WEBVTT - Through the Looking Glass 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:14.000 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to stuff to Blow 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.000 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.480 have you gazed into the mirror recently? Oh? Yes, in fact, 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:23.520 just a moment ago, I looked into the mirror and 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.520 I confirmed my shirt was indeed put on backwards by 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.520 whom by myself, because I dressed myself. Okay, I didn't 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:34.400 know how how how weird this was going to get. Well, 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.479 don't believe those rumors. I dressed myself all right now 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:39.920 like strange people in the night, like sneak in, dress 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:42.519 you and make sure you have your clothes on the 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:47.560 slightly wrong. Whatever you've heard it not true. But yes, 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.440 recently I have gazed into the looking glass, because we 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.000 do it all the time, right, We surround ourselves with mirrors, 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.560 and from from a very early age, we encounter them, 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.880 we get used to them, and eventually we die in 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.040 many cases, in a in a room with a mirror, 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.679 or or with a mirror right next door into this 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:07.679 little a little bathroom in the hotel room where we 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:12.200 finally pass away, this this portal, into this strange uncanny 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:16.560 ocular world. Were you just imagining Elvis in the bathroom? Yeah, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:17.720 well you can. You can look at it that way. 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.240 You can imagine Elvis, um, you know, sadly passing away there. 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.039 But then what if what have the reflected Elvis is 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.920 just standing up watching you know. Well, that's the whole thing, right, 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.640 And that's for an entirely different episode, But right, This 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.280 idea of reflective surfaces in us peering into them has 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:36.959 been around for a long time. In fact, if you 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:41.240 look at the myth of Narcissus, you will be met 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.640 with this idea of this beautiful boy who cannot stop 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:49.120 staring at himself in the mirror, and he chooses to 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.960 die by the side of a reflecting pond rather um, 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:57.360 instead of leaving his beloved himself behind. That is how 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.920 attached he is to that image staring back at him. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.160 The obsession with the mirror, obsession with one's own reflection 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.240 in the mirror. Just just as much as we are 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.519 we are at times horrified by reflections or or adverse 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.320 to to looking in the mirror. Um and and and 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.519 I just I think back to some of my earlier 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:21.880 opportunities to peer into different mirrors, particularly I remember going 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.880 to like sears somewhere with my mom, like way too much, 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.000 because those trips seemed always seem to take for average. 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:28.519 You know, you're going to buy trainers for you or 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.760 your sisters, and they would have this little, uh, this 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.120 this little area with three mirrors. You know, there's like 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:35.320 the one in front of you, and there two to 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.880 the sides, ideally so that you can stand in your 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.000 your new outfit or potentially what's going to be your 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.560 new outfit, and twirl around and see what you're wearing 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.959 from different advantage points. But those three mirrors also create 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.400 this kind of mirror world because if you if you 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:53.600 get close enough, especially as a child and you have 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:55.840 your board out of your mind because you're surrounded by clothes, 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:58.080 you get close enough to the mirror and you can 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.680 look in and you see the reflection the other mirror, 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.079 and you see this sort of endless cascade of mirrors, 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:08.400 just endless use, endless use, or endless sort of half 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:10.240 glimpse glimpses of you, and you feel like if you 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.280 could just sort of stick your head into the mirror, 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.160 you might be able to see down this hallway of 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:19.360 mirrors into infinity. So there's always this we're I just 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.880 I remember all these opportunities to look into a mirror 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.040 and getting just a sense of there's something uncanny about it, 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.600 there's something strange about the mirror, and you can't help 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:29.920 but let your imagination run wild or feel just a 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.960 little odd gazing into one. I like that example because 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.080 so often we think of mirrors just reflecting back reality, 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.960 but in fact, mirrors are really sort of a distorted reality. 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.680 Our perception is distorted, and in some ways mirror adds 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.720 mirrors out of this idea of these delusions that we 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.960 hold about ourselves. Yes, I mean that's the key. Mirrors 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.640 are truth and illusion wound up into one. And I 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.240 think even though on the surface we really fall into 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.480 the the eventual, everyday reality of saying, hey, that's me 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:00.880 in the mirror. That's me, that's the real that's totally 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.120 the side that I part my hair on, even though 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.600 everyone else is going to see it reverse. But deep 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:09.880 down there's something in us that knows that that's not right. 