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Speaker 1: My Rors. Welcome to Stove to Blow Your Mind, the

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Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Land, and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part three of

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Speaker 1: our talk about mirrors. If you haven't listened to the

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Speaker 1: first two parts, you'd probably go back check those out first.

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Speaker 1: But Rob to get us started today, I wanted to

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Speaker 1: revisit one of your favorite topics are our failures of

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Speaker 1: intuition and understanding how mirrors work. So we we talked

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Speaker 1: in previous parts about uh, your point about the rogby Venus.

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Speaker 1: You know how there's that painting of Venus looking in

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Speaker 1: the mirror and we see her face and we assume

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Speaker 1: she's looking at herself, but since we see her looking

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Speaker 1: at us, she actually couldn't be looking at herself. She's

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Speaker 1: looking at us, as you know, and as you love

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Speaker 1: to point out, our misunderstandings about the physics of mirrors.

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Speaker 1: Don't stop there. And so so I actually came across

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Speaker 1: one recently that I really enjoyed. Rachel and I were

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Speaker 1: doing this experiment earlier today, So so you at home

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Speaker 1: can play along. Um, a couple of questions imagine yourself

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Speaker 1: standing in front of a bathroom mirror and looking at

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Speaker 1: your own reflection. You're looking at your head. You're regarding

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Speaker 1: this glorious orb of bone and meat. Maybe he's got

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Speaker 1: some hair on it. And the question is how big

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Speaker 1: is your reflection of your head on the mirror if

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Speaker 1: you were to measure it, is it smaller than your

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Speaker 1: actual head, bigger than your actual head, or the same size? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is It's a great question because what are you

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Speaker 1: gonna do. You're gonna moving closer and measure it. Well,

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Speaker 1: you could measure if your normal bathroom mirror size. You

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Speaker 1: could measure it without stepping forward. You can just reach

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Speaker 1: out and mark the places, you know, touch the mirror,

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Speaker 1: where your chin is and where the top of your

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Speaker 1: head is. But before you do that, just just guess

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Speaker 1: before you actually measure it. The second thing is after

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Speaker 1: you do that, imagine walking backwards away from a mirror,

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Speaker 1: so you take a few steps back. What is going

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Speaker 1: to happen to the size of your head in your reflection?

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Speaker 1: Is it going to get larger, is it going to

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Speaker 1: stay the same size, or will it get smaller. Now,

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Speaker 1: my intuitions about this were apparently exactly the same as

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Speaker 1: most people's intuitions about these the answers to these questions,

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Speaker 1: which are both wrong. My intuition was, well, I think

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Speaker 1: my head in my reflection is going to be the

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Speaker 1: same size as my real head, and I think as

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Speaker 1: I walk backward, the size of that head in my

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Speaker 1: reflection is going to be smaller. And in fact, both

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Speaker 1: of these are wrong. As intuitive as they feel, if

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

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

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Speaker 1: and as you walk backwards away from the mirror from

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

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Speaker 1: 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 moved 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 glimpse 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 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: slightly convex self image. And but but it also makes

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: it's half the size. It's almost kind of comical to

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Speaker 1: think of, you like, looking at this little tiny things

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

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Speaker 1: the same as your as 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 polish pieces of metal people would use to

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Speaker 1: uh would you use to look at their reflections for

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Speaker 1: mundane and cosmetic purposes, but also for say religious symbolism.

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Speaker 1: Maybe in Egypt you might put a polished piece of metal,

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Speaker 1: a metal mirror, on the top of a staff, and

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Speaker 1: it might symbolize something about the sun. You know that

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Speaker 1: Egypt has a very solar oriented UH pantheon. But over

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Speaker 1: time the mirror technology would expand to include all kinds

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Speaker 1: of metals. First, so not just a later forms of

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Speaker 1: copper alloys, meaning especially bronze, you know, higher qualities of bronze,

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Speaker 1: but also things like gold and silver, and so in

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Speaker 1: say ancient Rome, you can find various types of silver

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

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Speaker 1: types of metals become more available and UH and and

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Speaker 1: so mirrors based on those metals also proliferate. And one

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Speaker 1: thing I was thinking about this is noted in that

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Speaker 1: paper by j Enoch that I referenced in the past

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Speaker 1: couple of episodes, UH, is that you know, sometimes when

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Speaker 1: we talk about inventions, there are these techno cold developments

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the globe, whether by trade and contact or just by

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Speaker 1: parallel invention. And the mirror is definitely one of these

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Speaker 1: technologies that proliferates. Eventually you find it everywhere. Enoch writes, quote,

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Speaker 1: by approximately two thousand BC, there existed dispersed utilization of

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Speaker 1: mirrors in virtually every major region of the world with

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

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Speaker 1: mirror distribution and quality increased rapidly so but by a

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Speaker 1: certain point deep into the ancient world, mirrors are everywhere,

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Speaker 1: partially is a product of of parallel invention and partially

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Speaker 1: through trade in contact. And one place where it seems

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Speaker 1: to be that mirrors tend to take on a lot

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

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Speaker 1: I was reading about this, and it was it was

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Speaker 1: really fascinating. Um, you know, like you were saying, mirror

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Speaker 1: technology spreads, but then also, uh technology metaphors spread as well,

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Speaker 1: and the use of of our ideas concerning mirrors. So

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Speaker 1: that's that was one of the things I was really

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Speaker 1: looking at when I was researching for this episode. And

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Speaker 1: so it led me to a wonderful article about Chinese

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Speaker 1: mirrors and um and um and particularly how different ancient

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Speaker 1: philosophers looked at them and used mirror or reflection metaphors.

