OK, so I have come up with a good consciousness experiment. The idea is to stare in a mirror for 24 hours. What would the participant find or learn? Would there be others there with them? Having a conversation with a friend while staring into a mirror would be odd. Certainly, you would see your background for a lengthy period of time. You don't just have to look at yourself. There is much to observe that is other. Can the reader suggest any advantages to such an experiment? DE
No the reader cannot suggest any advantages to such an experiment. Can the OP suggest any advantages to such an experiment. Why don't you do such an experiment and report back to us?
What are you doing darling? I'm staring at myself in the mirror for the next 24 hours. Why? Someone on a web forum said it's ''a good consciousness experiment.'' In what way? I don't know, perhaps it reaffirms I exist and I'm not just a creature of instinct. So, you need to stare for a whole 24 hours to comfirm your not just a creature of instinct but also conscious of yourself? Yes. If I look away I may forget I'm a conscious creature and start doing things by instinct. That's true dear, you never think ahead or plan anything, you always just leave it all to me.
You don't have to stare at a reflection of yourself for 24 hours, you can stare at a reflection of anything for as long or as short as you like. You could contemplate the nature of a reflective surface and how light is made of particles that behave statistically, if you wanted to. This should work with ordinary window glass because it has reflective surfaces. But what if you close your eyes? Does that constitute a Zen moment? The mirror is still reflecting light!
I'm in my fifteenth hour now. But I'm going mad because the same thought keeps looping in my mind...just how do women keep their hands off me?
A day spent confronting an ordinary mirror is not an eccentric enough extreme to result in a perceptual or neural adaptation. There's a familiar one which the brain natively does all the time, due to the eye's optics resulting in an upside-down image being projected upon the retina. Even when special glasses reverse the situation beforehand, neural processes adjust if given time. "In the 1890s, psychologist George M. Stratton conducted experiments in which [...] he wore a reversing glasses [...] Stratton wore the glasses for eight whole days. By day four, the images seen through the instrument were still upside down. However, on day five, images appeared upright [...] Stratton deduced his brain had adapted to the changes in vision. Stratton also conducted experiments where he wore glasses that altered his visual field by 45°. His brain was able to adapt to the change and perceive the world as normal." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_adaptation A novelty for this era would be to spend days and weeks continuously wearing virtual reality googles / tactile suit. On the chance that the brain might psychologically reorient toward regarding itself as belonging to the different person of the opposite gender whose simulated POV it was conjoined and enslaved to during that marathon period (within a flimsy version of the Matrix). The "other" is just as available to be aware of without a mirror. Much of one's body would be as well (increased visual information about the backside would require a minimal arrangement of two mirrors). So prolonged exposure to the frontal head / neck would indeed be about the only uncommon conscious experience to be derived from this particular variety of Sino-Japanese torture. Again, it wouldn't seem to be sufficiently out of the ordinary to engender a cognitive adaptation of some exotic stripe or flavor.
And then you look at the puddle on the floor between your feet and say "Ah. That would do it." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
On the contrary, it seems like standard behaviour to me. If you're looking in a mirror and there's somebody behind you, don't you usually talk to their reflection instead of turning around?
I read this differently. I assumed he was staring at himself in the mirror while carrying on a conversation with a remote friend, such as on a phone. i.e. Your auditory input and your visual input are discrepant.
?? You said "If you're looking in a mirror and there's somebody behind you, don't you usually talk to their reflection instead of turning around?" To which I suggested "the other somebody is remote, talking on a phone." So how could "the same apply"? The other person isn't behind him at all. There's no other person to either talk to in the reflection or to turn around to talk to.
I've been awake for twenty-four hours many times (it's one of my favourite pass-times) but I usually watch the television, not a mirror. Could I watch the television in the mirror? Or a microwave?? Would that achieve the same objective?
Maybe it's just me - but when I had a land line there was a mirror next to it and when I talked on the phone I'd look in the mirror. Maybe I'm a narcissist, maybe I was multitasking - but I don't think the remoteness of the other person has anything to do with it.
