edit: Thank you to all who answered! I’m amazed at how many ways you came up with to answer this.

  • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    23 days ago

    It reflects your image across the plane of the mirror. This isn’t physically possible with real-world objects, so your brain substitutes the closest real-world transformation that would approximate the same appearance—which is rotating symmetric objects about their axis of symmetry. With a vertical human, that means turning around so your left is on the right and vice versa.