The Mirror Test

The influences and distortions of genusism spread far and wide.

Mirror Test Fail...

Well, I have an idiot cardinal in the backyard who has been fighting with his own reflection in the windows for the last 3 months. (He may have good looks, but he's a little short in the brains department.) He starts early in the morning and carries on for hours every day, just like this one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytFS3-8hwzk

Maybe he's just shadow boxing...

Speaking of Mirrors:

America needs to build a giant mirror to reflect on what we've become!

Most wouldn't like what they'd see. The trouble is making this mirror large enough. Plus it wouldn't be as good at seeing back in the past. Because that's how we got here today.

Mirror test of fish, reminds me of some behaviour I noticed when I was a very young boy. We used to go to the local pond to catch minnows, a small fresh water fish. That swam around in the clear shallow waters of the pond, in large numbers, and they scattered into the reeds when anyone approached. So to catch them, we put an empty jam jar into the water, with its opening facing the bank. We then waited out of sight till there number built up. We then approached them where upon they scattered, but, as the glass jar could not be seen by them, some inadvertently swam into it and become trapped. It’s at this point that the odd behaviour occurred. All the other minnows that did not get trapped in the jar stopped and return to surround the jam, and looked at the behaviour of those that were trapped. My impression is that they where aware that the behaviour of the trapped minnows was not normal, and I think, that is something to do with self awareness, that was reflected in there behaviour? Flight or fight?

Some fish have strong schooling instincts. That is probably what you were observing.

Mahi mahi have a strong schooling instinct. When fishing for mahi, when you get the first one on the line, it is best to wait until someone gets a second one on line before reeling in the first. If you always keep one on the line, the school will stay with you allowing you to catch what you want.

Bait ball. A collective strategy for survival that is not based on individual survival.

We ran into the human equivalent of this in Vietnam and never recovered. We still have a hard time processing the concept of survival of the species not the individual.

Now what would be of interest to us sociologists is if certain fish were always at the center, most protected, area of the bait ball or do all fish take a turn on the outer edges? Given how a bait ball moves it appears it would be difficult to stay in the center of the swam.

An interesting observation, if one is part of a group, is one aware of ones position in that group, and if so, is self awareness necessary. Another instance I remember was the behaviour of a dog. I was watching a documentary about establishing the length of a dogs memory, it took place on a beach, on which was place a row of kennels, the dog was then taken to a position where it could see a person deposit food in one of them, then after a while the dog was release to see if they could remember the right kennel. Then after a certain length of time they forgot, but then something odd happened they started to get the right kennel regardless of the length of time. Observations revealed that the dog would lay down, pointing at the right kennel, so when released they headed for the right one. So has a dog self awareness if he knows that they will forget which is the right kennel?

"... So has a dog self awareness if he knows that they will forget which is the right kennel? ..."

What the experiment demonstrates the dog has is hunger.

It is a stretch to suggest the dog 'knows it will forget' because it lies down pointing at the kennel with food. Some dogs, when presented with a treat they cannot have, will spend the time staring straight at what they can't yet have. If they lie down and forget, they will be aligned when they are released regardless of intent to mitigate forgetfulness.

There isn’t enough of the story being told.

Clearly, this is a behavioral study. For many years I was married to a teacher who had been trained in behavioral psychology, and one thing I learned (insert irony joke here) is that behavioral psychologists (which includes biologists) train their subjects, whether deliberately or inadvertently.

So it’s entirely likely (I’d say almost a dead certainty) that the fish’s behavior was a learned behavior, and had NOTHING to do with self awareness.

Would you say that of the other species that passed the mirror test?

If not, on what are you basing the exclusion of this species?

Because it’s a fish and no other species of ordinary fish had demonstrated self awareness like that.

I’m not saying all marine animals are incapable of self awareness. Octopuses, I’ve read, are more intelligent than most fish. And of course marine mammals might be, like whales and dolphins.

But I also know that a learned behavior can be mistaken as intelligence. An example of this was the horse Clever Hans, who people thought could count, but actually had just learned visual cues from his handler.

"... Because it’s a fish and no other species of ordinary fish had demonstrated self awareness like that. ...."

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This logic seems odd. No species could ever have been the first to pass this test if that goalpost were consistently applied.

The article lists Asian elephants, apparently at the exclusion of the two other extant species. This makes the elephant the sole listed member in the Arfotherian clade. It is certainly a stand alone, yet it is not the only example in the short list provided.

The magpie is starkly different than the other examples. Unlike the other examples, it is hatched from an egg (like the fish). The magpie is the only one that flies through the air, whereas the fish is not the only one that might be found swimming.

Additionally, you seem ready to accept an invertebrate, but balk at a vertebrate...which would arguably be closer to the other species that have passed. Octopodes are vastly different than any other on the list, they don't even bleed red, using hemocyanin rather than hemoglobin for oxygen transport.

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Your bias against the wrass can't even be classified as some type of clade discrimination because of your holdout for the altogether different octopus. So what is it really that makes you want to keep a fish off the list?

Is it because fish are yummy?

Good news, you can accept the wrass because another species of fish passes the test.

Giant Manta Ray

We have cats at home, and everyone is aware of itself in the mirror. Animals are actually very clever, I am now writing a term paper to be more precise, I am writing about how important pets are for us and that they can become our close friends.