It is funny how the West gets so close but never quite takes the leap.
Lacan correctly notes that what we call "me" is (obviously when you think about it) an object of knowledge. It is that person in the mirror. But who is looking, thinking, cognising this?
Apparently at 6-18 months we make this mistake and develop a desire to be the solid fixed entity in the mirror and that divides us from who is looking (actual reality). ChatGPT supports the idea that most Western endeavour comes from that dislocation and the endlessly unfulfilling search to be that person in the mirror. Of course "mirror" is not just reflected light, but the whole sensory apparatus through which we gain knowledge of our self and the tantalising possibility that we are objective reality (including thought hence Descartes' mistake - he starts well but has the try and support this mirror objectification of himself in the end). What do I look like for other people? We can never know because we are not other people, and so neither are they (going around the reflection loop again)!
And so Narcissus get's himself in a mess, seeing his reflection, hypothesising an objective self, projecting that onto other people, using that basis of "other people" to underpin his objective self and digging his watery grave in an endless hall of mirrors.
BUT despite Lacan noting all this he still needs to posit a "Real" realm outside the mirror... except that is still in the mirror mate!! You are still trying to grasp that objective reality separate from yourself. This even if only slight is the poison of the West. The "Real" is real, and its the end of discursive enquiry, its the basis upon which those reflections occur and so nothing to be said. Silence Mr Lacan and everyone including here.
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