Mirrors

A friend recently asked me, “Boris, are you a mirror? When I talk to you I feel like I’m talking to myself.” I thought for a moment and tried to reply, “Well, I dunno. If you think I’m a mirror then I might just be a mirror.”

That apparently wasn’t a satisfactory answer, and prompted them to elaborate and try to convince my existence as a reflective coating of aluminium. Which led me to think of the age-old philosophical question: What am I? How do I know?

The only plausible explanation for me is that, like a lot of things in science, is that we don’t know. We cannot know, in fact, since we live in our own heads, and in a sense, we never get to experience ourselves outside of our own perception. Maybe that is why only others can determine who you really are; on the other hand, you could also say only you know yourself the best, since the others have never lived inside your head. Maybe the being that is presented outside is not the same person as the one who’s inside your head.

Sometimes when I am in a large voice call, people have told me that they will forget that I am there, even if I occasionally unmute my mic. I have been told that I often speak in short bursts, and a lot of the times my words coincide with other people’s thoughts, and I sound like their subconscious.

But again, I only ever talk to my own subconscious; I have never held a conversation with my “real” self. I don’t think I sound like my subconsciousness at all. If there were similarities between me and your subconsciousness, I would like to apologize on behalf on them for being quite the annoying voice.