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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 some that had slightly different shape.

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Speaker 1: Uh so flat circular um one side is going to

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: looking at a bunch of mirrors in the met Museum

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Speaker 1: collection 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, some and some ancient

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Speaker 1: Chinese mirrors, where in all cases all of the beautiful

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Speaker 1: decorations the inlays any writing or script or imagery on

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

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

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Speaker 1: in this? Oh? Okay? Yeah? Looking at the other yeah,

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Speaker 1: but but certainly this would be the side with the

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Speaker 1: most most of the eye catching decoration. This would be

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Speaker 1: the side that had birds or dragons or depictions of deities,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes good luck wishes were also inscribed there. Now,

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Speaker 1: the two different philosophers that that Klein was looking at

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Speaker 1: here were Dallas philosophers Jean Gi and Confucian philosophy for China.

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Speaker 1: They each had their own separate worldviews, but they seem

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Speaker 1: to come together on the idea of of how we

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Speaker 1: might view the shin which client translates his heart mind.

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Speaker 1: But I think we can also translate it as his

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Speaker 1: intention or center or core. But I think heart mind

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Speaker 1: is seems to be a pretty strong translation, you know,

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Speaker 1: the sort of center of being and contemplation. But both

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Speaker 1: of these philosophers tended to look at ways in which

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Speaker 1: this heart mind might best resemble a mirror, that it

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Speaker 1: might be like a reflecting pool. Oh yeah, this seems

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Speaker 1: to be something that that turns up in a lot

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Speaker 1: of thought about mirrors throughout the world is that the

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Speaker 1: mirror is often seen as a a way to see

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

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Speaker 1: that is integral. Yeah. So, so Jeong Gi wrote that

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

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Speaker 1: the mirror of heaven and earth, the glass of the

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Speaker 1: ten thousand things. And and I'll break down what all

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

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

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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 a natural 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: worded 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

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Speaker 1: passive uh, to the ancient Chinese mirrors, especially metal mirrors,

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Speaker 1: especially like those bronze mirrors we were discussing, they were

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Speaker 1: seen as quote active responsive objects. So there they are

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Speaker 1: things that respond to our world. Um an understanding that

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Speaker 1: is um you know. There was also linked to the

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Speaker 1: observation that mirrors had the ability to gather and produce. Oh,

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Speaker 1: this is very interesting because it reminds me of the

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Speaker 1: the alternate and you could argue physically incorrect model of

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Speaker 1: the eye, which you know, it was common to believe

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Speaker 1: in the ancient world that the eye was not just

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Speaker 1: a passive receptor of life, but actually sent something out

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Speaker 1: to that retrieved the image and brought it back. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And I guess you know, you could argue that the

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Speaker 1: eye is not in fact totally passive because the eye moves,

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Speaker 1: it focuses, it increases or decreases the aperture that allows

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Speaker 1: light in um. But but it it is at least

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Speaker 1: only receiving light. But it was natural for people to

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Speaker 1: think throughout history that the eye was going out and

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Speaker 1: getting images, it was sending something. It was like beaming

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Speaker 1: out the power of sight. Yeah, and in the for

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Speaker 1: the ancient Chinese, this apparently was also compounded by observations

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Speaker 1: of what you could do with a mirror. So on

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Speaker 1: one hand, you could take a mirror, you could focus sunlight,

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Speaker 1: and you could produce fire. And it was also known

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Speaker 1: that a mirror left in the moonlight would gather condensation. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: this is interesting because we're talking about the generation of

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Speaker 1: fire or the collection of water and water and are

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Speaker 1: are the elemental essence of yin and yang, the dual

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Speaker 1: energies of the cosmos. Wow quote this is from Klein.

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Speaker 1: The fact that mirrors appeared to draw these substances from

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Speaker 1: the Sun and moon reinforced the cosmological power that was

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Speaker 1: already associated with them. Well, you know, this makes me

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Speaker 1: think of yet another way that that it could be

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Speaker 1: natural to assume that a mirror has a gathering and

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Speaker 1: production power, which is that by making a mirror, for example, concave,

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Speaker 1: you can give it magnifying power. And in a way,

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Speaker 1: it's hard not to see a lens or a mirror

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Speaker 1: that has magnifying power as in some way going out

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Speaker 1: and gathering, because what it is quite literally doing is

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Speaker 1: taking something that is invisible to the naked eye and

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Speaker 1: making it visible. You know. Um, not not to jump

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Speaker 1: around too much here, but this reminds me of something

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Speaker 1: I read in m. Geraldine Pinch's book on Egyptian mythology

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Speaker 1: concerning the eye of Raw. She writes, the ancient Egyptian

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Speaker 1: word for i uh you sounded like a word for

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Speaker 1: doing or acting. This may be why the eyes of

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Speaker 1: deities are associated with divine power as its most uh

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Speaker 1: interventional So I keep coming back to that as well.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of been in the background as we've been

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Speaker 1: discussing that, you know, the idea of like what is

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Speaker 1: what is a mirror doing? And is it passive or

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Speaker 1: is it active? Yeah, I mean I guess it depends

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Speaker 1: on your definition of passive or active there, because obviously,

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Speaker 1: again like a concave mirror that produces say a telescope image.

