4 ms·

So the ant (allegedly -- I'm eagerly awaiting that source!) saw a dot on the ant in the mirror, and tried to remove the dot on its own forehead. The key point:

So the ant (allegedly -- I'm eagerly awaiting that source!) saw a dot on the ant in the mirror, and tried to remove the dot on its own forehead. The key point: that looks an awful lot like the identification of the self with the reflected image. The issue you brought up about the mite is a bit orthogonal to this point. I can give you that the ant was concerned about the possibility of having a mite, and the point still remains that the ant thought it was on its own head only on basis of a reflected image of itself. (Compare to the alternative behavior: the ant tries to get the mite off the reflected image, never making any attempt to remove it from itself.)

ahakki 9y ago
it was on hn a while back. the link is dead now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14146776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14146776 it’s on wikipedia, with the same dead source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test?wprov=sfti1 EDIT: Working link to the paper (in some journal of science): https://www.udocz.com/read/are-ants-capable-of-self-recognition-pdf https://www.udocz.com/read/are-ants-capable-of-self-recognit... http://difusion.ulb.ac.be/vufind/Record/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/219269/Details http://difusion.ulb.ac.be/vufind/Record/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot....