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Speaker 1: Hey, you. Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday,

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Speaker 1: time for a vault episode. We hear that door creaking

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Speaker 1: open and what is it? It is part three of

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Speaker 1: our series on the mirror. This episode originally aired August twelve.

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Speaker 1: Get ready to put it in your brain. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. Production of my heart radio. Hey, you,

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Speaker 1: welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and we're back with

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Speaker 1: part three of our talk about mirrors. If you haven't

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Speaker 1: listened to the first two parts, should probably go back

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Speaker 1: check those out first. But, rob to get US started today,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to revisit one of your favorite topics, are

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Speaker 1: our failures of intuition and understanding how mirrors work. So

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Speaker 1: we we talked in previous parts of out uh, your

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Speaker 1: point about the rokeby Venus. You know how there's that

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Speaker 1: painting of Venus looking in the mirror and we see

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Speaker 1: her face and we assume she's looking at herself, but

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Speaker 1: since we see her looking at us, she actually couldn't

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Speaker 1: be looking at herself. She's looking at us. As you know,

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Speaker 1: and as you love to point out, our misunderstanding is

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Speaker 1: about the physics of mirrors. Don't stop there, and so

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Speaker 1: so I actually came across one recently that I really enjoyed.

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Speaker 1: Rachel and I were doing this experiment earlier today. So

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Speaker 1: so you at home can play along. Um, a couple

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Speaker 1: of questions. Imagine yourself standing in front of a bathroom

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Speaker 1: mirror and looking at your own reflection. You're looking at

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Speaker 1: your head. You're regarding this glorious orb of bone and meat.

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Speaker 1: Maybe he's got some hair on it. And the question is,

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Speaker 1: how big is your reflection of your head on the Mirror?

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Speaker 1: If you were to measure it? Is it smaller than

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Speaker 1: your actual head, bigger than your actual head or the

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Speaker 1: same size? Yeah, this is it's a great question, because

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Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? You're gonna moving closer and

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Speaker 1: measure it. Well, you could measure if your normal bathroom

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Speaker 1: mirror size. You could measure it without stepping forward. You

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Speaker 1: can just reach out and mark the places you know,

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Speaker 1: touch the mirror where your chin is and where the

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Speaker 1: top of your head is. But before you do that,

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Speaker 1: just just guess, before you actually measure it. The second

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Speaker 1: thing is, after you do that, imagine walking backwards away

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Speaker 1: from a mirror. So you take a few steps back.

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Speaker 1: What is going to happen to the size of your

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Speaker 1: head in your reflection? Is it going to get larger?

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Speaker 1: Is it going to stay the same size, or will

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Speaker 1: it get smaller? Now My intuitions about this were apparently

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Speaker 1: exactly the same as most people's intuitions about these, the

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Speaker 1: answers to these questions, which are both wrong. My intuition was, well,

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Speaker 1: I think my head in my reflection is going to

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Speaker 1: be the same size as my real head and I

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Speaker 1: think as I walk backward, the size of that head

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Speaker 1: in my reflection is going to be smaller. And in

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Speaker 1: fact both of these are wrong, as intuitive as they feel,

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Speaker 1: if you actually reach out and measure it, your reflection

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Speaker 1: of your head is half the size of your real

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Speaker 1: head and as you walk backwards away from the Mirror,

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Speaker 1: from your perspective, your reflected head will stay exactly the

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Speaker 1: same size, no matter how far you get away. Very odd.

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Speaker 1: It seems totally counterintuitive until you start thinking about what's

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Speaker 1: actually happening with a mirror. If you imagine a mirror

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Speaker 1: as a sort of window into the mirror world. It's

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Speaker 1: a little bit easier to think about because if you're

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Speaker 1: looking at your reflected self as a person in uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, in that other mirror world, your reflection is

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Speaker 1: always at exactly the halfway point between yourself and that

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Speaker 1: reflected version of yourself. So in fact, given the vantage

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Speaker 1: point of your eyes, your reflected head is always going

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Speaker 1: to appear to be half the size of your real

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Speaker 1: head from wherever you are and as you move backwards

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Speaker 1: in a mirror, if someone were standing in the same

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Speaker 1: place and looking at your reflection as you move backwards,

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Speaker 1: it would appear to get smaller. But since your eyes

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Speaker 1: are moving back with you as you retreat from a mirror,

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Speaker 1: your reflection actually never gets smaller. It stays exactly the same. Wow, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's it's really mind blowing when you think about it.

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Speaker 1: For sure, Um again, these just strange objects in our

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Speaker 1: in our lives, but it's almost when you're talking about

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Speaker 1: the reflected world, the specular world, it's not even that.

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Speaker 1: That itself is not the object. That is this uh,

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Speaker 1: this this unreality, this uh, this inverse kingdom that we

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Speaker 1: seem to glimp through the glass. You know, we've talked

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Speaker 1: a bit in previous parts here about the possible effects

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Speaker 1: on our our self image and self consciousness that could

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Speaker 1: be created by different types of mirrors. Like if you

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Speaker 1: have a culture where most mirrors are slightly convex, and

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Speaker 1: you know convex mirrors lead to particular kinds of distortions,

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Speaker 1: widening of the field u around the head and sort of,

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Speaker 1: depending on where you hold it and how far away,

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Speaker 1: sort of pronouncement of certain features. Uh. You you wonder

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Speaker 1: if slightly convex mirrors give way to a culture with

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Speaker 1: a slightly convex self image and but but it also

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Speaker 1: makes me wonder, like, what are the self image properties

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Speaker 1: that cause us to believe that our face in the

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Speaker 1: mirror is the same size as our real face when

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Speaker 1: actually it's half the size? It's almost kind of comical

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Speaker 1: to think about you like looking at this little tiny

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Speaker 1: things like a few inches uh, and thinking that it's

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Speaker 1: exactly the same as yours, your big old head and

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Speaker 1: meat space. Yeah, I mean it. It falls in line

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Speaker 1: with some of the other ideas we've discussed here, including,

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Speaker 1: you know, the idea that that is what I look like, uh,

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Speaker 1: and that it is not a flipped version of my face. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know that that effect that we we sometimes get

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Speaker 1: when we see a photograph of ourselves and it does

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Speaker 1: not look like our mirror reflection and therefore we're a

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Speaker 1: little turned off by it because, you know, our right

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Speaker 1: side of our faces on the left side, that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, and and of course it also goes

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Speaker 1: without saying that the mirror is always staring back at us.