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Speaker 1: You know, most of our most powerful telescopes today are

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Speaker 1: not based on on transparent refractive lenses, but they're based

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Speaker 1: on mirrors. The Hubble telescope has a gigantic mirror in it,

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Speaker 1: and though I think it is meant with a slightly

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Speaker 1: different connotation. What even astronomers talk about these mirrors quote

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Speaker 1: gathering light, what they mean is, you know, they are

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Speaker 1: taking an amount of information that is that is too

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Speaker 1: diffuse for our eyes to make any sense of, but

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Speaker 1: then turning it into an image that is record ignizable

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Speaker 1: to us. Yeah. I guess one of the things that

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Speaker 1: that that I find super interesting about all this is

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Speaker 1: that if you do see the mirror as as more

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Speaker 1: active as opposed to passive, I feel like perhaps you're

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Speaker 1: more inclined to engage in metaphors for the self based

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Speaker 1: on that device, you know, Like for instance, we've talked

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Speaker 1: about the idea of thinking about your brain as a

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Speaker 1: in your visual system as being like a security camera.

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Speaker 1: Like a security camera is um you know, to a

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

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Speaker 1: it is it is, it is doing something. And if

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Speaker 1: it is doing something in the world, then perhaps we're

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Speaker 1: more more inclined to compare ourselves to it, or compare

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Speaker 1: some aspect of our our our physiology to it um.

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Speaker 1: And so likewise we see that reflected in the Chinese

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Speaker 1: view here um geng Gi writes, perfect persons use their

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Speaker 1: heart mind like mirrors, going after nothing, welcomeing nothing, responding

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Speaker 1: but not storing. Therefore they can win out over things

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Speaker 1: and not hurt themselves. So again, the idea is that

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Speaker 1: a mirror is not passive. It's active, but it's responsive.

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Speaker 1: It does not in sight uh anything, and it also

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Speaker 1: does not store the images that it responds with. It

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Speaker 1: lets them go. And this of course brings me back

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Speaker 1: to this, you know, this loose metaphor that we often

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Speaker 1: employ of the video camera or the camera itself as

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Speaker 1: a technological metaphor for how we perceive the world and

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Speaker 1: think about it and remember things. Um, you know, the

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Speaker 1: more I wonder if if ultimately that's like more of

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Speaker 1: a harmful metaphor to engage in when we think about

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Speaker 1: how we engage in the world, maybe we should think

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Speaker 1: of ourselves more as a mirror. Well, I mean, we

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Speaker 1: know that the reality is in fact somewhere in between. Like,

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Speaker 1: I agree that it's totally a harmful metaphor to think of, say,

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Speaker 1: your memory of your vision of events as like a

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Speaker 1: video camera, because the video camera is, you know, with

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Speaker 1: some constraints, you could think of it as objective in

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Speaker 1: a way that your memory just is not. Though then again,

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Speaker 1: your memory is real, like it is storing something that

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Speaker 1: is based on events you actually witnessed. It's just not

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Speaker 1: objective in the way that a video recording is. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: now another interesting bit here's that Jean. She also writes

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Speaker 1: of mirrors illuminating, and Klein writes that mirrors in early

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Speaker 1: China were thought to illuminate and reveal objects as well.

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Speaker 1: So that's another spin on the Uh, you know that

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Speaker 1: the active aspect of the mirror. Now, one of the

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Speaker 1: quotes you read earlier from Jeng Gi had something in

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Speaker 1: it that I didn't understand. It was the quote about

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Speaker 1: in stillness is the mirror of heaven and earth the

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Speaker 1: glass of the ten thousand things or the ten thousands things? Well,

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Speaker 1: what are the ten thousand or ten thousands things? So

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Speaker 1: it's possible I'm I'm missing some like more esoteric understand

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Speaker 1: ending of this, But based on reading Client's article, my

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Speaker 1: understanding is that it's the idea like, these are the

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Speaker 1: things reflected in the mirror, all the things of the world.

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Speaker 1: And and what's crucial here is that the more the

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Speaker 1: heart mind is like a mirror, the more one sense

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Speaker 1: of self fades away. The more I am a mirror,

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Speaker 1: the more I am just a reflection of the ten

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Speaker 1: thousand things in the world as opposed to myself, you know, um, which,

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

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Speaker 1: of 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: sense 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 aspect 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 U

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Speaker 1: could confusism. But I could be wrong on that. And

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

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Speaker 1: metaphors as well. Discuss a little bit more mirror metaphors.

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Speaker 1: It's like spread like wildfire through through our language and

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Speaker 1: through our philosophies and our literature. Um And also points

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Speaker 1: out that Western thinkers, including nineteenth century Danish philosopher sore

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Speaker 1: In Kyrka Guard and century American philosopher Richard Rorty Uh,

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Speaker 1: they all also employed similar metaphors to those of these

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Speaker 1: ancient Chinese thinkers. And if you want to read more

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Speaker 1: about how they compare to each other, I highly recommend

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Speaker 1: looking up that client article. I believe I was able

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Speaker 1: to pull it up on jay store um as you know,

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Speaker 1: just free access if you're logged in. But it's it's

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Speaker 1: funny that as much as people are trying to sort

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Speaker 1: of come up with metaphors to live by and uh

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Speaker 1: and imagery that allows them to shape their own behavior,

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Speaker 1: on the basis of thinking about a mirror, it seems

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Speaker 1: pretty clear there's some evidence that a literal physical mirror

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Speaker 1: can also have effects on your behavior. Yeah, this idea

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Speaker 1: of forced self awareness um, which it's just just the

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Speaker 1: phrase forced self awareness, it does make me think of

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Speaker 1: all the places you one might encounter mirrors where one

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Speaker 1: does not want to encounter mirrors, you know, because clearly

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Speaker 1: you want a mirror when you go to a restroom,

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

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Speaker 1: to check in on your appearance. But there are other

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Speaker 1: places where I find I personally would rather go mirror lists.

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Speaker 1: One example, I guess would be like a waiting room.

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Speaker 1: If I'm just waiting around, I don't want to encounter

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Speaker 1: mirrors because mirrors not only can give you a self

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Speaker 1: awareness you're not comfortable with, they can lead I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you've encountered this show to this weird situation

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Speaker 1: where you might find yourself staring at other people in

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Speaker 1: ways that you might not normally stare at them because

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Speaker 1: you're doing it through the mirror. 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 that we're 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

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Speaker 1: them not by speeding up the wait times, but just

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Speaker 1: by putting a big mirror in the room where everybody's waiting,

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Speaker 1: and that will solve the problem. Of boredom because people

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Speaker 1: would be very interested in looking at their own reflections

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Speaker 1: while they wait for the elevator, and allegedly, according to

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Speaker 1: this sort of this tale about about queuing, uh, this

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Speaker 1: did solve the problem because people are you know, now,

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00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: they're obsessed looking at themselves in the mirror. They're no

434
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: longer board. The way just breezes by, and they're no

435
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 1: longer complaining. I think I ended up not talking about

436
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 1: that because I couldn't verify that the story was actually true.

437
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:33,719
Speaker 1: It's one of those possibly apocryphal tales. But but this

438
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: is sort of the opposite of what you're saying here

439
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: that you know, the people behind the story at least

440
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 1: are like, hey, people are gonna love to look at

441
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 1: themselves in a mirror in a waiting room. Well, I

442
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: would say the other area where I tend to not

443
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 1: want to encounter mirrors would be an exercise environment, particularly

444
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:53,399
Speaker 1: a yoga environment, because on one hand, you do encounter

445
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,480
Speaker 1: mirrors a lot of times, sometimes a whole wall of

446
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 1: mirrors in a yoga studio, and of course that that

447
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 1: sort of thing can be very helpful if you're wanting

448
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: to see what you look like in a pose like

449
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:05,920
Speaker 1: how straight is my arm? Well, a mirror allows you

450
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:08,919
Speaker 1: to find out. But on the other hand, for me,

451
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 1: and I think for a lot of people, like one

452
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:13,120
Speaker 1: of the reasons you do you engage in yoga is

453
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,159
Speaker 1: to sort of become the mirror. You know, you you

454
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 1: don't want to. You know, you want to be in

455
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: your body, you want to think about the poses that

456
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 1: you're doing, but you don't want to necessarily engage with

457
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: this kind of egoic self by looking at your appearance,

458
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: because that kind of can bring you back around into

459
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: the very sort of thinking you're trying to overcome. Yeah, ironically,

460
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: looking in a mirror seems like one of the worst

461
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: possible things to do if you're trying to become the

462
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:42,879
Speaker 1: mirror in the Taoist sense. Yeah, but again, with yoga,

463
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: it's kind of a mixed You can see it both ways,

464
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: because yes, it can be very helpful in a physical sense,

465
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: but maybe not so much in a mental sense. I

466
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: don't know. You could also make an argument that it's

467
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 1: something it would help you, I guess overcome uh that

468
00:25:56,880 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: kind of thinking as well, if you're forced to, uh,

469
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:02,679
Speaker 1: to be in the presence of your own reflection but

470
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: not obsess about it, I guess. But coming back to

471
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: that idea of forced self awareness in psychology, there are

472
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: a ton of psychological studies, uh that have just tried

473
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 1: to see if people's behavior changes when there's a big

474
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: mirror in the room with them, if when they can

475
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: see their own reflection. And you know, you can think

476
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 1: for pretty understandable reasons that this might be the case.

477
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: It's a reasonable thing to test out because, for example,

478
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:31,880
Speaker 1: people tend to behave differently when they're being watched as

479
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,679
Speaker 1: opposed to when they're not being watched, So you might

480
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 1: assume people would behave differently when they can see themselves. Yeah. Yeah,

481
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: So one of these studies that I was looking at

482
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: was in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology back

483
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 1: in I believe, by McCrae, Bodenhausen, and Milne, and they

484
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: found that people in a room with a mirror were

485
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 1: comparatively less likely to judge others based on social stereotypes,

486
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:02,959
Speaker 1: stereotypes concerning for example, sex, race, or religion. Okay, so

487
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: the idea there might be, you know, if this finding

488
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: holds up, you might interpret it to mean that people

489
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 1: who can see their own reflection or sort of more

490
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: self conscious about the more the ethics of their own

491
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: behavior and are less likely to do something that they

492
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 1: might be ashamed about just because the you know, the

493
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 1: mirror reflection creates a kind of self consciousness. Yeah. I

494
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 1: think the idea would be the difference between like setting

495
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 1: there having stereotypical thoughts and then setting there seeing yourself

496
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 1: and on some level going, hey, there, I am having

497
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: stereotypical thoughts. Right. It invites you to sort of judge

