Your mirror image. Is it really you?

[Dan From Smithville]

...and I'm not that old.

I too am not old. Just older.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Light moves pretty damn fast. It's not that old of an image. Look at something in your hand. Hold it up to the mirror,.so the objects match? Then you are you in the mirror.

Now you are adding evidence to the mix. It leads us to understanding that has a probability of being correct, but not an absolute certainty. To be fair, all previous posters have also been adding evidence to support that case too. But we have no direct observation of our own appearance.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

What happens when the image in the mirror don't do as the human do has the image in the mirror become an other being then

My mirror image is left handed. I am not.

I am curious to wonder what non-human action you might imagine would do the trick.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Haha. While that may not happen, if you ever feel the need to look skinnier when taking a selfie, position the camera a little higher. On the other hand, the low angle can be bad for some people, especially ones with a little bit extra going on in the chin section, lol.

That is a handy tip.

Like a mirror image, a photo is a sort of reflection. Can we be sure that is really how we look?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You will love the Devils toy box. *grin*

You have hit on a concept that has crept into my mind while thinking about this thread. Not a room of mirrors where the Devil steals souls, but just mirrors reflecting images of the original into forever.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I solve that problem by using new & improved turbo
charged photons. They're 3 times faster, & leave a
fresh minty scent.

Are they really half calories too?

 

[Spirit of Light]

I agree. The image is not the person, but is our image really what we look like. Perhaps we don't look like that at all. We have no way to know with certainty. Maybe the image is only a distortion of our real appearance. Maybe it looks nothing like what we see.

I was sitting as a model for a portrait once, and what the artist saw, was not what I see in the mirror I did not recognize my own face in the drawing. So yes we don't look the way we think

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Even worse, we know a mirror image does NOT look like us, as it is reversed left to right, compared to how we really look. To see how we really look, one needs a camera. So the parting of our hair is on the wrong side, the mole is on the wrong cheek, the writing on our sweatshirt is back to front and so forth.

Technically a mirror image is a laterally inverted image, which I was once taught is called a "perverted" image - though that term seem no longer used, perhaps for obvious reasons.

The image is further 'perverted' by the nature of the surface that is reflecting it. At least, I hope those trips through the funhouse are really how I look. Though, I rather like the ripple effect that I see in a pool of water during a rain.

The question remains, is the image captured by the camera how we really look. And how do other people see us?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I was sitting as a model for a portrait once, and what the artist saw, was not what I see in the mirror I did not recognize my own face in the drawing. So yes we don't look the way we think

Are you reading my mind?

 

[anna.]

Even worse, we know a mirror image does NOT look like us, as it is reversed left to right, compared to how we really look. To see how we really look, one needs a camera. So the parting of our hair is on the wrong side, the mole is on the wrong cheek, the writing on our sweatshirt is back to front and so forth.

Technically a mirror image is a laterally inverted image, which I was once taught is called a "perverted" image - though that term seem no longer used, perhaps for obvious reasons.

Was gonna say the same, minus the technical part but adding that our faces are naturally asymmetrical. Even the most beautifully symmetrical face cannot be completely symmetrical. Although I can't speak for the selfie generation, I rarely like photos of myself because they don't look like what I see in the mirror. I'm used to my face being reversed, and when I see it as others see it, it doesn't feel like me at all.

 

[anna.]

In that sense, your sense of self is *always* in the past.

This is thought-provoking.

I'm reminded of my first psychology instructor who said on the first day of class we wouldn't be the same person at the end of class as we were when we walked in, both psychologically and physiologically.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

No. It is a reflected image. You are not left-right symmetric.

Symmetry does immediately tell us that the image is different. So if it is different in one aspect, could it be different in others that we have not contemplated? Maybe the image we see is different than what others see in ways we haven't even thought of.

The light travel time is in nanoseconds. The time it takes for neurons to fire is in microseconds to milliseconds. it takes *far* longer for the brain to process the information once the light hits the retina than it does for the light to get from you to the mirror and back to your eyes.

In that sense, your sense of self is *always* in the past. By some experiments, but up to significant fractions of second (100-200 milliseconds). Don't blame the light in this case.

Sounds like a group effort. Even Einstein and Darwin were not alone.

So adding all these factors together, the image we see is inverted and younger. Perhaps not by much, but younger still.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I think my reflection in a mirror is close enough so that i don't worry about it.

As long as the evidence indicates that the approximation is close to the actual value, I think I can live with the answer too. But I image your reflection is much more pleasing to look on than my own. But the mirror does give us some indication of the work I can do to rectify that and approach more closely your better approximation.

Still, I wonder, how close it to the actual.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Write CHOICE QUALITY on a piece of paper and hold that to a mirror.

I am happy to see you back. How are you?

Homework. I'll run the experiment and let you know. I'll try RADAR too.

What if we see a good approximation of other things, but only a poor approximation of ourselves? How would we know?

 

[ChristineM]

As long as the evidence indicates that the approximation is close to the actual value, I think I can live with the answer too. But I image your reflection is much more pleasing to look on than my own. But the mirror does give us some indication of the work I can do to rectify that and approach more closely your better approximation.

Still, I wonder, how close it to the actual.

Close enough, close enough other than being wrong way round and very, very (almost unmeasurably) delayed

 

[Dan From Smithville]

This is thought-provoking.

I'm reminded of my first psychology instructor who said on the first day of class we wouldn't be the same person at the end of class as we were when we walked in, both psychologically and physiologically.

The differences may be subtle, but I am not the same person I was when I started this thread. I was trying not to be in a bad mood then, for instance.

 

[Revoltingest]

Are they really half calories too?

Calorie free....but they're GMO, & full of gluten.

 

[The Hammer]

Now you are adding evidence to the mix. It leads us to understanding that has a probability of being correct, but not an absolute certainty. To be fair, all previous posters have also been adding evidence to support that case too. But we have no direct observation of our own appearance.

Never been an issue for me. We construct our sense of self anyways

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Close enough, close enough other than being wrong way round and very, very (almost unmeasurably) delayed

Our daily operation is based on approximations. Even when we do not actively think of them during those operations. If we are real people here, then all of us have been doing that successfully to this point.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Calorie free....but they're GMO, & full of gluten.

Then I am good. Gluten doesn't bother me and I am pro-GMO.