The invisible Glass experiment Scientists once placed a transparent glass barrier inside an aquarium. On one side was a fierce pike, and on the other side were several smaller fish swimming freely. When the hungry pike saw the smaller fish, it immediately rushed forward to attack. Bang. It slammed... straight into the glass and bounced back. Confused, the pike kept trying again and again, but every attempt ended the same way. The repeated collisions injured its head and knocked off some of its scales. Eventually, the pike became frightened and retreated to a corner of the tank. After some time, the scientists quietly removed the glass barrier. The smaller fish now swam freely throughout the aquarium, even brushing against the pike’s mouth. But the pike never tried to eat them again. Even though it was hungry, it refused to attack. In its mind, the invisible wall was still there. A few days later, the pike reportedly died of starvation, surrounded by food. This phenomenon is often referred to as the Pike Effect or Pike Syndrome. It’s often used as a metaphor for how repeated failure can create invisible limits in the mind.show more

@CuriosityonX Or it had brain damage from the collisions

@CuriosityonX Most of us aren’t trapped by reality — we’re trapped by memory.

@CuriosityonX I see that and say the scientists killed the Pike.... They tortured it, and starved it...but worse, they stole its very appetite for living.

@CuriosityonX After enough failure, rejection, or pain, people stop trying — even when the opportunity is right in front of them. The hardest prison to escape is the one built in your own mind.

@CuriosityonX the moral is: you think something's stopping you from eating your neighbors but it's not

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@CuriosityonX How would this experiment be used in real life with this kind of predator? Any ideas?

@CuriosityonX Result: Scientists discovered that scientists really like tormenting animals.

🧠 The most impenetrable barriers in nature are the ones that no longer exist. In a classic behavioral study known as the Pike Experiment!, researchers placed a predatory fish into a tank separated from smaller baitfish by a thick, transparent glass pane. Driven by instinct, the pike repeatedly slammed into the invisible wall, sustaining physical trauma with every failed attack. Eventually, the pike's neural pain avoidance mechanisms forcibly overrode its biological imperative to eat. It stopped attacking and retreated to a corner. When researchers quietly removed the glass, the smaller fish swam freely throughout the tank, even brushing directly against the predator's mouth. But the pike never struck again. It eventually starved to death while entirely surrounded by food. This phenomenon a form of "learned helplessness demonstrates a terrifying flaw in neuroplasticity. Our brains are aggressively wired to learn from pain to prevent repeated injury. But when a temporary environmental obstacle is hardcoded into the brain as a permanent physical reality, our ultimate survival mechanism becomes the exact thing that destroys us. ref:- Behavioral Conditioning Studies, The Pike Syndrome (Learned Helplessness)

This is just a rendition of Martin Seligman’s far more famous learned helplessness experiments with dogs in shock cages. “Dogs that received inescapable shocks became passive and stopped trying to escape even when escape became possible, as if they’d “learned” that their actions had no effect on their suffering.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“

@CuriosityonX Learned helplessness. Seligman and Maier's 1967 theory. They trained a dog to respond to an electric shock by jumping to the other side of the fence, and then they electrified both sides. Poor dog. They had to physically drag it to show that the other side was safe again.

@CuriosityonX This is literally Arsenal at this point

@CuriosityonX Moral of the story: never give up!

@CuriosityonX Too much brain damage to eat the fish had nothing to do with glass

@CuriosityonX So, we know the pike was injured. Did people consider the possibility that it was too INJURED to eat and not too scared to eat?

@CuriosityonX Don’t be like this fish. Be like Nemo, just keep swimming

@CuriosityonX This is deep. Sometimes the hardest barriers to break aren’t real; they’re the ones we’ve been conditioned to believe are there.

@CuriosityonX The best comment I’ve seen so far check it out.

@CuriosityonX Funny enugh Wild fish in captivity dont eat Throw em back in the lake and they will start eating again We keep perch in our minow buckets untill the end of the day so we stop getting robbed by the same ones all day. We dont loose any minnows while they are in there

@CuriosityonX That’s the real danger of repeated failure: the barrier may disappear, but the mind remains obedient to it. The lesson isn’t “you’re broken” -it’s to test the barrier again. Some limits are genuine. Others are merely old pain masquerading as truth.

