Why They Attack their Reflections : Fear of Photography
On a variety of occasions I’ve seen video of ‘researchers’ presenting mirrors to cephalopods, ostensibly because they believe this activity tests whether or not the animal in question is ‘intelligence-prone’ in the sense of being capable of recognizing itself.
I often find it startling to witness the degree to which humans orchestrate what they believe they instead observe, but in this case the lurking preconceptions about animals, intelligence, and mirrors are fraught with error. When we cast other creatures in roles we tend to delimit them according to our own biases and the specificities of our purposes; this is invariably a serious error if we are actually attempting to understand other living beings.
Many forms of life are curious enough to attempt contact with other forms for a variety of purposes not related to territorial status, mating or eating. But only humans conduct formal experiments, and this is a way of broadly projecting specific roles for all participants, including ourselves. These roles have deeper purchase on reality than we expect; after all, evolution didn’t prepare living beings for the terror, confusion, torture and stress most research subjects experience. Perhaps more to the point, the creatures in question have nothing to do with the roles we are attempting to cram them into due to the bizarre misformulations of our own putative intelligence.
*; . o . )+
Most cephalopods have life spans of about 6-12 months. Nearly all of them display astonishing adaptations including those that allow them to achieve near-invisibility via physical emulation of patterns surrounding them. Many, cuttlefish in particular, can communicate by intentionally producing rapidly modulating lightshows upon the surface of their skin. This display may induce experiences of neuro-optical synchrony (optic driving) in other creatures, and the ability is sufficiently sophisticated that a male cuttlefish can simultaneously woo a female on his left side with one display while rebuffing a competitor on his right with another.
If you do a little research, you will discover stories and reports about cephs of various species (particularly octopii) that will reveal uncanny relational awareness underlying their capacity to deal effectively with novelty in ways that even talented human would compellingly fail to adopt. To call them intelligent is an understatement, especially considering their lifespans, yet most biologists do not think this way, and dismiss their displays as largely or completely the outcome of their ‘unique adaptations’ — they do not perceive these creatures as actively or creatively adapting to transformations within their environments. I should admit that for some narrow definitions and purposes their evaluations are empirically accurate; they can demonstrate why they do not believe these creatures to be ‘intelligent’ in the limited senses they mean.
According to common theory, these creatures have evolved very little over the past 4 million years. It seems obvious why: they are not only perfectly adapted to their environments, they are, it could be reasonably said, living examples of those environments.
Cephalopods respond to the ensemble of events surrounding being faced with a mirror somewhat variously; often with behaviors resembling aggression. Sometimes they simply flee. Many researchers seem to interpret this as meaning that the creature in question ‘does not recognize itself’ in the mirror. Of course, this is absurd — the creature does not share any of the perceptual or cognitive biases that the human is bringing.
And this, it seems to me, is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak: the human biases. As an example, what is going on in the mirror is not ‘itself’, and the idea that it might be is peculiarly human. When cephalopods or fish ‘attack’ their reflection in mirrors something more complex (and interesting) than a failure of self-recognition is occurring — and the humans are involved in generating it.
I am aware (in a general way) of the territorial behaviors of many organisms including fish, and how these become important in interpreting their behavior given the unique ‘objective’ approach often required by science — but I do not trust the biases we bring as human observers, and I may trust them less when they are scientifically inspired. It is clear to me both from research and observation that our biases have confused us, and some of the expectations created by this confusion are not only misguided, but dangerous.
Looking into a mirror has little in common with the experience of looking directly into living eyes, except that it can present a reflexive representation of this. Living eyes act not precisely as a mirror, but as a living recipient which is also reflective — but not in the flat visual dimension(s) a mirror is. Mirrors simply do not (and cannot) produce the same species of feedback that living eyes (and beings) do.
When you see your own eyes in the mirror, this experience differs dramatically from models the human mind may ascribe to or use to contain such an experience post-hoc. These and other post-hoc habits are not really no-brainers as we pretend — they are ideas and paradigms we had to learn to convince ourselves of, and that took time and a lot of encouragement from other (human) representationals.
