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I’m pretty sure cats have several facial expressions.
Yeah but AFAIK they don't have one that is similar to a human smile.
(In appearance not in meaning)
But they do? I mean, here’s an example if you’re skeptical: https://lemmy.world/post/9686610
I'm sure its just the lighting, his face being smooshed into the blanket and also part of his face being obstructed by the blanket.
Could be. But that seems more elaborate than “as you’d expect, cat smiles look like human smiles and mean the same thing”
It just means smiling appeared before our common ancestor, or that we co-evolved like bees and flowers to have a working interface for emotional communication.
It’s in all organisms’ best interest to succeed in communicating with other organisms. There’s a universal selective pressure toward universal empathy. Like you can tell when a hornet’s anxious or a spider is scared.
It just so happens we’ve been next to cats for long enough we got highly specialized at reading each other.