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Speaker 1: You know that, Um, that that that can't be avoided

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Speaker 1: as well. So in the last episode we talked about

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Speaker 1: the emergence of metal mirrors in the ancient world, with

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Speaker 1: copper and copper alloy looking glasses in Egypt and Mesopotamia

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Speaker 1: from around the third millennium BC on. So these would

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Speaker 1: be highly polished pieces of metal people would use to uh,

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Speaker 1: would use to look at their reflections for mundane cosmetic purposes,

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Speaker 1: but also, for, say, religious symbolism. Maybe in Egypt you

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Speaker 1: might put a polished piece of metal, a Metal Mirror,

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Speaker 1: on the top of a staff and it might symbolize

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Speaker 1: something about the sun. You know that Egypt has a

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Speaker 1: very solar oriented, uh Pantheon. But over time the mirror

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Speaker 1: technology would expand to include all kinds of metals first,

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Speaker 1: so not just a later forms of copper alloys, meaning

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Speaker 1: especially bronze, you know higher qualities of bronze, but also

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Speaker 1: things like gold and silver, and so in say, ancient

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Speaker 1: Rome you can find various types of silver mirrors and

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Speaker 1: things like that. So metal technology and different types of

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Speaker 1: metals become more available and uh, and and so mirrors

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Speaker 1: based on those metals also proliferate. And one thing I

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Speaker 1: was thinking about that this is noted in that paper

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Speaker 1: by J Enoch that I referenced in the past couple

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Speaker 1: of episodes, uh, is that you know, sometimes when we

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Speaker 1: talk about inventions, there are these technical developments that stay

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Speaker 1: relatively isolated in one place for a long time. Maybe

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Speaker 1: you get some little like curio exported to some of

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Speaker 1: their culture and it gets written about. But then there

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Speaker 1: are the other ones that really just proliferate throughout the globe,

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Speaker 1: whether by trade and contact or just by parallel invention.

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Speaker 1: And the Mirror is definitely one of these technologies that proliferates.

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Speaker 1: Eventually you find it everywhere. Enoch writes. Quote, by approximately

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Speaker 1: two thousand BC there existed dispersed utilization of mirrors in

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Speaker 1: virtually every major region of the world, with settled society ease.

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Speaker 1: This includes Central and South America. After that time, mirror

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Speaker 1: distribution and quality increased rapidly so, but by a certain point.

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Speaker 1: Deep into the ancient world, mirrors are everywhere, partially as

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Speaker 1: a product of of parallel invention and partially through trade

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Speaker 1: in contact. In one place where it seems to be

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Speaker 1: that mirrors tend to take on a lot of religious

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Speaker 1: and cultural significance is in China. Yeah, I was. I

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Speaker 1: was reading about this and it was it was really fascinating. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, like you were saying, mirror technology spreads, but

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Speaker 1: then also, uh, technology metaphors spread as well, and the

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Speaker 1: use of of our ideas concerning mirror. So that's that

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Speaker 1: was one of the things I was really looking at

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Speaker 1: when I was researching for this episode. And so it

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Speaker 1: led me to a wonderful Um article about Chinese mirrors

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Speaker 1: and UH and Um and particularly how different ancient philosophers

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Speaker 1: looked at them and used mirror or reflection metaphor wars

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Speaker 1: and it was it was titled Mirrors, minds and Metaphors,

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Speaker 1: published in Philosophy East and West two thousand and eight

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Speaker 1: by Aaron M Klein and uh, this particular paper was

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Speaker 1: largely looking at a couple of different Chinese philosophers from

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Speaker 1: the fourth and third century, B C, e and Um

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Speaker 1: and and dealing with like how they dealt with the

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Speaker 1: idea of mirrors and reflections. Um. But, but I want

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Speaker 1: to first drive home that, yeah, you have middle metal

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Speaker 1: mirrors that were popping up in China, uh, certainly as

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Speaker 1: as early as this second millennium B C. and if

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Speaker 1: you look at some of the examples of of bronze

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Speaker 1: mirrors from ancient China particularly, I was looking at some

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Speaker 1: images of of some mirrors discovered in a two thousand

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Speaker 1: year old treasure trove that was turned up in recent years.

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Speaker 1: They're quite interesting. You'll typically see one side of them

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Speaker 1: photographed because they had two different sides. One side they're

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Speaker 1: going to be more or less flat, generally circular, though

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Speaker 1: I think I've seen Um that had a slightly different shape. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So flat, circular Um. One side is going to be

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Speaker 1: featureless and reflective, but the other side is going to

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Speaker 1: be often just ornately decorated. So it can be a

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Speaker 1: bit be a little off putting when you see a

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Speaker 1: picture and and it's described as a mirror and you're

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out where you're supposed to look for

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Speaker 1: the reflection. This is so funny. I was actually looking

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Speaker 1: at a bunch of mirrors in the Met Museum collection,

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Speaker 1: just on their website, uh, and I kept noticing this.

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Speaker 1: I would look at it, I'd be like what, that's

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Speaker 1: not a mirror, but then I realized they're showing me

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Speaker 1: the back of the mirror, I think, because the back

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Speaker 1: has all the interesting decorations and everything on it. And

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Speaker 1: this was true of so some ancient Roman mirrors. I

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Speaker 1: was looking at some Iranian mirrors, uh, some, and some

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Speaker 1: ancient Chinese mirrors where in all cases all of the

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Speaker 1: beautiful decorations, the inlays any writing or script or imagery

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Speaker 1: on them. That was all on the back side. And

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Speaker 1: it always looks like yeah, how does anybody see the

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Speaker 1: reflection in this? Oh, okay, yeah, looking at the other

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Speaker 1: the other side. But but certainly this would be the

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Speaker 1: side with the most, most of the eye catching decoration.

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Speaker 1: This would be the side that had birds or dragons

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Speaker 1: or depictions of deities, and sometimes good luck wishes were

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Speaker 1: also inscribed there. Now, the two different philosophers that that

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Speaker 1: Klein is looking at here were dallast, philosopher Gengi and

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Speaker 1: Confucian philosopher Hina. They each had their own separate worldviews,

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Speaker 1: but they seem to come together on the idea of

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Speaker 1: of how we might view the Shin which kleient translates

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Speaker 1: his heart mind. But I think we can also translate

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Speaker 1: it as US intention or center or core. But I

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Speaker 1: think heart mind is seems to be a pretty strong translation,

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Speaker 1: you know, the sort of center of being and contemplation.

