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Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

neurosciencenews.com

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Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

#61

Post by MichaelBurge »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57
thereisnospork wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By asking for details from a set of arbitrary, random dates, such as people's birthdays. A set of dates the questionee could have no way of knowing. In order for him to know the answer to trivia on multiple arbitrary dates off the cuff would require him to, you know, have memorized the trivia for all the dates -- which kind of proves the point.

Unfortunately, just having someone tell you something doesn't prove anything, unless you have a way to check that the fact is true- and for most of Kim Peek's life this was not the case. For instance- his article on wikipedia mentions that he " enjoyed approaching strangers and showing them his talent for calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born and what news items were on the fro…

You'd probably get a better discussion from a place like http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/ .

Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

#62

Post by ajkjk »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57
thereisnospork wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By asking for details from a set of arbitrary, random dates, such as people's birthdays. A set of dates the questionee could have no way of knowing. In order for him to know the answer to trivia on multiple arbitrary dates off the cuff would require him to, you know, have memorized the trivia for all the dates -- which kind of proves the point.

Unfortunately, just having someone tell you something doesn't prove anything, unless you have a way to check that the fact is true- and for most of Kim Peek's life this was not the case. For instance- his article on wikipedia mentions that he " enjoyed approaching strangers and showing them his talent for calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born and what news items were on the fro…

If you're that skeptical, shouldn't your first step be looking up more details on how he was verified to be legitimate? Rather than saying in a comment thread that there's no way to know?

Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

#63

Post by throwawayish »

tempestn wrote: post #58

Is it possible there's some wireless communication going on via electric fields that we're not yet aware of? Quick google search suggests this is a thing: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110202132617.h... Could it be happening on a large enough scale to allow communication between hemispheres though? I'm not suggesting this would take over for the corpus callosum, but rather that it may be happening for…

> The green plasma... is a neurobinder! It allows instantaneous melding of connected minds over any distance.

Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

#64

Post by throwawayish »

c3534l wrote: post #52
throwaway26960 wrote: post #39

Does every animal/insect have two brain hemispheres? For example, what about a spider, or an octopus?

Spiders have donut shaped brains. Source: owned a tarantula. Some animals jon't have bilaterally symmetric brains on account of having brains, like jelly fish.

I remember an article saying that esp. in smaller spiders (so probably not tarantulas) the "brain" doesn't really have a simple shape, extending even into the limbs.

Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

#65

Post by abalone »

So let's say there's some technology for creating a clone of you, complete with memories, an exact copy. You undergo the procedure and the clone is staring at flowers while you are looking at your shoes. Two questions:

1. What do you see when you swap your brain with the clone?

2. What do you see when you swap half your brain with the clone?

My take is if we assume the brain is the seat of consciousness, the answer to 1 is flowers. But the answer to 2 is actually unknowable without experiencing it yourself.

So, while it is interesting to discover that disconnected hemispheres can somehow learn to operate independently, we should be careful to note the empirical limitations of determining "unified consciousness". We simply don't know what the experience of consciousness is like in split brain patients, anymore than we'd know it in a clone with half your brain transplanted. We only know that they profess to feel no difference -- as undoubtably you and your clone would as well post-transplant.

Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

#67

Post by ajkjk »

c3534l wrote: post #52
throwaway26960 wrote: post #39

Does every animal/insect have two brain hemispheres? For example, what about a spider, or an octopus?

Spiders have donut shaped brains. Source: owned a tarantula. Some animals jon't have bilaterally symmetric brains on account of having brains, like jelly fish.

Owned.. and dissected?

Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

#68

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

ajkjk wrote: post #62
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, just having someone tell you something doesn't prove anything, unless you have a way to check that the fact is true- and for most of Kim Peek's life this was not the case. For instance- his article on wikipedia mentions that he " enjoyed approaching strangers and showing them his talent for calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born and what news items were on the fro…

If you're that skeptical, shouldn't your first step be looking up more details on how he was verified to be legitimate? Rather than saying in a comment thread that there's no way to know?

I had a look on wikipedia. There is a section on some "tests" conducted by NASA, but "the intent was to create a three-dimensional view of his brain structure and to compare the images to MRI scans done in 1988". That doesn't tell me much about why they thought he had an interesting enough brain to try to image, i.e. why they were convinced he was a savant.

Does your comment mean you know why NASA (and others, I guess) thought he was legit?

Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

#69

Post by ajkjk »

4bpp wrote: post #36

Note though that this is n=2, and I'd assume the two subjects were not sampled even remotely randomly from the set of split-brain patients...

Well, no, but with things like this you sort of tend to assume that the basic structure of everyone's brain is pretty much the same, so it only takes n=1 to stuff that you can pretty safely extrapolate to everyone.

It would be a different matter if we expected an array of different brain mechanisms at the information-pathway level. Compare to how we do probably expect variation at, like, reasoning and emotional levels, maybe.

Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

#70

Post by [deleted] »

matt-snider wrote: post #60
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, just having someone tell you something doesn't prove anything, unless you have a way to check that the fact is true- and for most of Kim Peek's life this was not the case. For instance- his article on wikipedia mentions that he " enjoyed approaching strangers and showing them his talent for calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born and what news items were on the fro…

You don't seem to get it. These sorts of things are all examples of verifiable facts. Calendar calculations are trivial to verify with a computer, and news archives existed long before iPhones and ubiquitous internet access. You don't think given his fame, that his talents were rigorously tested and verified?

[deleted]
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