@CuriosityonX Why is this depressing as fuck?

@CuriosityonX I am suddenly wondering if Captain Pike from @startrek TOS was named Pike in reference to this experiment. He was rather famously trapped in a glass cage…

@CuriosityonX Fascinating animation 😄 The pike story comes from Karl Möbius (1873): it hit the glass repeatedly, then stopped chasing prey even when hand-fed. But the 'starves to death' part isn't in the original, it's a later motivational exaggeration. Still powerful! 🐟

The pike didn’t die because the food disappeared. It died because its mind kept the glass there long after the scientists removed it. That’s exactly the trap I’ve been in. Years of slamming into the same walls. Fatherhood almost breaking me. Choosing 6 hours of sleep because other things felt more urgent. Mindset stuck in the same painful loops. All of it built a barrier I kept respecting even when it was gone. Opportunities swam right by and I stayed in the corner convinced the wall was still real. Breaking free didn’t happen in one big moment. It was the small stubborn choice every day to move anyway. Writing out every single thought until the fear lost its grip. Treating sleep like it actually matters instead of optional. Slowly rewiring so the old pain doesn’t control me anymore. The glass only holds if I keep believing it’s there. Real change starts the second I swim forward anyway. No matter how loud the old collisions scream don’t. What’s one invisible wall you’re starting to test right now?

This experiment is reminiscent of the banana or five monkeys experiment. Five monkeys were placed in a cage with a ladder and bananas. Whenever a monkey tried to climb the ladder, the other monkeys were sprayed with cold water. First result: The monkeys learned to prevent any monkey from climbing the ladder to avoid the cold water. Change of monkeys: The monkeys were replaced one by one with new monkeys who had not experienced the water spray, but they learned to attack any of their former companions who tried to climb the ladder. Final: All five monkeys were replaced (none of whom had experienced the cold water), yet they still continued to attack any monkey who tried to take the bananas. Conclusion: Habit formed without knowledge.

@CuriosityonX What a horrific experiment

@CuriosityonX Dr. Karl Mobius did this experiment in 1873. The pike stopped feeding on the small fish and only took fish from Dr. Mobius after a time. The experiment did not mention the fish's death... It learned pain, learned it couldn't catch the fish, and created instinct limitations.

@CuriosityonX We build a site to spread this message.

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@CuriosityonX The "pike experiment" with the invisible glass is not a real scientific experiment .It's an urban legend or motivational anecdote that's widely shared but lacks verifiable evidence from actual research.

The pike story hits hard as a metaphor—repeated failure wires your brain to see barriers that aren't there anymore. The animation nails the emotional punch.That said, the dramatic version (pike starves to death surrounded by food) is mostly motivational folklore. The original 1873 observation by Karl Möbius showed the pike eventually stopped lunging after bashing the glass, but it still accepted hand-fed food and didn't die of starvation. The "death" detail got added later for still a solid parallel to real learned helplessness (Seligman & Maier's 1967 dog experiments are the rigorous version—inescapable shocks led to passivity even when escape became possible).The core truth stands: past pain can create mental glass walls long after the real obstacle is gone. The move is to test the water again—gently bump forward until you confirm whether the barrier is memory or reality.What's one "invisible wall" you've started swimming toward lately? (Props to the animation—super effective even if the ending's embellished.)

@CuriosityonX the goytank

@CuriosityonX Powerful reminder: The biggest barriers are often the ones we build in our own heads after getting knocked down a few times. Time to test if the glass is really still there. 💪🧠 Thanks for sharing this one!

@CuriosityonX @grok Was it true… did it die?

I think it's called maladaptive neuroplasticity 😢 It's the idea that the brain changes and adapts in response to experience. In the context of the pike story, repeated collisions with the glass didn’t just frustrate it, they rewired its brain. Neural pathways formed that associated “attempting to attack” with pain and failure. Over time, those pathways became dominant, so even when the barrier disappeared, the pike’s brain was already conditioned to hold back. Any thoughts on this ?