In any case, what is in a mirror is not an animal, and it is my position that nearly any animal can sense this difference — whether or not the creature can be said to be ‘formally aware of it’. In fact, I would be willing to bet your own first experiences with mirrors were similarly fraught with confusion — initially…
;- : . o . : '{
When you dream, you are doing what the whale does in rising. You briefly touch an uninhabitable universe, there acquiring a bubble of it which you draw within yourself. And you dive, not into the depths — but into the day, and the flows of air and light and sound. There you transform this bubble.
The whale dives deep, into the waters, transforming the bubble as she travels.
Emitting. Shining.
I imagine a science-fiction scenario where another, nonhumanly ‘intelligent’ (read: cognitively sophisticated formally representational animal) creature saw me fail to attack my reflection, and displayed confusion in the face of my actions. Their argument might go something like this: “What were you thinking? A reflection is not you. It’s the polarity of you. Your opposite! And it is not merely an inverted reflection, either. It is opposite in that it is not alive, but mimics life — in too few dimensions. And that, is a demon (a light-swallowing, nonliving reflection of a living being)!”
Of course, that kind of response could be written off as cultural idiosyncrasy, but there are far more serious problems as well: the thing in the mirror does not emit the Signal of Recognition — the fundamental relational signature of all living beings. Anything that is, but does not emit the signal, is probably a destroyer — and everything alive knows this.
Except many modern humans.
Perhaps even more confusingly... to a creature in the ocean the reflection has either the wrong flavor or no flavor. It ‘tastes’ (in the water (analogous to our sense of smell)) like it is empty — or not alive... but it is moving like it is alive? At first encounter, this is a terrifying, wrenching emptiness — a void — even stones and shells have flavor.
Creatures who live in water (indeed, they are living reflections of the character and nature of water) are probably only very rarely in a position to be able to see a visual reflection, and even more rarely a clear one. The exception is the (usually) warping mirror of the daylit surface the water may comprise. But they are preternaturally aware of matters relating to dimensionality, and are relationally sensitive to mimicry because it comprises a crucial aspect of their environment and their own existence as (or in relation to) predators.
From a position which takes these noticings into account, a mirror seems indeed to comprise a strange kind of ‘leak’ (c.f. Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions) into an ‘evil alternate universe’ which lacks the proper relationships to dimensionality. This is the very birthplace of insanity — the visual equivalent of the mishmash of inchoate voices that rise frothing and fuming from the minds of those in the grip of such ‘legions’ of hungry ghosts. It is not surprising that such voices cause those afflicted to ‘rage’, for it is this very energy they require to sustain themselves, and they can never be filled; how can you fill a hole that simply grows when you feed it?
A mirror is just such a hole…
Not only is the image projected by the mirror physically two-dimensional, it is totally empty in the dimension of being — the crucial first dimension without which there can be no others. And anything that looks like a being but has none is a vile veil concealing evil — literally the scrambled reflections of live which are missing the first principle: the A as in alive.
When indigenous people first saw photographs and were concerned their souls had been stolen — they were remarkably adept in expressing their concerns regarding the outcome: a representational reflection-likeness-artifact of them which flattened 7 dimensions into 2, lacked a natural relationship to dimensionality itself, and looked exactly like them but had neither soul nor place for it.
More, in this representational artifact the dimension of time was flattened to ‘point’ — which every living being knows is equivalent to ‘death’.
||: ~ o ~ |:^
How many cameras does it take to annihilate the soul of an indigenous people?
One should suffice — but it’s unlikely anyone will notice until long after the damage is done, after all, our own children are just as vulnerable — did we notice?
Consider for a moment the popular Christian adage regarding mankind’s adversary: ‘Satan appears as an angel of light’. That’s a reflection engaged in predatory mimicry. Even octopuses will not tolerate this…
Bonus question: presuming the existence of (•) and that the concept ‘angel’ refers to a meaningful entity, what is the most likely nature of the relationship between any given ‘angel’ and (•)?
