Asymmetry

I heard a segment of a radio program, radiolab, on our local NPR station last weekend.  It was called Mirror, Mirror, part of a three-part episode called Desperately Seeking Symmetry, first aired in April this year at WNYC.  (The segment is a lot of fun to listen to.) It calls attention to a curious fact about ourselves which we are seldom conscious of, i.e., that the faces we see of ourselves in the mirror are not how others see us.  The face which I am accustomed to identify as being my own in the mirror does not, in fact, exist in reality.  This fact, however, does not prevent us from picking out our own images in photographs, for we assume that the features of our faces are symmetrical and have learned to overlook the differences between our mirrored-self and our real-self (how we appear in photographs and how we appear to other people), so that we no longer notice the differences.  But if one is presented with a photograph of oneself and another photograph of one's mirrored image, chances are one will be taken aback by how different they look. This experience brings to the fore the fact that, contrary to our common belief, most living things are asymmetric (chiral) in nature. It also makes one wonder how similar or dissimilar one's perception of oneself is from other people's perception of oneself.  Some people don't like their faces in the mirrors, while others don't like their faces in photographs.  Either way, there are differences, however subtle, in the two.  

To demonstrate the differences, I used Photoshop to flip a picture of myself, Kirk, and President Obama horizontally.  For me it is easy to tell the differences for there is a noticeable asymmetry in my face--there is a large mole under my left eye while there is none under my right eye.  (But unlike the people in the story, I change my hair-part almost daily, so that is not a reliable predictor of whether it is the I you see or the one I see.  Also, it disproves the theory of one of the interviewers in the story - my popularity, generally subdued, does not appreciatively increase or decrease depending on which side my hair is parted.) 

How you see me

How I see myself

Kirk as he appears to us

Kirk as he appears to himself

Obama to us

Obama to himself