498
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: yourself and correct yourself. So there's a funny wrinkle that

499
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 1: I was reading about in a New York Times article

500
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 1: from two thousand and eight by Natalie Angier that mentions

501
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 1: the same study by McCrae at all. But so it's

502
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 1: in the context of Engineer's writing about a number of

503
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: studies along these lines that sort of forced self awareness

504
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 1: by way of a mirror can cause people to behave differently,

505
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: and often in positive ways. So so Angier points out

506
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: research that has found subjects in a room with a

507
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: mirror are more likely to quote, work harder, be more helpful,

508
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: and to be less inclined to cheat compared with control

509
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: groups performing the same exercises in non mirrored settings. But

510
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: the funny detail about the McCrae at all finding was

511
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,199
Speaker 1: again yes, that that people in a room with a

512
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 1: mirror in the presence of a mirror seemed to be

513
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: less likely to rely on stereotypes. And they found this

514
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: was true about negative stereotypes about things like sex, race,

515
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: and religion, but not for all types of stereotypes. So,

516
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: to quote from the article, when it comes to socially

517
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: acceptable forms of stereotyping, said Dr Bowdenhausen, like branding all

518
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: politicians liars or all lawyers crooks, the presence of a

519
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: mirror may end up augmenting rather than curbing, the willingness

520
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: to pigeonhole. And I thought that was funny because maybe

521
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: the idea there is when people say something like, oh,

522
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: all politicians are liars or all lawyers or crooks, that

523
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: is something that people maybe are less likely to feel

524
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 1: ashamed about doing and more likely to feel self righteous

525
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: about doing. So it actually makes you more likely to

526
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: do that kind of thing. Oh, it's been like, look

527
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: at me setting there dropping truth bombs in my head

528
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: about the nature of politics. So that's funny. Does a

529
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: mirror make you more self righteous? Uh, this is just

530
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: a little anecdote, but I wonder well. I mean that

531
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 1: would fall the right in line with the uh, you know,

532
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: with with the with the idea of the ego being

533
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: bound up in the reflection and uh, you know, reflective

534
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: contemplation of self um and and even the myth, the

535
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: myth of Narcissus becoming just entranced by his own reflection.

536
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: There's another thing I want to talk about, another one

537
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 1: of the ways that mirrors have played a major role

538
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 1: in scientific research, and this is the so called mirror

539
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 1: self recognition test. And this has come up on the

540
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 1: show a couple of times before, h but I just

541
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 1: thought it would be interesting to revisit briefly. So this

542
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: is sometimes presented as a test to see if animals

543
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 1: possess consciousness like we have, you know, self conscious awareness.

544
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: And though I don't have any reason to doubt that

545
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: at least some types of animals have something analogous to

546
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: human consciousness, we don't know, but it seems like a

547
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: reasonable assumption to me. I'm not convinced that consciousness is

548
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: really what these studies demonstrate, but they do demonstrate something interesting.

549
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: Maybe it's better to call the mirror self recognition test

550
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 1: a test for self awareness or something like that. So

551
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:38,959
Speaker 1: the setup is pretty simple. You take an animal and

552
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 1: you put a mark somewhere on its body so that

553
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 1: it can't see the mark naturally, and it's not aware

554
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: that you've put it there. So an example might be

555
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: that you put a yellow dot on an animal's forehead

556
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: or on its throat while it's under general anesthesia, so

557
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't know that you've put it there, and it

558
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: can't see it unless it looks in a mirror. And

559
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:04,480
Speaker 1: then you give that animal access to a mirror. Now,

560
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: most animals don't react in a particularly notable way to mirrors,

561
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: except unless they're they're reacting to their image in a

562
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: mirror as if it were another animal. But some animals,

563
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: especially after they've been exposed to mirrors for extended periods,

564
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: presumably to learn how they work, they start to respond

565
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 1: with behaviors indicating that they may actually understand that the

566
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: reflection in the mirror is an image of themselves, of

567
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: their own body. So in the case of putting a

568
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: yellow dot on their forehead or on their their throat,

569
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: they will reach up and touch themselves in the spot

570
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 1: where the yellow dot is, or try to groom themselves

571
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: on that spot, which requires a different kind of consciousness.

572
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: That's you know that that an animal you could presume,

573
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: would not do that unless they had some kind of

574
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: inkling that this image on the mirror was actually their

575
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 1: own body. Yeah. And it's again, when we approach mirrors

576
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: with this uh you know, less every day understanding and

577
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 1: we try and we lean into what's actually going on,

578
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 1: it is pretty remarkable because it means it would mean

579
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,959
Speaker 1: that that animal has on some level an understanding of

580
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: the virtual world. It's funny that you say that because

581
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: that same New York Times article by Angier, it quotes

582
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 1: one researcher I can't remember the name, but somebody who

583
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: says that in a way, mirrors were the first virtual reality,

584
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: not like that metaphor, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because we often

585
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: like what are we doing when we uh, we're looking

586
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: at ourselves in the mirror, you know, just the normal

587
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: stuff like you know, getting ready to leave the house

588
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: or something. We're moving around, We're causing our reflected self

589
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: to move around. We are we are uh, you know,

590
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: controlling our avatar in the mirror world. It's just very responsive. Usually,

591
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: lets you have one of those roles, um, you know

592
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: those uh, those cheaply made mirrors, and then you can

593
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: make it a little bit of active. And then how

594
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: about when you go and get your hair cut and

595
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: you get that that wonderful the two mirror trick when

596
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: you have to look at the back of your head,

597
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:09,959
Speaker 1: that thing just I'm I'm stupid. That thing just breaks

598
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: my brain. I can never figure out how to make

599
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: two mirrors work to look at the back of my head.