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.000 That's that's signaling at least one remaining flashing button on 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.960 the on the cognitive panel is going off saying there's 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.440 something uncanny going here, and I think that's why the 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:24.240 countless tales of strange creatures in the mirror mirrors that 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.919 tell the future or or reveal of secrets in the past, 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.040 why they resonate so strongly with us. And if you 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.400 go to stuftable your mind dot com, I wrote a 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:35.200 little list article called twelve Terrifying fictional mirrors that runs 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.599 through a few interesting examples of this. Yeah, so check 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.360 that out. But I think you're right. There's this idea 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:45.240 that mirrors are capturing this sort of self awareness, this reality. 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:50.279 And in fact, there's that mirror cognition test that many 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.080 scientists will use with animals. In fact, we know that guerillas, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:57.719 we know that chimps, Banobo's dolphins, Asian elephants, they all 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.360 passed that self awareness test in a mirror. In other words, 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.400 you can put markings on them and they will examine 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.200 those markets. They will recognize themselves in that mirror, and 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:10.120 sometimes they will even inspect the inside of their mouth 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.040 as if like do I have something in my teeth, 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.320 The look up their noses, and sometimes they will even 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:17.560 check out their genitals. Well there you go. Where where 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:19.920 can I Where can I go from there? From an 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.080 ape looking at its own genitals in the mirror. UM 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.720 A safe place. That's safe place. Well let's let's let's 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.440 flee into the past for a moment. Then just a 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:31.200 quick rundown on the history of mirrors. UM. Again, we 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.919 have always from a very early age just lost in prehistory. 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:40.160 You know, humans gazed into the reflective surface of some 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.640 water and we're able to see their own reflection. I mean, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.400 that's just that, just that just happened, and who knows 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.400 when it did. But humans started making simple mirrors probably 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:53.160 around six BC. Uh. They use polished obsidian as a 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:58.120 reflective surface. Uh. Later on we started using things like copper, bronze, silver, gold, 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.880 and even lad But of course all of this involves 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.080 very very heavy mirrors, you know, and they have to 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.040 be very small because you're making it out of obsidian 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.520 or a gold or silver. UM. Contemporary mirrors didn't come 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:11.760 into being into the late Middle Ages. But even then 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.560 there were problems with their manufacture because you're using glass, 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.800 and the sand used for glass making contained all these 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.320 different impurities, and so it was hard to produce a 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:23.640 really clear glass based mirror. Uh. And and also the 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.719 shock caused by the heat of adding molten metal for 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.679 backing that glass almost always broke the glass. So we 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:32.679 you know, Middle Ages, we knew how to make a mirror, 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:34.920 but we didn't quite have all the techniques down. It 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.480 wasn't until the Renaissance, when the Florentines admitted a process 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.440 for making low temperature lead backing that modern mirrors really 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:45.080 hit the scene. Um. And for the longest it was 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.440 all about just looking at yourself. There wasn't It wasn't 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.480 a lot of real, uh, you know, scientific opportunity with 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:55.120 the mirror. But of course, eventually around the sixteen sixties, 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.040 scientists started realizing we can you utilize and telescopes. Uh. 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.360 And the modern mirror, by the way, is made by 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.359 silvering or spraying a thin layer of silver or aluminum 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:08.919 onto the back of a sheet of glass. And most 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.880 mirrors are made today by heating aluminum in a vacuum, 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.840 which then bonds to the cooler glass. So that's the 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.720 basics how we started making mirrors and how we make 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.840 mirrors today. Yeah, and they became far more portable. Um. Now, 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.200 let's talk about light interacting with the surface of a mirror. 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.000 When a photon a packet of light hits a mirror, 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.400 it's absorbed by one of the atoms in the mirror, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.480 and this causes electrons in the atom to vibrate and 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.240 give off an identical photon of light, the one that 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.800 you perceive in your eye yourself right, So your I 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.080 see these reflected photons as a mirror image. The mirror 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.600 image is reversed, which you can easily see if you 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.280 stand in front of a mirror with a shirt with 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:50.280 words on it. Right. Yes, and again that the parting 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.200 of the hair thing, you know, you always you sort 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:53.600 of grow to thank you part your hair on one 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:55.680 side of your your head perhaps, but you're actually doing 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.040 it on the other. Yeah. But in the case of 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.560 the words you have the words on the you're appearing 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.920 backwards in the mirror, and it is not right to left. 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.400 That has been reversed. The image has been reversed from 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.440 front to back. Now, this is a squirrelly concept, right, 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.360 because you're looking in the mirror, you see your right 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.240 hand up. Um, it looks as though it's right to right. 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.280 It just looks like it's been left to right reversed. 