Abstract

The mirror stage brings to consciousness out of the subconscious an item of knowledge p about the structure of the external reality. When the ego surpasses id at the mirror stage, it then knows that there is the other and that the other is of a newly disclosed significance for the center. Knowledge of significance (before the mirror stage) and content (after) of p are sources of causal efficacy and so p is true in both cases. After the stage p is true based on empirical evidence. But before the stag, p is true by virtue of its meaning, based on semantic evidence = non-structural existential significance knowledge = that within the external reality there is something of unknown content which is the source of the aura of significance sensed by the ego.-------The ego before the stage appears to itself as a sign putatively of pure signified (pure namelessness) causing surplusage of sign. Once structural knowledge is acquired, the ego realizes it is associated with a name. The mirror stage is the process of acquisition of a method. That of understanding temporal mechanism of language. ------The physical event caused by the mirror stage is the perception of two temporally-distinct events morphing into atemporal continuity.