
The Mirror Effect: The rise of mirrors in the fifteenth century - quickfox
http://laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/mirror-effect
======
voidz
Fun fact: we are used to seeing our own faces in the mirror image of how
others see us. Thus, if you have a picture of yourself which you really
dislike, mirror it and see if it helps - on photos we see our faces mirrored
from what we're used to, hence why they look off so often, and why it can feel
so difficult to get the right picture from ourselves taken.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
For several years, I parted my hair the way I liked the look. I'm embarrassed
to say how long before I realized and reversed sides.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I didn't realize the connection until now (even though I understand the way
mirrors work). Weird how one often doesn't take that one last obvious step of
an inference.

I guess now I'll use a smartphone camera instead of a mirror for grooming.

~~~
d-sc
Most front facing cameras reverse the image to make it look like you are
looking into a mirror.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes. I just tried that now, and unfortunately, my S7 does reverse the image
from the front camera :/.

~~~
FreeFull
There should be an option to flip the image somewhere though, to be the right
way around.

~~~
DanitaBaires
Use a webcam with the always included AMcap application. Or skype, with the
mirror option disabled.

------
pointillistic
Nice article but I doubt the premise. Rich people had their portraits and
sculptures made long before the invention. Think on Nefertiti or the multiple
depictions in Egypt. Still in Egypt, there are Fayum Portraits.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits)

In Ancient Greece and especially Rome, there were hyper realistic sculptures
of the rulers, generals and rich people. Pompeii art is realistic. Instead the
article follows the path claiming that a technological invention brings with
itself a change in human nature, a dubious argument always.

Even today with all the selfies, people still relate to themselves in
relationship to how they are perceived by others. And there are a lot of
beautiful people who think they are ugly...

~~~
cobbzilla
The point of the article was that regular, ordinary people didn't see their
own faces clearly until fairly recently, and when that happened it shifted the
sense of self and identity with long-term ramifications.

~~~
bane
You can always just look at your reflection in a dark, still, liquid, like
soup, or dirty water, or clear liquid in a dark container, etc. Sure you're
looking down and it's kind of inconvenient, but it's not like people couldn't
see themselves ever.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Yeah, this was never a secret. The myth of Narcissus has him trapped by his
own reflection in a pool of water.

Household mirrors go way back, although the quality of the reflection you
could get was well below where it is now.

------
aaachilless
How would one characterize the difference between publications like Lapham's
Quarterly or Nautil.us and publications like the New York Times or the
Washington Post?

I've been trying to discover publications that are more like the former and
less like the latter, but I'm not sure how to differentiate between the two
well enough for, say, a Google search. Searches along the lines of
"publications like Lapham's" haven't done the trick.

~~~
fiatpandas
You'll probably like Cabinet Magazine as well. I'd refer to them as "art and
culture publications", "literary publications", "alternative".

I think the best way of discovering interesting publications is to visit
bookshops that carry ones that you've already discovered and grown to like.
Generally independent bookstores around major universities will carry a lot of
literary magazines, and other alternative low-circulation publications.

~~~
aaachilless
I never would have thought that brick-and-mortar would be the way to go.
Thanks for the insight!

Also, I just gave Cabinet a peak, and it definitely looks interesting. Thanks
again!

------
paulsutter
Fun fact: mirrors don't reverse anything. Easily proven, raise your right hand
while looking in the mirror. The hand in the right side goes up. No reversal.

What's gets reversed is when an observer looks at you. Since an observer is
facing the opposite direction, his left side is aligned with your right side.

Alternate view: if a mirror really did reverse left from right, why don't they
reverse top from bottom as well? Because they don't reverse anything. On the
other hand, if an observer were turned upside down, you'd appear upside down
to him.