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Speaker 1: But both of these philosophers tended to look at ways

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Speaker 1: in which this heart mind might best resemble, Um, a mirror,

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Speaker 1: that it might be like a reflecting pool. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: this seems to be something that that turns up in

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Speaker 1: a lot of thought about mirrors throughout the world. Is

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Speaker 1: that the mirror is often seen as a a way

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Speaker 1: to see one's true self, maybe to see the part

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Speaker 1: of you that is integral. Yeah, so, so Jeong Gi

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Speaker 1: wrote that that a sage's heart mind should quote in stillness,

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Speaker 1: is the Mirror of heaven and earth, the glass of

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Speaker 1: the ten thousand things and and I'll break down what

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Speaker 1: all this means in just a second. But but Shinja,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, wrote that the heart mind bust

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Speaker 1: must be like a mirror in order to fully contemplate

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Speaker 1: the way. So the use of the mirror metaphor here

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Speaker 1: seems to largely revolve around, of course, the reflective qualities

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Speaker 1: of water Um, and each each of these different philosophers

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Speaker 1: kind of uses a different version of that. I think

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Speaker 1: with in the Dallas sense, you see more of this

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Speaker 1: use of an actual body like the ocean or a

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Speaker 1: lake or a pond or something, while the Confucian model

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Speaker 1: that is employed here has more of a uh, more

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Speaker 1: of a like a man made reflective pool, like a

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Speaker 1: basin of water that you might have inside of a

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Speaker 1: house or some sort of a domicile in order to

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Speaker 1: view your reflection, something you might use for self care,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Sure. So the idea here is

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Speaker 1: that the surface of the water must be still in

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Speaker 1: order to more perfectly reflective viewer's face or, in the

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Speaker 1: case of something in a more natural model, the brilliance

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Speaker 1: of the sky in the mountains. Now client goes on

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Speaker 1: to discuss the history and understanding of mirrors and Chinese culture,

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Speaker 1: and I found this was this really interesting. So one

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Speaker 1: of the things that they point out is that while

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Speaker 1: in modern times we tend to think of Mirrors as passive. Uh.

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Speaker 1: To the ancient Chinese, mirrors, especially metal mirrors, especially like

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Speaker 1: those bronze mirrors we were discussing, they were seen as, quote, active,

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Speaker 1: responsive objects. So they're there are things that respond to

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Speaker 1: our world. Um, an understanding that is Um. You know.

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Speaker 1: It was also linked to the observation that mirrors had

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Speaker 1: the ability to gather and produce. Oh, this is very

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Speaker 1: interesting because it reminds me of the the alternate and

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Speaker 1: you could argue, physically incorrect model of the eye, which,

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Speaker 1: you know, it was common to believe in the ancient

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Speaker 1: world that the eye was not just a passive receptor

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Speaker 1: of light but actually sent something out that retrieved the

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Speaker 1: image and brought it back. Uh. And I guess, you know,

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Speaker 1: you could argue that the eye is not in fact

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Speaker 1: totally passive because the eye moves, it focuses, it increases

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Speaker 1: or decreases the aperture that allows light in. Um. But

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Speaker 1: but it it is at least only receiving light. But

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Speaker 1: it was natural for people to think throughout history that

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Speaker 1: the eye was going out and getting images, it was

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Speaker 1: sending something. It was like beaming out the power of sight. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and in the for the ancient Chinese this, apparently, was

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Speaker 1: also compounded by observations of what you could do with

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Speaker 1: a mirror. So on one hand you could take a mirror,

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Speaker 1: you could focus sunlight and you could produce fire, and

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Speaker 1: it was also known that a mirror left in the

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Speaker 1: moonlight would gather condensation. So, uh, this is interesting because

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the generation of fire or the collection

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Speaker 1: of water, and water and fire are the elemental essence

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Speaker 1: of Yin and Yang, the dual energies of the cosmos. Wow, quote,

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Speaker 1: this is from Klein. The fact that mirrors appeared to

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Speaker 1: draw these substances from the sun and moon reinforce the

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Speaker 1: cosmological power that was already associated with them. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: this makes me think of yet another way that that

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Speaker 1: it could be natural to assume that a mirror has

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Speaker 1: a gathering and production power, which is that by making

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Speaker 1: a mirror, for example, concave, you can give it magnifying power.

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Speaker 1: And in a way it's hard not to see a

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Speaker 1: lens or a mirror that has magnified buying power as

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Speaker 1: in some way going out and gathering, because what it

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Speaker 1: is quite literally doing is taking something that is invisible

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Speaker 1: to the naked eye and making it visible. You know, Um,

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Speaker 1: not not to jump around too much here, but this

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Speaker 1: reminds me of something I read in M Geraldine Pinch's

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Speaker 1: book on Egyptian mythology concerning the eye of raw. She

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Speaker 1: writes the ancient Egyptian word for I, uh you, sounded

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Speaker 1: like a word for doing or acting. This may be

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Speaker 1: why the eyes of Deities are associated with divine power

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Speaker 1: as its most uh, interventional. So I keep coming back

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Speaker 1: to that as well. That's kind of been in the

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Speaker 1: background as we've been discussing that. You know, the idea

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Speaker 1: of like what is what is a mirror doing, and

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Speaker 1: is it passive or is it active? Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: I guess it depends on your definition of passive or

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Speaker 1: active there, because obviously, again like a concave mirror that produces, say,

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Speaker 1: a telescope image. You know, most of our most powerful

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Speaker 1: telescopes today are not based on our on transparent refractive lenses,

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Speaker 1: but they're based on mirrors. The Hubble telescope has a

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Speaker 1: gigantic mirror in it and, though I think it is

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Speaker 1: meant with a slightly different connotation, what even astronomers talk

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Speaker 1: about these mirrors, quote, gathering light. What they mean is,

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Speaker 1: you know, they are taking an amount of information that

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Speaker 1: is that is too diffuse for our eyes to make

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Speaker 1: any sense of, but then turning it into an image

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Speaker 1: that is recognizable to us. Yeah, yeah, I guess one

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Speaker 1: of the things that that that I find super interesting

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Speaker 1: about all this is that if you do see the

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Speaker 1: mirror as is more active as opposed to passive, I

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Speaker 1: feel like perhaps you're more inclined to engage in metaphors

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Speaker 1: for the self based on that device. You know, like,

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Speaker 1: for instance, we've talked about the idea of thinking about

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Speaker 1: your brain as a in your visual system is being

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Speaker 1: like a security camera, like a security camera is Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, to a certain extent is acting passively, but

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Speaker 1: it is acting, you know it is. It is, it

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Speaker 1: is doing something, and if it is doing something in

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Speaker 1: the world, then perhaps we're more more inclined to compare

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Speaker 1: ourselves to it or compare some aspect of our our

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Speaker 1: of our physiology, to it Um. And so, likewise we

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Speaker 1: see that reflected in the Chinese view here. Um Gengi writes.