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.920 But Richard Kinneman has an interesting idea about this, and 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:28.800 he says, think about looking into the mirror, putting your 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.200 right hand up and it facing east. Okay, we're on 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.360 this parallel plane with the mirror. If you look at 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.400 yourself in the mirror, your nose, the nose you're touching yourself, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.559 is pointing north, but the nose that's being reflected back 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.480 to you is pointing south. And he's saying that this 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.120 is that front to back concept. And you and I 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:53.120 were talking about this earlier and actually um doing some 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.480 yoga in the aisles of our office to try to 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.920 get to the bottom of this concept. Because the reversal 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.160 situation also comes into play in a yoga class because 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.480 you know, it varies depending on who your yoga teacher 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.080 isn't how they do it, but a lot of the 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.000 time the yoga teacher will be facing you like a mirror, 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.720 like a mirror, and they're going to do the reverse 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.640 of whatever you're doing. So if we're lifting our left 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.400 leg in the class, he or she is going to 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.440 lift their right leg because it's going because the right 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.760 leg is going to lift on the same side. Uh 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:28.160 as far as the room is concerned, as as our 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.880 other legs. So right there, front to back. Yeah, they're 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.800 correcting for the reversal. It's so they're they're front to 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:36.680 back to you like a mirror. If it were left 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.040 to right, they would turn around right and then you 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.560 would be looking at their backside and they would be 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.560 mirroring you from from from uh left to right in 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.760 that way. So I don't know if it's still kind 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.640 of a squarely concept people. That helps another way I 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.160 was thinking about it, um, a pane of glass with 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:57.120 writing printed on it, you know, you walk around to 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.800 the other side of it and in it's reverse. Yeah, 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:01.640 they I guess that's a good example, all right. So 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.680 that's some some mirror basics there. Um. As you mentioned, 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:06.760 mirrors can be curved to focus light, so boom, you've 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.160 got telescopes, You've got all sorts of uses of mirrors. 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.400 But it turns out that mirrors can actually be used 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.880 in therapy as well. Yes, and this is where things 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.240 start getting getting an early trippy to think about, you know. 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.640 And it also gets back into that uncanny world that 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:24.920 we discussed earlier. You guys, you're looking in the mirror. 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:28.960 Something's not quite right, and it twists our perception of reality, 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.560 uh in a way that we take for granted, but 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.000 in a way that becomes far more substantial when we're 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.080 dealing with the treatment of phantom limb syndrome. Yeah, because 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.440 mirror therapy has been used in phantom limbs syndrome, also 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.560 chronic pain and post stroke paralysis. And the reason that 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.560 it's used is that reflected images of patients limbs or 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.679 other body parts trick the brain into healing itself. Now, 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.800 think about this. The majority of people who have phantom 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.960 limb um or excuse me, who have a limb ampute, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:04.240 hated or the nerve supply removed report experiencing some kind 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.960 of phantom limb and pain, but only some report persistent 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:14.400 phantom limb pain, which is apparently excruciating pain. Yeah, I've 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:15.960 heard some accounts of it are kind of kind of 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.160 like they you know, you feel that that missing limb 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:21.680 as if it's there, but as if it is, say, 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.280 cramped up, like you need a move it, you need 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.160 to reposition it, but it's not actually there, so you can't. 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.280 It's like an itch that can never be scratched because 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.640 the place of the itch only exist in the circuitry 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.480 of your mind at this point. Now, in the New 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.160 England Journal of Medicine, Jack Zow and neurologist at Walter 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.880 Reed Army Medical Center described the phenomenon, and he said 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.640 that researchers randomly assigned twenty two lower limb amputees with 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:50.320 phantom limb pain to one of three groups. Now, one 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.400 group had mirror movements, and patients watched the reflected image 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.760 of their intact foot in a mirror while they moved 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.880 both feet simultaneously, or so it felt like they were 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.840 moving both of them simultaneously. Right, So, using one of 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.520 these these mirror boxes, you end up with the when 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.760 you call it an illusion even that that you're watching 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:16.640 yourself move the missing limb. Yeah, and there's a video 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.439 of this. It's it's extraordinary. They just put the mirror 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.959 there and it really does look as though the patient 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.800 has both limbs intact moving it around, and the reporting 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:31.120 that it feels like it is there. It's it's bolstering 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.439 all of those ideas they have in their head about 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:37.000 this uniformity. I should add that the mirror box technique 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.600 was invented by vs vs Ramaschandre, who've we've actually mentioned 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.320 at least several times before in the past. This podcast 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.240 does a lot of interesting work, but if you do 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.640 just a quick Google search for for mirror therapy or 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.760 mirror box, etcetera, you'll find his website that has a 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:56.040 lot of resources about this this particular branch of therapy. Now, 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.360 the second group, they had a covered mirror movement. In 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:01.920 other words, atients perform the same movements, but the mirror 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:03.720 was covered so they did not see a moving limb. 