600
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: I keep moving them around and I just can't see it.

601
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: How about when the barber the hairstylist holds it behind

602
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: your head. I guess they've got experience. I don't know.

603
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: Thank thank you. But anyway, so coming back to the

604
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:36,239
Speaker 1: mirror self recognition test as as used on animals as

605
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: a test for whatever this this X factor is consciousness

606
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: or self awareness or psycho somatic representational consciousness, whatever you

607
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: would call it. One of the first big studies on

608
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 1: this was by a researcher named Gordon G. Gallop and

609
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: it was called Chimpanzees Self Recognition, published in the journal

610
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 1: Science in the year nineteen seventy. And I'll just read

611
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: the abstract. It's very short quote. After prolonged exposure to

612
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: their reflected images and mirrors, chimpanzees marked with red dye

613
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: showed evidence of being able to recognize their own reflections.

614
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 1: Monkeys did not appear to have this capacity. So he

615
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 1: was comparing different species here, right, different species of primates.

616
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 1: On one hand, you've got a great ape, the chimpanzee,

617
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:24,760
Speaker 1: but then you've also got a number of different monkey species.

618
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 1: The monkeys used in the study were reesus monkeys, stump

619
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: tailed macaques, and something called cino mulgus monkeys which had

620
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: never heard of before. But these are also known as

621
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 1: crab eating macaques. Cino mulgus. Does that mean crab eating? Maybe? Um?

622
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,280
Speaker 1: Weirdly enough, I believe I'm looking this up. I believe

623
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: it actually means dog milk, having to do with some

624
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:50,720
Speaker 1: erroneous claim that that these monkeys were capable of milking

625
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 1: female dogs. Oki doki. You know, you learn something new

626
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,799
Speaker 1: every day anyway. So coming back to the study by Gallup, So,

627
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:03,760
Speaker 1: the chimpanzees, who had experience with mirrors, uh, they were

628
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,399
Speaker 1: able to reach for the red dot on themselves when

629
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:08,839
Speaker 1: they saw it in the mirror, but the monkeys did

630
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: not do the same, and this would again seem to

631
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:14,799
Speaker 1: indicate that the chimpanzees had the ability to learn over

632
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 1: time that the animal they're seeing in the mirror is themselves,

633
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: while the monkeys don't usually have this capacity. Uh. And

634
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: so the red dye helps provide a clear point of

635
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 1: comparison that you can test on command between different species.

636
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:31,320
Speaker 1: But in fact, Gallup reported that you you didn't actually

637
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: need the die test to observe that chimpanzees could adapt

638
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: to the presence of a mirror and understand what it was,

639
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 1: because you could observe spontaneous behaviors that were pretty interesting.

640
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 1: So um Gallup reported with his small group of chimpanzees

641
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 1: that when he first introduced a mirror to their enclosure,

642
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 1: for the first few days, the chimpanzees would react to

643
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: the mirror as if another animal had been introduced to

644
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 1: the area. So Gallop called this a social stimulus reaction,

645
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:04,520
Speaker 1: and it would produce behaviors like bobbing, threatening, vocalizing. It

646
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: was like, there's there's another animal that's roughly like me

647
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:09,319
Speaker 1: in here, and I need to, you know, figure out

648
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: what his steel is. One of the things that is

649
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: that has always interested me about mirror tests is that

650
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: among animals that that are known to have failed the

651
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 1: mirror test, you do see that distinction. Like, for instance,

652
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 1: with cats, sometimes they react with hostility towards the reflection,

653
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 1: but other times it's just straight up indifference. And I

654
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 1: witnessed this the other day. I was actually putting a

655
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 1: rather large mirror on the wall of our house and

656
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: I had it had it leaned up against the couch there.

657
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: The cat came over and checked it out, and you know,

658
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:43,280
Speaker 1: she just kind of looked in. It didn't seem that interested.

659
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,720
Speaker 1: And then she found the instruction booklet for the mirror

660
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 1: and sat on it, and that was her complete interaction

661
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 1: with this new mirror. Uh. So, you know, it's it's like,

662
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,279
Speaker 1: oh I oh, They're like, it's it's it seems like

663
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 1: there's such a there's such a gap between those two

664
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: different possible reactions though that this is the thing that

665
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: I must attack and put in its place, or that

666
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:06,839
Speaker 1: it's just nothing at all. Yeah. I have always noticed. Now,

667
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: I know, sometimes dogs will react to a mirror and

668
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 1: bark at it, but that's never been my experience. In

669
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: real life. Dogs I've always known to be utterly it's

670
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:17,279
Speaker 1: like they can't even see the mirror, you know, no

671
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:20,880
Speaker 1: reaction at all to their reflection um. And I wonder

672
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 1: if that has to do with just, you know, the

673
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,359
Speaker 1: different sense world the dog lives in that we've talked

674
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 1: about many times. I mean, I don't I don't know this.