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Speaker 1: Perfect persons use their heart mind like mirrors, going after nothing,

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Speaker 1: welcoming nothing, responding but not storing. Therefore they can win

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Speaker 1: out over things and not hurt themselves. So again, the

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Speaker 1: idea is that a mirror is not passive, it's active,

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Speaker 1: but it's responsive. It does not in sight, um anything

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Speaker 1: and it also does not store the images that it

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Speaker 1: responds with. It lets them go. And this, of course,

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Speaker 1: brings me back to this, you know, this loose metaphor

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Speaker 1: that we often employ of the video camera or the

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Speaker 1: camera itself as a technological metaphor for how we perceive

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Speaker 1: the world and think about it and remember things. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, the more I wonder if if, ultimately, that's

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Speaker 1: like more of a harmful metaphor to engage in when

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Speaker 1: we think about how we engage in the world. Maybe

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Speaker 1: we should think of ourselves more as a mirror. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we know that the reality is in fact,

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Speaker 1: somewhere in between. Like I agree that it's totally a

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Speaker 1: harmful metaphor to think of, say, your memory, of your

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Speaker 1: vision of events, as like a video camera, because the

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Speaker 1: video camera is, you know, with some constraints. You could

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Speaker 1: think of it as objective in a way that your

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Speaker 1: memory just is not, though then again, your memory is real,

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Speaker 1: like it is storing something that is based on events

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Speaker 1: you actually witnessed. It's just not objective in the way

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Speaker 1: that a video recording is. Yeah, now another interesting bit

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Speaker 1: here's that Janshi also writes of mirrors illuminating and Klein

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Speaker 1: writes that mirrors in early China were thought to illuminate

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Speaker 1: and reveal objects as well. So that's another spin on

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Speaker 1: the UH. You know that the active aspect of the mirror.

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Speaker 1: Now one of the quotes you read earlier from Jeng

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Speaker 1: Gi had something in it that I didn't understand. It

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Speaker 1: was the quote about in stillness, is the Mirror of

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Speaker 1: heaven and earth, the glass of the ten thousand things

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Speaker 1: or the ten thousands things. Well, what are the ten

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Speaker 1: thousand or ten thousands things? So it's possible. I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: missing some like more esoteric understanding of this, but based

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Speaker 1: on reading clients article, my understanding is that it's the

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Speaker 1: idea like these are the things reflected in the mirror,

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Speaker 1: all the things of the world. And and what's crucial

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Speaker 1: here is that the more the heart mind is like

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Speaker 1: a mirror, the more one sense of self fades away.

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Speaker 1: The more I am a mirror, the more I am

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Speaker 1: just a reflection of the ten thousand things in the

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Speaker 1: world as opposed to myself. You know, Um, which which

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Speaker 1: I find rather beautiful, really flows into this idea of

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Speaker 1: you know, of of of losing oneself in the now,

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Speaker 1: of losing oneself in the sort of, you know, unlanguaged

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Speaker 1: contemplation of one's immediate surroundings. Oh yeah, that sense of

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Speaker 1: by becoming the mirror, you become the world. That's the

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Speaker 1: sins of oneness sought after by so many different religious

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Speaker 1: traditions and types of mysticism. Now, Shin Jo was not

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Speaker 1: a dallast again was. It was a confusion different views

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Speaker 1: of the world, but again they were mostly aligned in

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Speaker 1: this idea of the mirror like aspects of the heart mind. Um,

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Speaker 1: the idea that perfectly still waters allow one to see

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Speaker 1: details of one's reflection in the water, but the slightest breeze, uh,

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Speaker 1: he writes, can both disturb the surface and stir the

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Speaker 1: silt that has sunk to the bottom. Uh. Tilting the

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Speaker 1: PAN likewise can make the water and reflection murky. Uh

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Speaker 1: So uh. Client points out that, yeah, that the pan

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Speaker 1: of water metaphor here is more in line with self

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Speaker 1: cultivation practices than, you know, the natural world. Um, and

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Speaker 1: I guess that I kind of took it to mean

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Speaker 1: this is largely just sort of creative choices based, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, based in the writings of the individual philosophers

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Speaker 1: and not necessarily something that is like Taoism versus Confusism,

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Speaker 1: but I could be wrong on that. And of course

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Speaker 1: they're not alone in, of course, employing mirror metaphors, as

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Speaker 1: we'll discuss a little bit more mirror metaphors. It's like

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Speaker 1: spread like wildfire through through our language and through our

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Speaker 1: philosophies and our literature. Um. Client also points out that

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Speaker 1: Western thinkers, including nineteenth century Danish philosopher Sore and Cureka

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Speaker 1: Guard and century American philosopher Richard Rorty, uh, they all

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Speaker 1: also employed similar metaphors to those of these ancient Chinese thinkers,

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Speaker 1: and if you want to read more about how they

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Speaker 1: compare to each other, I highly recommend looking up that

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Speaker 1: client article. I believe I was able to pull it

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Speaker 1: up on Jay store. Um, as you know, just free

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Speaker 1: access if you're logged in. But it's it's funny that,

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Speaker 1: as much as people are trying to sort of come

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Speaker 1: up with metaphors to live by and, uh, and image

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Speaker 1: that allows them to shape their own behavior on the

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Speaker 1: basis of thinking about a mirror it seems pretty clear.

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Speaker 1: There's some evidence that a literal physical mirror can also

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Speaker 1: have effects on your behavior. Yeah, this idea of forced

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Speaker 1: self awareness, Um, which it's just just the phrase forced

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Speaker 1: self awareness. It does make me think of all the

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Speaker 1: places you one might encounter mirrors where one does not

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Speaker 1: want to encounter mirrors, you know, because clearly you want

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Speaker 1: a mirror when you go to a restroom. You that

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Speaker 1: that is the established place that you want to check

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Speaker 1: in on your appearance. But there are other places where

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Speaker 1: I find I personally would rather go mirror less. One example,

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Speaker 1: I guess, would be like a waiting room. If I'm

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Speaker 1: just waiting around, I don't want to encounter mirrors because

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Speaker 1: mirrors not only can give you a self awareness you're

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Speaker 1: not comfortable with, they can lead, I don't know if

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Speaker 1: you've encountered this show, to this weird situation where you

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Speaker 1: might find yourself staring at other people in ways that

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Speaker 1: you might not normally stare at them because you're doing

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Speaker 1: it through the mirror. M You know this is funny.

