The Cat Sat on the Keyboard

I was recently developing some software with ChatGPT when the neighbour's cat decided to contribute.

Without invitation, consultation or the slightest apparent interest in the project, it climbed onto my keyboard and produced:

p0

ChatGPT, understandably, queried this rather cryptic contribution to the development process. I explained that the neighbour's cat had sat on the keyboard. It suggested that the animal was making an editorial contribution and should probably be kept away from the Publish button.

I replied that the cat probably made more sense than I did. Which got me thinking about cats.

Cats have an extraordinary ability to insert themselves into whatever you're doing, apparently without the slightest comprehension of why you're doing it. Or, more likely, with complete comprehension and an equally complete disregard for its importance.

You can spend hours concentrating on something that genuinely matters to you. A cat will survey the entire room and conclude that the one place it absolutely must occupy is the precise location where your hands are trying to work.

Not the comfortable chair. Not the sunny windowsill. The keyboard.

And once installed, it will look at you with an expression suggesting that you're the one behaving unreasonably.

Of course, this particular cat isn't even ours. It belongs to the neighbours, although I'm increasingly doubtful that the cat recognises the arrangement.

As far as it's concerned, ownership appears to be a concept invented by humans to complicate an otherwise perfectly satisfactory system of unrestricted access. We own the house, the furniture and the computer. The neighbours presumably own similar things. The cat has simply concluded that all of them are available for its personal use.

There's something particularly impressive about an animal that can maintain two households without paying rent in either. Indeed, it's managed to outsource virtually every inconvenience of domestic life. Food, heating, accommodation and the opening of doors are all provided by humans. The cat's contribution consists largely of deciding which household is currently offering the better service.

And occasionally interfering with software development.

The remarkable thing is how readily we accept this arrangement. If a neighbour wandered into my house, climbed onto my desk and started pressing random keys on my computer, I might have something to say about it. Although I suspect the neighbour would be considerably less charming if he sat on the keyboard.

The keyboard incident was a particularly fine example of feline indifference. There I was, attempting to develop some reasonably sophisticated software, and the cat decided that the entire enterprise would benefit from the addition of two completely unsolicited characters.

Perhaps it wasn't even being deliberately obstructive. Perhaps it simply saw a convenient horizontal surface and decided to put its bottom on it. I was engaged in systems analysis. The cat was engaged in sitting down. It's difficult to say which of us was more successful.

And that's probably the fundamental difference between cats and humans. We insist on attributing significance to everything. We analyse behaviour, search for motives and develop elaborate explanations for events that may have no deeper meaning whatsoever.

The cat, meanwhile, has gone to sleep.

I've decided to preserve its contribution to the software development process. It seems only fair. After all, ChatGPT raised the query, I supplied the explanation, and the cat has shown no interest whatever in responding to criticism.

Having spent much of my working life in management, I recognise the technique.

As for p0, I have no intention of editing it. I wouldn't presume to interfere with another author's work.