Most animals cannot recognize themselves in the mirror, so why can humans?

Looking in the mirror is a very common thing for us, and being able to recognize that the person in the mirror is ourselves is also natural, but it is actually a very remarkable thing.

Does being able to recognize oneself in the mirror mean that we are smart enough? No, it has nothing to do with being smart or not. It means that humans have self-awareness. What is "self-awareness"? This is a very complicated question. To put it simply, it means that a person can answer the question "Who am I" to some extent. We can realize that "I am me", and in essence, "I" is completely different from other people. Is this difficult? It is indeed difficult, because in nature, there are very few animals with self-awareness that can recognize themselves in the mirror. Even our cats and dogs at home cannot do it.

The cats and dogs that live with us are quite smart, but that doesn't mean they have self-awareness.

If you have ever had a cat or dog, you will find that at first they will yell and thrash at themselves in the mirror, but after a while, they will stop paying attention. As owners, we naturally think that they have figured out that the guy in the mirror is actually themselves, but in fact, it is not the case. They are just used to it and still don't know that the guy in the mirror is their own reflection. How can we be considered to be able to recognize ourselves in the mirror? As early as 1970, scientist Gordon Gallup conducted a mirror experiment on a variety of animals, the purpose of which was to test whether different animals have self-awareness.

The experiment is to make two obvious marks on the animal's face or body. This mark has no smell, and the animal can only find it through the image in the mirror.

If the animal can realize that the guy in the mirror is itself, then it can realize that the two colored markers are on its body, so it will touch or try to remove them, otherwise they will just remain indifferent or make a move on the image in the mirror. There are many animals participating in the experiment, but only a handful of animals can finally pass the mirror experiment. Among birds, only the European magpie passed the experiment, and among marine animals, only bottlenose dolphins and killer whales passed the experiment. The land mammals that passed the experiment include all apes, elephants and macaques. That is to say, among the animals participating in the experiment, only these animals can be confirmed to have self-awareness.

Obviously, the animals that passed the experiment are recognized as animals with higher IQs, but this does not mean that as long as they are smart enough, they will have self-awareness, because even among humans, there are some special groups that do not have self-awareness.

Research has found that severe autistic patients do not have self-awareness, or have lost their self-awareness. For individuals without self-awareness, they cannot recognize the essential difference between themselves and others, which is also reflected in language expression. They usually do not use "I" to describe themselves. For example, human babies usually use sentences such as "Yangyang is hungry" and "Dingding is sleepy" to express themselves. This is a typical manifestation of the lack of self-awareness. Severe autistic patients also have similar manifestations.

Self-awareness represents whether an individual can recognize the question of "who I am", but it is more than that. Many specific emotions will be derived from self-awareness, such as a sense of honor, shame, and accomplishment, etc.

The killer whales that passed the mirror experiment have a nickname, "killer whales". They got this nickname because a killer whale used for performances once killed its trainer. The reason for this tragedy is that they were trapped in a small pool for a long time and forced to perform, which caused great mental pressure on the killer whales. It is precisely because killer whales have self-awareness that they have complex emotions similar to humans and are more vulnerable to psychological trauma. In comparison, horses do not have self-awareness, so they do not have complex emotions such as honor and shame. Therefore, even if a racehorse lags behind others in every game, it can still run with its head held high and chest held high when it appears again.

If you want self-aware animals to participate in competitive sports, you can't do it.

Because it only takes a few times of losing before the shame makes them unwilling to step onto the track again. So how does self-awareness arise? From a scientific point of view, all thoughts and consciousness originate from the brain, and so does self-awareness. Scientists have found that the self-awareness of organisms is related to mirror neurons in the brain, which can integrate information about the mirror's actions and their own actions, thereby identifying that the guy in the mirror is themselves. Of course, the current research on mirror neurons is still very limited, and even the number of mirror neurons in the brain is not very clear. In fact, it is not only mirror neurons, but humans' overall cognition of the brain is very limited, so it is difficult for us to figure out the source of self-awareness.

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