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Speaker 1: I almost brought this up in our queuing episode because

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Speaker 1: there is a famous anecdote from the history of q

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Speaker 1: design where I don't remember all the details now, but

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Speaker 1: I think it was like people waiting for an elevator

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Speaker 1: in a very busy building. Um, they were unhappy with

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Speaker 1: their wait times and the person who was designing the

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Speaker 1: building said, Hey, I think we can solve this problem,

431
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: not by speeding up the wait times, but just by

432
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:30,840
Speaker 1: putting a big mirror in the room where everybody's waiting,

433
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: and that will solve the problem of boredom, because people

434
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: will be very interested in looking at their own reflections

435
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 1: while they wait for the elevator. And allegedly, according to

436
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,239
Speaker 1: this sort of this tale about about queuing, uh, this

437
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,640
Speaker 1: did solve the problem because people are, you know, now

438
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 1: they're obsessed looking at themselves in the mirror. They're no

439
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:50,360
Speaker 1: longer boared the way it just breezes by and they're

440
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: no longer complaining. I think I ended up not talking

441
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 1: about that because I couldn't verify that the story was

442
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:58,879
Speaker 1: actually true. It's one of those possibly Apocryphal Tales, but

443
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: but this is sort of the the site of what

444
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 1: you're saying here, that you know, the people behind the

445
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: story at least, are like hey, people are gonna love

446
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: to look at themselves in a mirror in a waiting room. Well,

447
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:10,960
Speaker 1: and I would say the other area where I tend

448
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 1: to not want to encounter mirrors would be an exercise environment,

449
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: particularly a yoga environment, because on one hand you do

450
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 1: encounter mirrors a lot of times, sometimes a whole wall

451
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 1: of mirrors in a Yoga Studio, and of course that

452
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 1: that sort of thing can be very helpful if you're

453
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:27,879
Speaker 1: wanting to see what you look like in a pose,

454
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:31,200
Speaker 1: like how straight is my arm? Well, a mirror allows

455
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:34,359
Speaker 1: you to find out. But on the other hand, for me,

456
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 1: and I think for a lot of people like one

457
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 1: of the reasons you do you engage in yoga is

458
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: to sort of become the mirror. You know you you

459
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 1: don't want to. You know you want to be in

460
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: your body, you want to think about the poses that

461
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 1: you're doing, but you don't want to necessarily engage with

462
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: this kind of egoic self by looking at your appearance,

463
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: because that kind of can bring you back around into

464
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: the very sort of thinking you're trying to overcome. Yeah, ironically,

465
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 1: looking in a mirror seems like one of the worst

466
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: possible things to do if you're trying to become the

467
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 1: mirror in the Taoist sense. Yeah, but again with Yoga.

468
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:10,479
Speaker 1: It's kind of a mixed you can see it both

469
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 1: ways because, yes, it can be very helpful in a

470
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: physical sense, but maybe not so much in a mental sense.

471
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 1: I don't know. You can also make an argument that

472
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: it's something. It would help you, I guess, overcome uh,

473
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 1: that kind of thinking as well, if you're forced to uh,

474
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 1: to be in the presence of your own reflection, but

475
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:31,199
Speaker 1: not obsess about it, I guess. But coming back to

476
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: that idea of forced self awareness in psychology, there are

477
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: a ton of psychological studies, uh, that have just tried

478
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: to see if people's behavior changes when there's a big

479
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:44,719
Speaker 1: mirror in the room with them, if when they can

480
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: see their own reflection. And you know, you can think,

481
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: for pretty understandable reasons, that this might be the case.

482
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,360
Speaker 1: It's a reasonable thing to test out because, for example,

483
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 1: people tend to behave differently when they're being watched as

484
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: opposed to when they're not being watched. So might assume

485
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:05,400
Speaker 1: people would behave differently when they can see themselves. Yeah, yeah,

486
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: so one of these studies that I was looking at

487
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: was in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology back

488
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: in I believe, by McRae Bodenhausen and milne, and they

489
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: found that people in a room with a mirror were

490
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: comparatively less likely to judge others based on social stereotypes,

491
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:28,399
Speaker 1: stereotypes concerning, for example, sex, race or religion. Okay, so

492
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: the idea there might be, you know, if this finding

493
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: holds up, you might interpret it to mean that people

494
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:36,360
Speaker 1: who can see their own reflection or sort of more

495
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: self conscious about the more the ethics of their own

496
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: behavior and are less likely to do something that they

497
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: might be ashamed about just because the you know, the

498
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:49,639
Speaker 1: mirror reflection creates a kind of self consciousness. Yeah, I

499
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: think the idea would be the difference between like setting

500
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: there having stereotypical thoughts and then setting there seeing yourself

501
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: and on some level going hey, there, I am having

502
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 1: stereotypical thoughts. Right, it invites you to sort of judge

503
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 1: yourself and correct yourself. So there's a funny wrinkle that

504
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: I was reading about in a New York Times article

505
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: from two thousand and eight by Natalie Angier that mentions

506
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: the same study by mccrae at all. But so it's

507
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 1: in the context of Engineer's writing about a number of

508
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: studies along these lines that sort of forced self awareness

509
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: by way of a mirror can cause people to behave differently,

510
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: and often in positive ways. So so angier points out

511
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: research that has found subjects in a room with a

512
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: mirror are more likely to quote, work harder, be more

513
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: helpful and to be less inclined to cheat compared with

514
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 1: control groups performing the same exercises in non mirrored settings.

515
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: But the funny detail about the mccrae at all finding was,

516
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 1: again yes, that that people in a room with a mirror,

517
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: in the presence of a mirror, seemed to be less

518
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: likely to rely on stereotypes. And they found this was

519
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: true about negative stereotypes, about things like sex, race and religion,

520
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: but not for all types of stereotypes. So, to quote

521
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 1: from the article, when it comes to socially acceptable forms

522
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: of stereotyping, said Dr Bodenhausen, like branding all politicians liars

523
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: or all lawyers Crooks. The presence of a mirror may

524
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: end up augmenting rather than curbing the willingness to Pigeonhole.

525
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: And I thought that was funny because maybe the idea

526
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: there is that when people say something like Oh, all

527
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 1: politicians are liars or all lawyers or Crooks. That is

528
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: something that people maybe are less likely to feel ashamed

529
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: about doing and more likely to feel self righteous about

530
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: doing so. It actually makes you more likely to do

531
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Oh it's been like, look at me,

532
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: setting there dropping truth bombs in my head about politics.

