle, no. The cat idle routine is very low level, not much going on there at all.
No but they can experience existential fear (first time I took one of my cats on Holiday).
Of COURSE they do. Hell they feel existential dread towards things that aren't even there. Its just that their body language is so different from ours, that we don't usually recognize it.
Hell just staring into an unfamiliar cat's eyes can give it a case of the screaming jibblies.
