Love and Lacan, God from the Mirror

The image at the heart of the imaginary is the image of the self in the mirror, the structure of the world implicit within the visual world that often runs contrary to scientific thought; watching, in a mirror or otherwise, the "setting" of the sun implies it is not the earth that moves. The opacity and apparent solidity of a table masks the fact that it is mostly empty space, kept from collapsing in on itself by electromagnetism.

The view of oneself in a mirror is provides a definition of oneself by the physical spaces one occupies; no definition of one's traits and identity is written on the curves of one's face. In seeing a person in a face, our own person or the person of another, we indulge in imagining an image as substance, the performative creation of person-as-container, where an identity is created around an image, by the viewing and categorizing of that image, which then comes to hold the "essence" of the person connected to the image as more is learned about the person.

This imaginary world, though generally perceived as real, is necessary for us to successfully navigate the world, but is similarly responsible for an elemental cultural mysticism of the lasting image. This may be compared to religious trends of icon worship and other efforts to create a link to the divine in the physical world, such as wine and bread becoming the blood and body of Christ. Similarly, atheists often argue that the divine does not exist because there is no physical evidence for its existence. As figurines, relics, and chapel ceilings create an image of a deity so that the deity may be understood to exist by virtue of having an image, a place in the physical world, the visage of another creates their person.

The reality of others is perceived, in fact, more closely by emotions than by observations of the physical world. In the same way the statue of a god will not smite anyone with lightning bolts from its fingertips, the photograph of a lover is no substitute for his or her presence, and the recorded voice of an answering machine provides no comfort or conversation. It is through emotions that we come to perceive a person beyond physical traits which may be replicated by technology; I can trace my realization of the limitations of a physical definition of a person to a few lines from a poem I wrote several years ago:

"I remember early fall in that hotel bed
Biting your lips trying to
Get inside your head."

The description of a kiss as an attempt to forge a connection with another as ultimately flawed is illustrated by the dual meaning of head; the kiss literally places a part of one inside the head of another, successfully, but the true goal of understanding and communication is not achieved. The word-play expresses the inherent failing of trying to connect to a person in a purely physical way, in that the connection will be equally tangental; the physical embrace confers no more closeness to another person than I have now with the chair in which I sit.