533
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: So that's funny. Does a mirror make you more self righteous? Uh,

534
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: this is just a little anecdote, but I wonder. Well,

535
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: I mean that would fall the right in line with

536
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 1: the UH you know, with with the with the idea

537
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 1: of ego being bound up in the reflection and uh

538
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: you know, reflective contemplation of self, Um, and and even

539
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: the myth, the myth of narcissus becoming just entranced by

540
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: his own reflection. There's another thing I want to talk about,

541
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: another one of the ways that mirrors have played a

542
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: major role in scientific research, and this is the so

543
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: called mirror self recognition test, and this has come up

544
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: on the show a couple of times before, but I

545
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: just thought it would be interesting to revisit briefly. So

546
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 1: this is sometimes presented as a test to see if

547
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: animals possess consciousness like we have, you know, self conscious awareness,

548
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: and though I don't have any reason to doubt that

549
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: at least some types of animals have something analogous to

550
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: human consciousness. We don't know, but it seems like a

551
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 1: reasonable assumption to me. I'm not convinced that consciousness is

552
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: really what these studies demonstrate, but they do demonstrate something interesting.

553
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: Maybe it's better to call the mirror self recognition test

554
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: a test for self awareness or something like that. So

555
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: the setup is pretty simple. You take an animal and

556
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: you put a mark somewhere on its body so that

557
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: it can't see the mark naturally and it's not aware

558
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: that you've put it there. So an example might be

559
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 1: that you put a yellow dot on an animal's forehead

560
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: or on its throat while it's under general anesthesia, so

561
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: it doesn't know that you've put it there and it

562
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 1: can't see it unless it looks in a mirror. And

563
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: then you give that animal access to a mirror. Now,

564
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 1: most animals don't react in a particularly notable way to mirrors,

565
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: except unless they're they're reacting to their image in a

566
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 1: mirror as if it were another animal. But some animals,

567
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: especially after they've been exposed to mirrors for extended periods,

568
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 1: presumably to learn how they work. They start to respond

569
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: with behaviors indicating that they may actually understand that the

570
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:57,719
Speaker 1: reflection in the mirror is an image of themselves, of

571
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,120
Speaker 1: their own body. So in the case of putting a

572
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: yellow dot on their forehead or on their their throat,

573
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: they will reach up and touch themselves in the spot

574
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: where the yellow dot is or try to groom themselves

575
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: on that spot, which requires a different kind of consciousness.

576
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 1: That's you know that that an animal, you could presume,

577
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,479
Speaker 1: would not do that unless they had some kind of

578
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: inkling that this image on the mirror was actually their

579
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: own body. Yeah, and it's again when we approach mirrors

580
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: with this uh, you know, less everyday understanding and we

581
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: try and we lean into what's actually going on, it

582
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: is pretty remarkable because it means, it would mean, that

583
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: that animal has on some level an understanding of the

584
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: virtual world. It's funny that you say that because that

585
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: same New York Times article by Angier, it quotes one researcher,

586
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name, but somebody, who says that

587
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: in a way mirrors were the first virtual reality, and

588
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: I like that metaphor. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because we often

589
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 1: like what we doing when we uh, we're looking at

590
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: ourselves in the mirror, you know, just the normal stuff like,

591
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: you know, getting ready to leave the house or something.

592
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: We're moving around, we're causing our reflected self to move around,

593
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: we are we are, you know, controlling our avatar in

594
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 1: the mirror world. It's just very responsive. Usually, let's you

595
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 1: have one of those roles, you know those, uh, those

596
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: cheaply made mirrors, and then you can make it a

597
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: little bit of active. And then how about when you

598
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 1: go and get your hair cut and you get that

599
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 1: that wonderful the two mirror trick, when you have to

600
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: look at the back of your head? That thing just

601
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: I'm I'm stupid. That thing just breaks my brain. I

602
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: can never figure out how to make two mirrors work

603
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: to look at the back of my head. I keep

604
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: moving them around and I just can't see it. How

605
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 1: about when the barber, the hairstylis holds it behind your head?

606
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: I guess they've got experience, I don't know, but anyway. So,

607
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: coming back to the mirror self recognition test, as as

608
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 1: used on animals as a test for whatever this this

609
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: x factor is consciousness or self awareness or psycho somatic

610
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 1: representational consciousness whatever you would call it. One of the

611
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:15,760
Speaker 1: first big studies on this was by a researcher named

612
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: Gordon G Gallop, and it was called chimpanzees self recognition,

613
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:23,719
Speaker 1: published in the journal Science in the year nineteen seventy,

614
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 1: and I'll just read the abstract. It's very short quote.

615
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 1: After prolonged exposure to their reflected images and mirrors, chimpanzees

616
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 1: marked with red dye showed evidence of being able to

617
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 1: recognize their own reflections. Monkeys did not appear to have

618
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 1: this capacity. So he was comparing different species here, right,

619
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: different species of primates. On one hand you've got a

620
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 1: great ape, the chimpanzee, but then you've also got a

621
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: number of different monkey species. The monkeys used in the

622
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:55,800
Speaker 1: study were reesus monkeys, stump tailed macaques and something called

623
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: Cino mulgus monkeys, which had never heard of before. But

624
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 1: these are also known as crab eating macaques. CINOMALGUS is

625
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: does that mean crab eating? Maybe Um? weirdly enough, I

626
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: believe I'm looking this up. I believe it actually means

627
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 1: dog milk, having to do with some erroneous claim that

628
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:18,320
Speaker 1: that these monkeys were capable of milking female dots Oki Doki.

629
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: You know, you learn something new every day anyway. So

630
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: coming back to the study by Gallop. So the chimpanzees

631
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 1: who had experience with mirrors, uh, they were able to

632
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 1: reach for the red dot on themselves when they saw

633
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:34,719
Speaker 1: it in the mirror, but the monkeys did not do

634
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 1: the same, and this would again seem to indicate that

635
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 1: the chimpanzees had the ability to learn over time that

636
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:44,239
Speaker 1: the animal they're seeing in the mirror is themselves, while

637
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 1: the monkeys don't usually have this capacity. Uh. And so

638
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: the Red Dye helps provide a clear point of comparison

639
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 1: that you can test on command between different species. But

640
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 1: in fact Gallup reported that you you didn't actually need

641
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: the die test to observe that chimpanzees could adapt to

642
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: the presence of a mirror and understand what it was,

643
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 1: because you could observe spontaneous behaviors that were pretty interesting.

644
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 1: So Um Gallup reported with his small group of chimpanzees

645
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: that when he first introduced a mirror to their enclosure,

646
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: for the first few days the chimpanzees would react to

647
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 1: the mirror as if another animal had been introduced to

648
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 1: the area. So Gallup called this a social stimulus reaction

649
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: and it would produce behaviors like bobbing, threatening, vocalizing. It

650
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 1: was like there's there's another animal that's roughly like me

651
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:34,759
Speaker 1: in here and I need to, you know, figure out

652
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 1: what his steel is. One of the things that's that

653
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:40,720
Speaker 1: has always interested me about mirror tests is that among

654
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,839
Speaker 1: animals that that are known to have failed the mirror test,

655
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 1: you do see that distinction, like, for instance, with cats.