675
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering maybe if another if the image of

676
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 1: another dog is not accompanied by some kind of dogs smell,

677
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: it doesn't even really register as a dog. Yeah, that

678
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: I think that that makes a lot of sense, because yes,

679
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: we discussed before, dogs live in just an entirely different

680
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: a smell realm than human beings and and likewise, Uh,

681
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 1: you know, cats are are so based, you know, so

682
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: much of the perception is based on their hearing. If

683
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: it doesn't if it doesn't sound like cat, could it

684
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: possibly be a cat? If it doesn't smell like another dog?

685
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:06,080
Speaker 1: Then what is it? Is it even real? Yeah? But

686
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean maybe that's something that Hey,

687
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: if you know about good research on the subjects and

688
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:11,920
Speaker 1: send it our way. I always want to know about

689
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 1: dogs and their level of self awareness, I mean, because

690
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 1: they revered because what is what are you doing when

691
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: you show a mirror to an animal like this? You're

692
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 1: giving them a oftentimes near perfect visual version of another animal. Uh,

693
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: and yeah, the dog might not care about that. The

694
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 1: cat might not care about that. But what if you

695
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 1: bring something and it smells like another dog? What if

696
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 1: you lay the sound effect of a mewing kitten on

697
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:39,799
Speaker 1: a on a good speaker in your house. I think

698
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: you'll find that you'll get totally different reactions from these animals.

699
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,919
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so my dog, who does not care about

700
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:49,359
Speaker 1: reflections and mirrors at all, will go absolutely nuts if

701
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: we say, bring in an object from another house that

702
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: a dog lives in. This unleashes a storm of sniffing

703
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 1: and interest and in this item. But sorry, anyway, coming

704
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 1: back to to the Gallop study, So I mentioned that

705
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,759
Speaker 1: when a mirror is first put into the enclosure, at

706
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: least as Gallop reported in in the chimpanzees that he

707
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 1: was working with, when the mirror first went into the enclosure,

708
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 1: they would at first react as if it was another animal,

709
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: you know. They would try to threaten it. They might

710
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: um do displays at it or make vocalizations at it.

711
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 1: But these social type reactions decreased rapidly over the course

712
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:27,720
Speaker 1: of two or three days, and by like day four

713
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: or five, they were just not doing this anymore. And

714
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:33,280
Speaker 1: the social reactions over the course of a few days

715
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:37,399
Speaker 1: tended to be replaced with behaviors that um that were

716
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: directed toward the self, and which Gallop took as evidence

717
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 1: of understanding that the chimpanzees were interacting with representations of

718
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 1: their own bodies. So to read from gallops report quote,

719
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: such self directed responding took the form of grooming parts

720
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 1: of the body which would otherwise be virtually inaccessible without

721
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,760
Speaker 1: the mirror, picking bits of food from between the teeth

722
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 1: while watching the mirror image, visually guided manipulation of the

723
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:09,719
Speaker 1: anal genital areas by means of the mirror, picking extraneous

724
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 1: material from the nose by inspecting the reflected image, making

725
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: faces at the mirror, blowing bubbles, and manipulating food wads

726
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 1: with the lips by watching the reflection. In all instances

727
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: of self directed behavior, the self is the referent through

728
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: the reflection, whereas in cases of social behavior the reflection

729
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: is the referend. So once they've been exposed to a

730
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: mirror for a few days, the chimpanzees would start performing

731
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:39,400
Speaker 1: all kinds of exploratory and grooming behaviors with respect to

732
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 1: their own bodies, which is fascinating. Yeah, I mean, obviously

733
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to try and put ourselves in the

734
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:49,799
Speaker 1: mind of a chimpanzee. Um, but but on a human

735
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: lat like imagine if you had had no access to

736
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: mirrors and then you were given one, like it would

737
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: it would really just you know, open open a gateway

738
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: into new realm of self awareness and self grooming. Yeah. So,

739
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 1: as Gallup reported, in this study, at least the chimpanzees

740
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 1: passed the mirror self self recognition test and the monkeys

741
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: did not. The recess monkeys and the macaques did not.

742
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: But since then a number of studies have found other

743
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 1: animals to quote pass versions of the mirror self recognition test. Uh.

744
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: Though again I want to emphasize there is debate about

745
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 1: some of these findings, and again debate about the best

746
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 1: ways to interpret them. So I do find these studies

747
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: really interesting, but I would say interpret them with caution. Yeah. Yeah,

748
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,439
Speaker 1: it's I think a lot of times just the idea

749
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: of the mirror test is is sort of engaged with,

750
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 1: you know, kind of simplistically at least by you know,

751
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: non scientists and general public sort of thing. Uh. And yeah,

752
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 1: you do see plenty of articles that question the the

753
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: usefulness of say, trying to get an octopus to look

754
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: in the mirror. Right, But with all those caveats, some

755
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: of the examples of animals that have in some way

756
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 1: or another been interpreted to have passed the mirror self

757
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: recognition test. These would include other great apes, so animalst

758
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: like guerrillas and orangutans, and I think binobo's to some extent, elephants,

759
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 1: some corvids, but not others. Definitely, magpies have in some studies,

760
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 1: or at least one study, have been found to try

761
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: to groom a spot on their body where a dot

762
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 1: of die has been placed. And also perhaps some dolphins

763
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:29,799
Speaker 1: I think of his bottlenose dolphins, though their behaviors are

764
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:33,279
Speaker 1: harder to interpret than the behaviors of animals that can

765
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: groom themselves with beaks or hands or trunk. You know,

766
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: I haven't read anything recently about dolphin cognition. I'd love

767
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 1: to come back to dolphins and and really go in

768
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:46,919
Speaker 1: at great depth. But I guess one question that comes

769
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:51,840
Speaker 1: to mind is in an underwater environment, to what extent

770
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 1: was is a dolphin going to encounter a reflection of itself?

