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How do other animals know what they look like?


Waist of Thyme

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Waist of Thyme

Since we're the only species that uses mirrors and takes pictures, how does a bat or a lion or such know what they look like? Or do they just figure "Mommy and daddy and all my friends look like this, so that's what I look like"?

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I think only a small number of animals other than us can pass the mirror test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

Most have no idea that it's them in the mirror, and some will attack their reflection (repeatedly).

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EmotionalAndroid

I always wonder about other species' concepts of self and identity, too. Like, for example, do our dogs think they look like we do?

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Most animals don't know what they look like; they're not sapient (self-aware).

I think they recognise other animals by instinct. There's a sense of "food", "not-food", "dangerous", "mate", "rival for territory", "ally". That kind of thing.

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Amoeba-Proteus

I feel like a lot of animals still recognize mirrors. I know dolphins and porpoises can recognize themselves.

I can tell you one example... my one cat literally checks himself out in the dining room mirror on a regular basis.

I think there's a lot of different factors involved with recognition in animals. Whether it's recognizing themselves or others.

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I feel like a lot of animals still recognize mirrors. I know dolphins and porpoises can recognize themselves.

I can tell you one example... my one cat literally checks himself out in the dining room mirror on a regular basis.

I think there's a lot of different factors involved with recognition in animals. Whether it's recognizing themselves or others.

I can guarantee that your cat is actually checking out "that other cat through the weird window". No reliable study has demonstrated that cats can recognise that the image in the mirror is themself.

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I don't think they do know what they look like and they probably don't care either. I don't feel like that makes them less sentient though. The whole "mirror test" for determining self awareness in pretty flawed and human-centric, when sight is not the main sense for so many highly intelligent animals. I'm convinced dogs have a sense of self but they live in a world of smell which we can't even imagine, so of course we can't use a mirror to test if they recognize themselves.

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There are even some humans who don't recognise their own reflection let alone other images of themselves. However said people have a dissociative disorder.

I think even the animals well known to recognise their reflection have to learn that it is a reflection, and one of themselves.

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