656
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:51,879
Speaker 1: Sometimes they react with hostility towards the reflection, but other

657
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 1: times it's just straight up indifference. I witnessed this the

658
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 1: other day. I was actually putting a rather large mirror

659
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,880
Speaker 1: on the wall of our house and I had it

660
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: had it leaned up against the couch there. The cat

661
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: came over and checked it out and, you know, she

662
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:08,719
Speaker 1: just kind of looked in. It didn't seem that interested,

663
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: and then she found the instruction booklet for the Mirror

664
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: and sat on it and that was her complete interaction

665
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: with this new mirror. So, you know, it's it's like Oh,

666
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: I oh, they're like it's it seems like there's such

667
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 1: a there's such a gap between those two different possible reactions, though,

668
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 1: that this is a thing that I must attack and

669
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 1: put in its place, or that it's just nothing at all. Yeah,

670
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: I have always noticed. Now, I know sometimes dogs will

671
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: react to a mirror and bark at it, but that's

672
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,720
Speaker 1: never been my experience in real life. Dogs I've always

673
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:41,719
Speaker 1: known to be utterly it's like they can't even see

674
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:45,439
Speaker 1: the mirror, you know, no reaction at all to their reflection. Um,

675
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: and I wonder if that has to do with just,

676
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 1: you know, the different sense world the dog lives in,

677
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 1: and we've talked about many times. I mean, I don't

678
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:57,720
Speaker 1: I don't know this. I'm just wondering maybe if another,

679
00:37:57,840 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 1: if the image of another dog is not a come

680
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: a need by some kind of dog smell, it doesn't

681
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:06,839
Speaker 1: even really register as a dog. Yeah, that I think

682
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:09,600
Speaker 1: that that makes a lot of sense because, yes, we

683
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 1: discussed before, dogs live in just an entirely different a smell,

684
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 1: realm than human beings and and likewise, Um, you know,

685
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: cats are are so based, you know, so much of

686
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 1: their perception is based on their hearing. If it doesn't,

687
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: if it doesn't sound like a cat, could it possibly

688
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 1: be a cat? If it doesn't smell like another dog,

689
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: then what is it? Is it even real? Yeah, but

690
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean maybe that's something that. Hey,

691
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: if you know about good research on the subjects and

692
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:37,360
Speaker 1: send it our way. I always want to know about

693
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: dogs and their level of self awareness. I mean because

694
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: the REVERB, because what is what are you doing? When

695
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: you show a mirror to an animal like this? You're

696
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: giving them a oftentimes near perfect visual version of another animal.

697
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: Uh and yeah, the dog might not care about that.

698
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: The cat might not care about that. But what if

699
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 1: you bring something in it smells like another dog, what

700
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: have you? Play the sound effect of a mewing kitten

701
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: on a on a good speaker in your house. I

702
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: think you'll find that you'll get totally different reactions from

703
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,840
Speaker 1: these animals. Oh Yeah, so my dog, who does not

704
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 1: care about reflections and mirrors at all, will go absolutely

705
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,240
Speaker 1: nuts if we say, bring in an object from another

706
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: house that a dog lives in. This unleash is a

707
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: storm of sniffing and interest and in this item. Oh,

708
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: but sorry. Anyway, coming back to to the Gallop study,

709
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: so I mentioned that when a mirror is first put

710
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: into the enclosure, at least as Gallop reported in in

711
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 1: the chimpanzees that he was working with, when the mirror

712
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: first went into the enclosure. They would at first react

713
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: as if it was another animal. You know, they would

714
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,399
Speaker 1: try to threaten it, they might Um do displays at

715
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: it or make vocalizations at it. But these social type

716
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,359
Speaker 1: reactions decreased rapidly over the course of two or three

717
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 1: days and by like day four or five they were

718
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: just not doing this anymore and the social reactions over

719
00:39:57,640 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: the course of a few days tended to be replaced

720
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 1: with behaviors that Um that were directed toward the self

721
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: and which Gallop took as evidence of understanding that the

722
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: chimpanzees were interacting with representations of their own bodies. So

723
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: to read from gallops report quote, such self directed responding

724
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,839
Speaker 1: took the form of grooming parts of the body which

725
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: would otherwise be virtually inaccessible without the Mirror, picking bits

726
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 1: of food from between the teeth while watching the mirror image,

727
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: visually guided manipulation of the anal genital areas by means

728
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: of the Mirror, picking extraneous material from the nose by

729
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: inspecting the reflected image, making faces at the Mirror, blowing

730
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,800
Speaker 1: bubbles and manipulating food wads with the lips by watching

731
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 1: the reflection. In all instances of self directed behavior, the

732
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 1: self is the referent through the reflection, whereas in cases

733
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:56,760
Speaker 1: of social behavior the reflection is the referent. So once

734
00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 1: they've been exposed to a mirror for a few days,

735
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: the chimpanzees would start performing all kinds of exploratory and

736
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:07,319
Speaker 1: grooming behaviors with respect to their own bodies, which is fascinating. Yeah,

737
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,720
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's very difficult to try and put

738
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 1: ourselves in the mind of a chimpanzee, Um, but but

739
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 1: on a human law like, imagine if you had had

740
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 1: no access to mirrors and then you were given one,

741
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: like it would, it would really just, you know, open

742
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 1: open a gateway into a new realm of self awareness

743
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 1: and self grooming. Yeah, so, as Gallup reported, in this

744
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 1: study at least the chimpanzees passed the mirror self self

745
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: recognition test and the monkeys did not, the recess monkeys

746
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,760
Speaker 1: and the macaques did not. But since then a number

747
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: of studies have found other animals, to quote, pass versions

748
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: of the mirror self recognition test. Uh, though, again I

749
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 1: want to emphasize there is debate about some of these

750
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: findings and again, debate about the best ways to interpret them.

