Reflection Theory and Singing with Reflection Space

In this essay and videos, I am demonstrating what I call reflection-ability and vocal ability, and explaining the connection between the two.

Across 2024 and 2025, while reading and critiquing and writing about the work of Rene Girard and Henri Bergson, I developed a theory called reflection theory that sits beneath mimetic theory.

The key split occurred when I realized in mid-2025:

Reflection precedes Imitation
I thought at first that reflection theory could be part of mimetic theory, then I realized that it was likely parallel (explaining the same phenomena but with some slight differences), and then I realized that reflection theory entirely supplants mimetic theory and better explains many of Girard’s principles while enabling a few important additional moves in situations of escalating violence that can (and already have) helped to stabilize our present world.

I have not published the early principles of reflection theory publicly yet (although the principles are already being utilized in the world system) simply because I feel that I am still carefully testing them daily. After developing the principles of reflection theory on my own (and I say that not in a prideful way, but out of an attempt to avoid false humility and an attempt to minimize the chaos that false attribution could cause, which is a problem Girard and Schwager and others in the mimetic theory community are or were clearly aware of), I shared a copy of the early principles with a few scholars and friends this year in 2026.

One of the differences with Girard’s mimetic theory is that Girard defines humanity in terms of imitation and sacrifice, where my reflection theory, while still explaining the escalatory dynamics that Girard identifies, goes one layer deeper to understand the human brain as uniquely reflection-capable (and sacrifice and violence are a perversion or in some cases a simple and tragic failure of reflection-ability). I will talk more about this difference in other writings, but the relevant point for this post is that detecting and developing reflection-ability is incredibly important.

I describe reflection as imperfectly mirrored perception of reality. Reflection-ability then is the ability for the brain to reflect, or the ability to imperfectly mirror perception of reality. Reflection, in my articulation of the word, does not mean a vocal or thinking review, but rather a visual or auditory or sensed mirroring of reality. Girard has a term misrecognition (or meconnaissance) that he uses frequently (and that many of today’s Girard scholars do not understand or do not use enough or do not use correctly) which is similar but different from my term. Understanding Girard’s usage of this term is one of the main ways that I was able to discover reflection-ability and reflection theory. I will explain more about why they are different in another post or in the first book I am writing on reflection theory, but in short, reflection precedes misrecognition.

I then describe memory as re-reflection. This separation is important, because the historical language of memory does not quite grasp the importance of real-time interactions that are available to people that are particularly skilled with reflection-ability (such as musicians and other artists that can create and improvise instantaneously or near instantaneously).
I am using the word describe instead of define, because the more you understand reflection theory, the clearer it is that we utilize and develop very precise models or descriptions or images of reality in our brains, but they are never entirely perfect. However, humans can get so close to perfect as to be indistinguishable from perfect by all but the most learned or skilled practitioners of a given talent or skill.

This is relevant for discussing the concept of perfect pitch in music, which is the ability to hit certain musical notes precisely or get incredibly close to certain notes without any external prompting or accompaniment. I posit that the ability to play a song in one’s head and perform a song and hit accurate notes without much help, which many would take to be a sign of perfect pitch, is also a sign of high reflection-ability.

I should be clear that reflection theory is NOT a relativism, but is simply a more detailed explanation for how our brains account for and store and retrieve representations of reality.

Reflection Theory and Singing and Pawpaw #

Now that I’ve explained a few of the basic points of reflection theory and the connection to music, we can get to the core purpose of this post which is to show my personal vocal learning dynamics while explaining some concepts of reflection theory.

In one of my recent posts about my father Pawpaw, I noted that Pawpaw had a very strong singing ability. Pawpaw was not an educated man, but he was incredibly smart and skilled in many areas and was mostly self-taught. So the development of reflection theory and it’s implications on learning has become incredibly personal in my journey to understand the truth of my being (and help others understand the truth of their being).

I am not a professionally trained singer. I sang in some choirs growing up, had a few leading parts with singing in plays in elementary school, and played music in a few different bands as guitarist or singer or drummer. Most of the music-skills that I have are self-taught. Reflection theory gives me much clearer language to explain how I was able to self-teach, and also gives me clearer language to explain how others can self-teach. Reflection theory and mimetic theory were both instrumental in the improved rate of learning-ability that I somehow gained in 2024 and 2025.

My singing in these videos is not perfect, and that is the point. I had the idea to try to demonstrate some of my vocal-ability and music-ability and learning-ability a few weeks ago. As I was listening to a new music video yesterday I began to sing along, and it hit me that demonstrating the speed and movement of learning of a song that was so new to me could be incredibly valuable. So I started recording.

In this first video from the afternoon of October 5th 2026 I start learning and singing a new Ayra Starr and Zayn track.

In this second video I attempt the same song but with no backing music and discuss reflection-ability more.

In this third video I sing a few songs (from Kid LAROI and Architects) that I had not immediately previously listened to, and then sing them a second time along with the song playing as a backing track.

In this fourth video, I thought of some new ideas for singing technique from re-watching the Ayra Starr and Zayn video, and quickly tried to implement those with no backing track while still reading the lyrics.

In this video, I thought of another category of songs and reflection testing (singing a song without backing track that had not been listened to anytime recently) and sing some Turnstile songs with no backing tracks while reading the lyrics.

In this last video from October 6th 2026, I thought of another category of reflection theory testing (singing songs without reference to lyrics that has not been listened to recently) and I sing or hum a few songs entirely from reflection space.