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:08.480 The third group was imagined movements, so they mentally pictured 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:13.000 moving the phantom foot with their eyes closed. So what happened? Okay? 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.280 They had the patients performed this fifteen minutes a day 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.679 and they recorded the number, duration, and intensity of pain episodes. 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.800 After four weeks, there were two key findings. First, pain 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.760 decreased significantly in all six patients who were doing the 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.320 mirror movements. Second, three out of six patients in the 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.040 covered mirror movements group and four out of six patients 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.120 in the imagined movements group got worse and not better. 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:44.400 And some of this, Zal says, is that, um, it 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.720 could be that these movements when you see them in 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.319 the mirror, could be calming down the nerve signals in 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.280 the phantom limb, or it could be replacing what he 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.480 calls the bad memories of that limb, and in a nutshell, 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.880 it's kind of like the visual component of this is 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.760 helping to modulate that pain. Yeah, I was reading that 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.520 in many cases, what you're dealing with is a situation 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.000 where before the limb was amputated, there was a period 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.320 of paralysis. So in a sense, it's kind of like 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.480 it's the echo of the final sensations from that limb 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.160 and uh and then like you say, creating a new 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.640 memory for that limb, one of movement instead of one 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.240 of of paralysis. Yeah. And there's there's all sorts of 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.840 things going on here. So there's there's some evidence that 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.520 mirror therapy really does help. There needs to be more studies, 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.000 but there's an idea that mirror neurons are a part 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.360 of this. There's also an idea that your brain is 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.480 conflicted because what it feels and what it sees are 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:45.840 completely different and it doesn't really know how to process 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:50.200 that information. Um, But as I said, mirror therapy seems 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.880 to be helpful in these situations. All Right, we'll hold on. 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:55.640 We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.600 we're going to discuss more about the mirror and the 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:09.360 person in the mirror watching. All right, we are back 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:12.520 the next scenario we are going to paint for you. 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:14.840 I think it's so interesting to me because again, it's 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.480 one of those simple subconscious things going on. You hang 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.280 a mirror in a room, You ask people to do things, 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.240 you observe them, and does just the act of this 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:27.280 mirror hanging in the room reflecting back their image change 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.760 how they behave Okay, it's an interesting concept. First, I 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:32.200 think we should get one thing out of the way 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.160 for the paranoid listeners who might be wondering, is this 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.920 a two way mirror behind which there's a cabal of 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:43.960 secret observers watching our every movement? Uh? No, are you sure? 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.120 I'm sure, because well, this is a little trick. If 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.360 you're ever in a room and you're thinking, I want 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.120 you're thinking to yourself, I wonder if there's a secret 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.320 cabal of observers on the other side of that mirror. 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.200 Turn the light off in the room if possible, or 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:58.760 you know, break some light bulbs, whatever it takes, because 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.200 if you darken the room you're in, then you will 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.040 be able to see through the two way mirror into 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.040 the observer's room. Because that's how the whole situation works 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:08.760 with two way mirrors, Yeah, to a mirrors that they 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.000 don't have a coat of paint on the back of them. 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.920 And what they do is they manipulate light. So in 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.080 the room in which you are being observed, the lights 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.640 are are really really high, and so more of that 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.360 light is reflecting onto the person who's being observed. If 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.080 you're in the dark room and you're the detective, well 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.920 of course the lights are down low. But if you 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.000 turn the lights down low in the other room ha ha, 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.440 you can see through to the evil cabal on the 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.240 other side. Yeah, and break the Panopticon in that sense. 