751
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 1: So I do find these studies really interesting, but I

752
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: would say interpret them with caution. Yeah, yeah, it's I

753
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 1: think a lot of times, just the idea of the

754
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: mirror test is is sort of engage with, you know,

755
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: kind of simplistically, at least by you know, not non

756
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: scientists and general public sort of thing. Uh. And Yeah,

757
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: you do see plenty of articles that question the the

758
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: usefulness of, say, trying to get an octopus to look

759
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: in the mirror. Right, but with all those caveats. Some

760
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:26,359
Speaker 1: of the examples of animals that have, in some way

761
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:29,239
Speaker 1: or another, been interpreted to have passed the mirror self

762
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 1: recognition test? Uh. These would include other great apes, so

763
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: animals like guerrillas and Orangutans and, I think Binobo's to

764
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: some extent, elephants, some corvids, but not others. Definitely Magpies have,

765
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: in some studies, or at least one study, been found

766
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: to try to groom a spot on their body where

767
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:51,320
Speaker 1: a dot of die has been placed, and also perhaps

768
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: some dolphins. I think of his bottle nose dolphins, though

769
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 1: their behaviors are harder to interpret than the behaviors of

770
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,920
Speaker 1: animals that can groom themselves with beaks or hands or

771
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 1: trunk you know, I haven't read anything recently about Dolphin Cognition.

772
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 1: I'd love to come back to dolphins and and really

773
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 1: go in at great depth, but I guess one question

774
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 1: that comes to mind is, in an underwater environment, to

775
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 1: what extent was is a dolphin going to encounter a

776
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:22,759
Speaker 1: reflection of itself? Would you would it be able to

777
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:27,280
Speaker 1: encounter a reflection of itself at the surface of the water? Uh,

778
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 1: from the submerged side? I don't know. I don't know

779
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,240
Speaker 1: the answer because some of these other animals, it seems

780
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 1: like you could, you know, perhaps simplistically ask the question. Well,

781
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: wouldn't they occasionally encounter reflections of themselves in the water?

782
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: You know, wouldn't they have? Wouldn't they encounter that stimuli

783
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:49,320
Speaker 1: in the natural world under the right conditions? Yeah, maybe,

784
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: I don't know. Or maybe I don't know. Maybe when

785
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:52,799
Speaker 1: you go to a still pool of water and you're

786
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 1: an orangutan or something, you're you're just thirsty and you're

787
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:57,719
Speaker 1: just getting the water real fast. You don't stop and look.

788
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:01,760
Speaker 1: Who knows? Yeah, I I know it is. It's particularly

789
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:03,879
Speaker 1: weird when you think about humans in their mirrors, about

790
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,239
Speaker 1: how we inflict them on the World Uh, you know,

791
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 1: we don't think about this a lot. We don't think. Well,

792
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:09,880
Speaker 1: I don't really put a lot of mirrors outside, but

793
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: of course you have traffic mirrors and every vehicle that

794
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 1: we put out there on the street they have at

795
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: least two mirrors on the outside of the vehicle. So

796
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 1: just the other day I was watching a bird. I'm

797
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 1: almost positive it was not a corvette. It was, but

798
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: it kept coming landing right next to the Automobile Mirror,

799
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: looking at itself and then flying up and then flying

800
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:33,239
Speaker 1: back down and then flying up then flying back down

801
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: to the mirror. And it did this on a loop

802
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: for like, Um, you know, like two or three dozen times.

803
00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:41,960
Speaker 1: I wonder if it was interpreting the reflection as a

804
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: as a strange bird, as another animal. Yeah, perhaps. So.

805
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 1: Just one last note. So as far as I can

806
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:51,800
Speaker 1: tell it seems that dogs do not generally pass the

807
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: mirror self recognition test, but I was reading an article

808
00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 1: on NPR from years ago. Is from like two thousand eleven,

809
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:02,319
Speaker 1: I think. Um, that was talking about one researcher who

810
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: was proposing an alternate uh, an alternate version of the

811
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 1: mirror self recognition test for a dog. That would involve

812
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:11,720
Speaker 1: smells rather than reflection, which is a little bit different,

813
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: because the smell would have to be like, you know,

814
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,279
Speaker 1: the smell of something produced by the body, like the

815
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: smell of its own urine or something like that. Uh,

816
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:22,360
Speaker 1: and this raises interesting questions about like what is the

817
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: boundary of the self for something like a dog? Is

818
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: the smell of its own urine in a way itself

819
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:31,720
Speaker 1: for distinguishable as something that is produced by the body

820
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: but not co extensive with the body? Interesting, Rob, rob

821
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 1: what's that magic I feel? What's that strange sensation in

822
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 1: the air? Is that the fairy king of a four

823
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: part series coming down to bless this episode with with,

824
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: with the extended life of going on into yet one

825
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 1: more part? I think it is. Yes, Um and I

826
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 1: realized at this point we're we're definitely in the hall

827
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 1: of Mirrors. Uh, it's it's you know, we're so far

828
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 1: into the topic we may not be able to determine

829
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 1: how much further we have to go and how far

830
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:06,759
Speaker 1: we have in fact come, but we will be back

831
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: for at least one more mirror episode. I know we

832
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:13,240
Speaker 1: have some more stuff to talk about concerning will metal mirrors.

833
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: For starters, we haven't really uh discussed them at length yet,

834
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 1: and we also have some more about mirrors in as

835
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:24,280
Speaker 1: they're as they are used in, or invoked in technological

836
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:28,239
Speaker 1: metaphors in in some other cultures around the world. So

837
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot more to discuss and perhaps, uh,

838
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 1: if there, if you get to us in time, you

839
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,799
Speaker 1: might be able to ask hey, how about this, and

840
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 1: maybe we can even include it into the next episode.

841
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 1: I'm not sure the time will work perfectly on that,

842
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:44,400
Speaker 1: but certainly if you're listening to these episodes and you

843
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 1: have thoughts about your own interactions with mirrors, your pets

844
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 1: and their interactions with mirrors, cultural ideas concerning mirrors, all

845
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: of it is on the table. Ryan, let us know

846
00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 1: what you're thinking and in the meantime, if you want

847
00:46:57,760 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 1: to check out other episodes of stuff to blow your mind,

848
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: how on over to the stuff to blow your mind

849
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 1: podcast feed. That is where you will find our episodes,

850
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:10,319
Speaker 1: our core episodes, published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have

851
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:12,840
Speaker 1: a little bit of a listener mail which we do

852
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:15,319
Speaker 1: on Mondays. On Wednesdays we do the artifact unless it

853
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: has been uh preempted by an advertisement of some sort,

854
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 1: and then on Fridays we do Weird House cinema. That's

855
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 1: our time to talk about a strange movie, and on

856
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 1: the weekends we do where we run huge thanks, as

857
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Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

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Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

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Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

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Speaker 1: topic for the future or just to say hello, you

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Speaker 1: can email us at contact that stuff to blow your mind,

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Speaker 1: dot com stuff to blow your mind is production of

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Speaker 1: I heart radio. For more podcasts for my heart radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the IHEART radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever you

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Speaker 1: listening to your favorite shows. Doesn't Matt Four Point Four

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Speaker 1: Po