Got the cat up on the desk, turned the desk light on behind it, and it turned around to look at the light. It can later be seen examining it. Suggesting that in some sense animals have got some idea of the concept of light- instead of seeing the shadow in front of himself as a novelty, the cat deduces that the shadow is cast by the novelty of the light behind him. And it was definitely the lightbulb, instead of the sound of it clicking on, that caught the cat's attention. It might have been the heat of the bulb, but I doubt the bulb would get hot as quickly as the cat reacted to it...
Still haven't eliminated the possibility that the cat heard the click of it turning on, turned around for that, and saw that the light itself was on. That's not what it looked like, but that's a possibility. Nor have I eliminated the possibility of, like, ultraviolet sight or other sensory forms that we humans don't have but animals do (infrasound?) Cat's refusing to cooperate right now for further experimentation, so, sure, it's not so far fetched to assume that the cat just sees that the lightbulb is on- it's actually kind of downright silly to say anything else.
So, yes, the cat saw that the light was on. What does this say? That the cat understands what light is? That's how it would appear. Anything else? Nope, nothing else. Why, then, you may ask, is this so important?
Well, if the animal understands that light comes from a source, this certainly changes (or sheds new light on- no pun intended, but that still feels icky) the cat's relationship with laser pointers.
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