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.800 But what we're talking about here is just a normal 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:43.880 mirror on the wall, and it actually is kind of 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:48.320 akin to the Panopticon situation, where uh, in the Panopicon situation, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.560 it's the fear that someone is watching us, the belief 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.080 that someone might be watching what we're doing, and therefore 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.080 we have to perform, uh, we have to perform better, 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.520 We have to perform with more honesty less to someone 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.040 find a stout. But we've talked about this before. When 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.680 people are made self aware, they sort of change their 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.200 behavior if they think that they're uh consciously entering into 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:10.560 some sort of contract or I guess in this case 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.639 it's more subconsciously. But let's get to the nuts and 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.840 bolts here. We are talking about the Journal of Personality 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:22.280 and Social Social Psychology and uh Neil McCrae, Gallen V. Bodenhausen, 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.960 and Alan B. Milnai. They found that people in a 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.479 room with a mirror were comparatively less likely to judge 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.880 others based on social stereotypes about for example, sex, race, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.359 or religion. And Bowden Housen said, when people are made 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.200 to be self aware, they are likelier to stop and 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.639 think about what they're doing. A byproduct of that awareness 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.439 may be a shift away from acting on autopilot towards 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.600 more desirable ways of behaving. So it's kind of interesting. 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:56.879 It's this this physical self reflection encouraging philosophical self reflection. 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.639 And we've talked about this before. In terms of empathy 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.000 with another person, you are less likely to judge that 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:06.760 other person if you feel a connection, If you are 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:08.960 projecting the image of yourself or having some sort of 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.640 self reflection, it makes you dwell a little bit more 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:16.040 about the person that you're considering because there I am 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.320 in the mirror, and there are the other people conceivably 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.280 in the mirror as well. I am maybe seeing myself 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.920 from from this third person vantage point to a certain 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.560 extent here, I am just another person amid all these people. 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.440 And also, just to get back down to the existential 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.399 none of it all there, I am who is that 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:37.640 guy there is? And uh, yeah, you can see where 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.040 that would just really throw your brain for for a 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.600 loop there. Philosophically speaking, Yeah, you can't know yourself until 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:46.639 you know others. Right, I'm looking at the man in 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.119 the mirror. I'm hoping that he'll change his way. Do 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:54.439 you see a man in the mirror? Um looking? That's right, 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.520 it does. It does bring up an interesting observation, though. 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.000 We have no mirrors in our office place, and I 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.080 wonder if that is by design, because clearly our our 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:06.720 office is impeccably designed, but with the open floor plan 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:08.760 and all you know, you know, I say that, but 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:10.919 I now that I remember. I believe we used to 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.879 have a coworker who kept a mirror on their desk 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.760 so they could keep an eye on people moving behind them, 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.600 standing behind them. That sounds more like a how stuff 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.240 works in in thing, Yeah, which is which is interesting 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:25.359 kind of almost a magical use of mirrors, using the 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.080 mirror as a protective uh instrument, And you see that 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:30.359 a lot in the in folklore mythology, the idea that 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:32.439 the that the mirror just is. There are plenty of 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.320 stories about mirrors that are magical and cursed and awful 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.240 and gay ways to other realms. There's also the idea 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:40.560 that there's something pure about the mirror, that it reveals 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.200 the soul, the truth. Yeah, it can help you spot 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.959 or spot the absence that that that lets you perceive 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.600 vampires and then all that sort of stuff. I think 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.560 this idea of a coworker having a mirror to look 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.160 at others is interesting because it kind of loops into 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.040 this idea of the Venus effect, because you could if 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.000 you're just passing by, I think that person was looking 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.720 at themselves. And this placed directly into this idea of 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.679 the famous paintings of the goddess Venus looking into a 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.719 small mirror. And if you were to look at these paintings, 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.200 you would have seem assume that Venus is admiring her 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.080 own face because you see her face in the mirror. 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.480 But that's your viewpoint, which is different from hers. If 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:22.359 you can see her in the mirror, then she would 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.800 see you in the mirror. Right. This is interesting. You 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.520 can really go down the rabbit hole looking up images, 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.880 I mean looking at paintings of people looking in mirrors, 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:34.320 because in some cases you get you have a situation 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.960 like with these various Venus images, where again they're looking 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:41.040 in a mirror, but the reflection that you see is 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.560 looking right at you, which means that she, he or 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.000 she is not looking at themselves. They are looking at 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.040 the painter, at the viewer of the painting. However, you 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.840 want to get into that gray area of observer versus art. 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:55.720 But but then you look at other works and and 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.480 you'll find the that they'll actually have it right. I 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:01.280 was looking at a number of works by Norman Rockwell, 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.280 who I tend to take for granted as an artist 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:06.560 because Norman Rockwell is not really my thing, and and 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.200 it's he's you know, he's been so mainstream, such a 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.200