~~~
tgb
This description is missing a key part which explains why it appears to
reverse left and right. Mirrors reverse something: the direction perpendicular
to the mirror. Mirrors can also reverse up-and-down just as easily as left-
and-right. Imagine holding text printed on a clear sheet up before so that you
can read it. Now look in a mirror that's behind the sheet. The text in the
mirror is so readable, since it's reversed in the one dimension it has
symmetry in (the thickness of the sheet). But now if the sheet were opaque,
you'd only see the back of the page in the mirror and no text. So you flip the
page around to read it. Now you've rotated AND mirrored the text and it looks
swapped left to right instead of by the mirror's perpendicular direction: the
rotation changes which axis was mirrored. Start again with the text facing you
ready for reading, but now rotate the text to face the mirror again but this
time do so in the 'unusual' manner of flipping it head over heel. Now the text
in the mirror is mirrored upside down! Which rotation you apply changes which
axis is apparently inverted. We're just so used to rotating things about their
vertical axis that everything looks mirrored left and right.

Also there are mirrors which do reverse specifically left and right in the
manner that you debunk above, but they are nonsymmetrically concave.

~~~
roywiggins
The way I try to explain it is in absolute (ish) coordinates:

If you face north, your image faces south. Your left hand is on your west
side. The reflection of your left hand is also on the west side. If you grab
the mirror and turn so you face west, your reflection faces east and both your
left hand and the reflection are on the south side.

If you reset the mirror and then stand sideways (facing east, mirror to your
north), your left hand is to the north and right hand is to the south. In the
mirror, the image of your left hand is to the south and right hand, to the
north. But your reflection is facing east, just like you are.

~~~
tgb
I think this is good too, but it leaves the reader with the original question
"Okay, if the mirror _doesn 't_ reverse left-and-right, then why does it
_appear to do so_?" A question which left me scratching my head for a while
and frustrated that explanations given in otherwise excellent sources like
Martin Gardner's The Ambidextrous Universe never actually addressed.

~~~
roywiggins
This is a good question and I think it's the perception that the person you
see as a reflection is actually a clone turned around to face you. When you
raise your left hand, your "clone" (if it is a clone) raises their right hand.
If you imagine stepping through the mirror and turning around to stand next to
your reflection you really will be reversed laterally compared to your
reflection-twin.

------
dorfsmay
I wonder what effect the new convenient cheap mirror had on the profession of
barber.

Did people shave themselves before mirrors became widely available?

------
keyle
In many years it will be interesting to read what the effect of social medias
have had on humanity. I'm suspecting not so good as initially thought.

------
seashuttle
Cool article. I think I got my fill of general knowledge for today.

------
fit2rule
I've often said to my friends and family, during more philosophical
discussions, that the one object that has caused the most destruction to the
human species is the mirror ..

~~~
dracht
Would you care to elaborate on that?

------
marcoperaza
> _Previously the parameters of individual identity had been limited to an
> individual’s interaction with the people around him and the religious
> insights he had over the course of his life. Thus individuality as we
> understand it today did not exist: people only understood their identity in
> relation to groups—their household, their manor, their town or parish—and in
> relation to God._

This is a ridiculous argument. But par for the course for what passes as
serious scholarship in the humanities these days.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair)

And Richard Dawkin's great piece:
[http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/dawkins.html](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/dawkins.html)

~~~
shawn-butler
And your post is equally ridiculous as critique.

If you disagree with the assertion post some disputed evidence. If you just
want to dismiss it with a virtual eye roll then just ignore it instead.

The essay made me think about the rise of selfie culture and its impact. On a
recent trip at every cultural vista I would say 80% of the cameras were
pointed at their owners with the landmark posing as a simple adornment of
their own face.

Snapchat has made billions on this recognition. That you huff and puff about
scholarship "these days" like a grumpy old man is largely irrelevant to the
value of the linked article.

~~~
marcoperaza
> _That you huff and puff about scholarship "these days" like a grumpy old
> man_

Are you really going to defend the state of the humanities disciplines? I'd
love to read your attempt at a reasoned defense of postmodernist drivel.

~~~
tstactplsignore
The humanities are incredibly diverse fields filled with tens of thousands of
very different scholars- dismissing all of their work because you've seen a
couple of silly examples purposefully chosen to be inflammatory is anti-
intellectual by very definition.

