Mirror Neuron; A Beautiful Unnecessary Concept

TL;DR

This paper challenges the necessity of mirror neurons by proposing a new theory of vision based on remote sensing, which explains cognitive phenomena traditionally attributed to mirror neurons.

Contribution

It introduces a novel perspective on vision that renders mirror neurons unnecessary, supported by experimental evidence and insights from sensory perception and brain computation.

Findings

Vision perception is fundamentally different from other senses.

Mirror neuron phenomena can be explained by a new theory of vision.

Experimental evidence supports the new vision theory over the mirror neuron hypothesis.

Abstract

The mirror neuron theory that has enjoyed continued validations was developed with no particular attention to the phenomenon of the vision. Understandably the perception of vision has always been thought to happen, naturally, as that for any of the other four senses. However, the reality that underlies this presumption is by no means obvious; vision perception is based on remote sensing of the ecology, fundamentally different form that of the other senses, which have tactile stimulation origin (contact with matter). While its reality, as explicated here, explains why the above presumption is true, it also bears heavily on the mirror neuron theory: the revelation of the nature of vision makes mirror neurons unnecessary. The extensive cognitive neurosciences investigation of primates and humans, over the past three decades, have experimentally validated the theory of mirror neurons which had been put forward early in the period (1980s and 1990s) based on the results of cognitive research experiments on the macaque monkeys. Based on further experimental works, phenomena such as learning, empathy, and some aspects of survival, are ascribed to the operations of this class of additional neurons. Here I reason that all the results of the efforts of the proponents of the theory can, not only find explanation in the context of the new theory of vision but also provide support for it. This new take of the phenomenon of vision is developed based on the nature of the experimental methods that have succeeded in developing some measure of vision for the blinds, and the inferences from the very likely nature of the computational strategy of the brain. I present evidence that the mental phenomena, which rendered the claim of the mirror neurons, are in essence the results of subjects beings variably touched by their ecology, through the coherent tactile operation of all senses.