Mirroring

I found Adhivira's blog post Mirror, mirror on the wall very interesting and inspiring. I think their approach to self-identity and our reflection in the mirror was thought-provoking. I also like the way they made connections to the mirror self-recognition test and the idea of having the artificial creature somewhat simulate such a test . Overall, the blog post was very well written and pleasing to the eye with the inclusion of images. The idea was also well explained and motivated, and it sparked a lot of thoughts and ideas for me around the concept of self-reflection.

I would like to build upon this idea of self-identity, by also including the fact that our self-identity is not only shaped by our personal expriences, values, beliefs but also by the people we surround ourselves with.  Since humans are very social creatures, I believe that it is impossible to separate our self-identity from the larger group we belong to.

To explore this aspect of self-identity I would like to create an artificial creature that mimics not just one person standing in front of it, but instead merges features or aspects of a number of different people who interact with it. Every time a new person stands before the creature it suttely changes, by maybe changing its eye color to match the person. Then every person looking at the creature might recognize features of themselves or people they know, making them think about what makes them unique and what builds their self-identity.

The idea of the creature is not neccessarily that it will look exactly human, but more so that it will mirror different aspects of us as humans and combine them in a new way, making us think about what parts of ourselves makes us us in a group of people.