771
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 1: Would you would it be able to encounter a reflection

772
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: of itself at the surface of the water. Uh, from

773
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: the submerged side. I don't know. I don't know the answer,

774
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,280
Speaker 1: because some of these other animals, it seems like you could,

775
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps simplistically ask the question, Well, wouldn't they

776
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: occasionally encounter reflections of themselves in the water? You know,

777
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't there have wouldn't they encounter that stimuli in the

778
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:24,319
Speaker 1: natural world under the right conditions? Yeah, maybe I don't know,

779
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: Or maybe I don't know. Maybe when you go to

780
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: a still pool of water and you're an orangutan or something,

781
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:30,719
Speaker 1: you're you're just thirsty and you're just getting the water

782
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: real fast. You don't stop and look. Who knows? Yeah,

783
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 1: I know it is. It's particularly weird when you think

784
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 1: about humans in their mirrors, about how we inflict them

785
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:41,479
Speaker 1: on the world. Uh. You know, we don't think about

786
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: this a lot. We don't think. Well, I don't really

787
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 1: put a lot of mirrors outside, but of course you

788
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 1: have traffic mirrors, and every vehicle that we put out

789
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,320
Speaker 1: there on the street, they have at least two mirrors

790
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: on the outside of the vehicle. So just the other

791
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 1: day I was watching a bird. I'm almost positive it

792
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: was not a corvett it was, But it kept coming

793
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: land right next to the automobile mirror, looking at itself,

794
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:06,239
Speaker 1: and then flying up and then flying back down, and

795
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 1: then flying up, then flying back down to the mirror.

796
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: And it did this on a loop for like, um,

797
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: you know, like two or three dozen times. I wonder

798
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:16,880
Speaker 1: if it was interpreting the reflection as a as a

799
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: strange bird, as another animal. Yeah, perhaps just one last note. So,

800
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:24,760
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, it seems that dogs

801
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 1: do not generally pass the mirror self recognition test. But

802
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: I was reading an article on NPR from years ago,

803
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:34,799
Speaker 1: is from like two thousand eleven, I think, Um, that

804
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 1: was talking about one researcher who was proposing an alternate uh,

805
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 1: an alternate version of the mirror self recognition test for

806
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:45,439
Speaker 1: a dog that would involve smells rather than reflection, which

807
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 1: is a little bit different because the smell would have

808
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:49,880
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, the smell of something produced

809
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,320
Speaker 1: by the body, like the smell of its own urine

810
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: or something like that. Uh. And this raises interesting questions about, like,

811
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,840
Speaker 1: what is the boundary of the self for something like

812
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: a dog, is the smell of its own urine In

813
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: a way, itself for distinguishable as something that is produced

814
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 1: by the body but not co extensive with the body. Interesting, Rob, Rob,

815
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 1: what's that magic? I feel? What's that strange sensation in

816
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 1: the air? Is that the fairy king of a four

817
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: part series coming down to bless this episode with with

818
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: with the extended life of going on into yet one

819
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:28,360
Speaker 1: more part. I think it is, yes, Um, and I

820
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: realized at this point we're we're definitely in the Hall

821
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: of mirrors. Uh, it's it's you know, we're so far

822
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 1: into the topic we may not be able to determine

823
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: how much further we have to go and how far

824
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: we have in fact come, but we will be back

825
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 1: for at least one more mirror episode. I know we

826
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 1: have some more stuff to talk about concerning who metal

827
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,520
Speaker 1: mirrors for starters, we haven't really uh discussed them at

828
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 1: length yet. And we also have some more about mirrors

829
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:57,640
Speaker 1: in as they're as they are used in or invoked

830
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:02,200
Speaker 1: in technological metaphors in in some other cultures around the world.

831
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot more to discuss, and perhaps

832
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:08,759
Speaker 1: uh if there, if you get to us in time,

833
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: you might be able to ask, hey, how about this,

834
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 1: and maybe we can even include it into the next episode.

835
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if the time will work perfectly on that,

836
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: but certainly if you're listening to these episodes and you

837
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: have thoughts about your own interactions with mirrors, your pets

838
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:27,839
Speaker 1: and their interactions with mirrors, cultural ideas concerning mirrors, all

839
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 1: of it is on the table. Ryan, let us know

840
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 1: what you're thinking. And in the meantime, if you want

841
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 1: to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

842
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 1: head on over to the Stuff to Blow your Mind

843
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:40,279
Speaker 1: podcast feed. That is where you will find our episodes.

844
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:44,880
Speaker 1: Our core episodes published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have

845
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 1: a little bit of a listener mail which we do

846
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 1: on Mondays. On Wednesdays we do the Artifact unless it

847
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: has been uh preempted by an advertisement of some sort,

848
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 1: and then on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That's

849
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 1: our time to talk about a strange movie, and on

850
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:03,800
Speaker 1: the weekends we do a rerun. Huge thanks as always

851
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you

852
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

853
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,319
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for

854
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:14,440
Speaker 1: the future, or just to say hello, You can email

855
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,560
Speaker 1: us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot cost.

856
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

857
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, this is the

858
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to

859
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.