BBC Sense of Self

I found the BBC documentary fascinating to watch. In particular I enjoyed the section on consciousness. Here they discussed at what age people develop their sense of self. Watching the babies take the Mirror Self Recognition Test, which attempted to identify at what age people start to recognize themselves in the mirror, was particularly interesting because I do  not recall a time when i could not recognize myself in the mirror. This test showed that 22-month-old child could recognize themselves while the 18-month-old could not. So somewhere in the gap between 18 and 22 months is when people most likely become aware of themselves, or so this test would have us think. 

When the narrator showed that only animals most similar to humans could identify themselves the idea that this concept of self-recognition seemed to resonate with me. I do believe that we are unique as humans because we are able to shape our environments to our vision and I thought this was an interesting point to make.

If you look at how we are constantly increasing our carry capacity on this earth it shows that humans more than any other animal can change their surroundings. However I think I need a little more clarification as to how be able to recognize yourself leads to this phenomena.