“The question of whether non-human species can perceive other’s actions as goal-directed has been more controversial,” Marshall-Pescini et al write, “however there is mounting evidence that at least some primates species do. Recently domestic dogs have been shown to be particularly sensitive to human communicative cues and more so in cooperative and intentional contexts.”
[Dogs Can Understand Our Intentions]
This illustrates what I think dogs are doing, but don’t think cats are doing.
These are cats that you’ve had in your home for EIGHT YEARS now?
ETA nine years? Nobody ever hired me for my math skills.
Well…maybe 
.
I’ve suspected this for a long time. When I’m feeding my cat or petting her, these are things my hand does on its own. That’s why she sometimes shows her appreciation by licking my hand.
We had an adult cat arrive on our doorstep. After we had him fixed, his only bad habit was biting us. Every time he put his teeth on either of us, we would shout NO and shove him off our laps, then totally ignore him for at least 10 minutes.
After about a year it got to the point where he would be purring and cuddling, then reach out and touch us with his teeth, then look like he was thinking NO! I didn’t mean it! Don’t put me down!!!
The most important thing to remember when training cats is that everyone in the household must be on the same page and be consistent. It might be cute when a kitten or a puppy chews on your hand, its not nearly so cute when an adult dog or cat does it, so its best to break bad habits early when possible.
Yes; and I was saying they behave as if they appreciate that I have intention.
Mine all make eye contact. Sometimes very pointed eye contact.
Cat on a leash chooses the nuclear option - Pinky the cat
You can train cats to do some things.
If you give your cat breakfast every time you get up, then obviously your cat will whine at you to get up out of bed and give them food. They’ve learned that you getting up = them getting food, and you’re their source of food, so it’s understandable. Wait till the evening, or at least lunchtime, and they won’t expect you to feed them as soon as you get up.
Also if you don’t want cats in your bedroom (or any other room) then you put tinfoil/aluminium foil on the bottom of your bedroom door. They do not like scratching it and they will stop even after the foil is taken away. I’ve trained three cats out of scratching at the bedroom door, and they then don’t even try to enter the room afterwards.
If you knew this because you yourself have seen it for yourself then why did you belittle a Doctor at their mere mention of this thing that you knew was factual?
It’s our fault. Due to a tragic genetic flaw, humans are not covered with a nice coat of protective fur, which means that light bites and scratches, which are clearly intended to be just for play, actually cause us pain and even injury. This is in no way the cats’ responsibility, and if we don’t want to be hurt, we obviously need to do something about it.
For the first several years of her life, our cat never made eye contact when we spoke to her. Like the sounds coming out of our mouths were just random background noise. Then, suddenly, something clicked, and she realized that we were actually communicating with her.
My anecdote:
We once were on a short hike up to a pond (remote, woods, quiet). We encountered a young couple who had hiked up with their cat. The cat was NOT on a leash. It had a bell on its collar, and roamed all around while the humans sat and enjoyed the pond.
When they left, they called the cat, and it followed them off as they headed back down the trail. Not at heel or anything, but just exploring all around with the humans as the center of the circle.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
tofor, we used to do this with some of our cats. They don’t like walking as far as we do, and would sometimes sit down and meow, but if we carried them a little while then they’d want to walk again. Nowadays I wouldn’t do this because I think it’s too easy to lose a cat companion because something comes along to scare it, but it did work for us all then. We’d go perhaps half a mile out, and then back again.
When I retire some time in the next few years, I’m going to need to train the cats to expect breakfast at 10:30 instead of 5:30. I’m sure that will work out just fine… 
Growing up we had a cat that loved to jump on the roof of the house. My mom got mad at him so she would take a water hose and spray him and the sudden dampness would cause him to quickly climb back down to stop being sprayed.
For literal years this cycle would repeat multiple times a week. Our cat just never learned to not get on the roof even subtlety.
I was expecting a, er, shit storm. Pinky was quite impressive anyway. So many pointy parts.
I solved this problem by only feeding them at night. They’re still pests about food, but they’re not sitting on my chest yelling in my face.
I solved the food problem by leaving out a bowl full of dry food, and giving them a can of Fancy Feast at random times. They never know when to expect it.
I have a self-feeder of dry food, and put out wet food in the morning and evening. For years my two cats were content to wait for breakfast until I chose to get out of bed. Then one of the boys decided that I needed to be woken up between 6 and 6:30 every morning. He walks around my head, bumps me with his head, and paws at me (with his claws out) until I finally give in and get out of bed. I have literally grabbed him and tossed him off the bed, and he just jumps back up.
What’s particularly annoying about this is that after I put out the canned food, sometimes he just nibbles at it and walks away, while his brother continues to eat his fill.
I woke up one day to find I was lying on my side with my bent arm off the edge of the bed…and the cat was standing on it yelling at me. As soon as she realized I was awake she turned into “hey! You’re up! Say, I don’t you’d like to feed me fresh [dry] food, would you? The old is 3 hours old”. I moved my arm and fell back asleep.
Our cat was born a barn cat. The people that owned her let her be an outdoor cat who occasionally spent time inside. When we got her, we made sure she stayed indoors, as outdoor cats generally don’t live very long. She adapted well to it. Then we started letting her go out while we were in the yard also. She would try to prowl outside of the yard, which earn her a trip back indoors. She has gradually learned what her parameters are and stays within yard boundaries unless you’re not paying attention. But even then, the furthest she’s gone is to the back yard. So yeah, she’s been trained to that extent.
I trained my last cat to fall over if I pointed my figure at her and went “bang”.
But the OP is correct: you really can’t discipline a cat very well. It’s not in their nature, and they have the attention span of a gnat.