X-Message-Number: 25316 Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:47:09 -0800 (PST) From: Scott Badger <> Subject: Re: Responses to Mike Perry Mike: Let's suppose we separate a cryopreserved brain into just two pieces, each of which could function as a QE. Richard: It is not possible for there to be two of me. Therefore, there are two possible outcomes from the result of this division: (1) I am in one piece and not the other; or (2) I am in no piece, because I did not survive the division. Scott: Richard, your assertion here flies in the face of empirical findings from split-brain research which sort of calls into question your entire thesis. You referred to Gazzaniga's theory as a 'gross error' basically calling him just another philosopher with another theory of mind, but this is a clinical researcher and one of the most eminent neurologists in the world, and he has plenty of research to support his theory, not just abstract philosophical writings. For those unfamiliar with this line of research, surgical commissurotimies (severing of the corpus callosum) have been peformed to ameliorate severe seizure disorders. The brain's hemispheres of those patients were unable to communicate about anything except for low level informtion through the brain stem. Researchers like Gazzaniga were interested in how the hemispheres differed. The most surprising consequence was that, on casual inspection, the patients didn't seem to act very differently at all. But upon closer inspection, very significant difference were identified. The great majority of patients exhibited a left hemisphere with language capabilites that would speak for the entire brain even though it didn't really know what the right brain was thinking'. Some have suggested that consciousness cannot exist without language, but split brain studies challenge that notion. Most of the right hemispheres of split brain patients can respond to queries and directives, but only by using nonverbal communication. And even more dramatically, there have been rare individuals with right brains that have developed language capabilities such that they can actually talk and respond verbally as well as the right hemisphere does. The amazing thing about this research is that you can ask the left brain and then the right brain of a person the same question and they'll give different answers. Take the case of Paul whose right brain had language capabilities: "Instead of wondering whether or not Paul's right hemisphere was sufficiently powerful to be dubbed conscious, we were now in a position to ask Paul's right side about its views on matters of friendship, love, hate, and aspirations. 'Who are you?' He writes: 'Paul.' 'Where are you?' He writes: 'Vermont.' 'What do you want to be?' He writes: 'Automobile racer.' When the left hemisphere was asked this same question, he wrote (with his right hand), 'Draftsman.'" http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/UBNRP/Split_Brain/Split_Brain_Consciousness.html In addition, it's been discovered that the left brain (the one that produces all the narrative in your mind and that you identify as being you) is less veridical than the right brain which has no voice but apparently serves to temper the predisposition of the left brain's impulse to construct falsities. Here's an excerpt: "We then asked the left hemisphere - the only one that can talk - why the left hand was pointing to the object [recall that the left hand is controlled by the right brain]. It really did not know, because the decision to point to the card was made in the right hemisphere. Yet, quick as a flash, it made up an explanation. We dubbed this creative, narrative talent the interpreter mechanism." [several experiments show that the left brain comes up with whatever story makes the most sense to it to explain what's happening in the rest of the brain. This is why Gazzaniga called it the 'Interpreter'. I'll add that Gazzaniga discusses the evolutionary advantage of the Interpreter]. "This fascinating ability has been studied recently to determine how the left hemisphere interpreter affects memory. Elizabeth A. Phelps of Yale University, Janet Metcalfe of Columbia University and Margaret Funnell, a postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth College, have found that the two hemispheres differ in their ability to process new data. When presented with new information, people usually remember much of what they experience. When questioned, they also usually claim to remember things that were not truly part of the experience. If split-brain patients are given such tests, the left hemisphere generates many false reports. But the right brain does not; it provides a much more veridical account." http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/morris4/medialib/readings/split.html Regardless, the preponderance of evidence indicates that the brain's hemisphere's can be functionally separated and the result is two separate minds, each with its own perception and analysis of the world and each with its own internal subjective experiences ... i.e. each with its own QE. One might claim that the right brain is not 'as conscious' as the left, or one might say that the right brain is 'differently conscious' but one could not say with any support that there are not two separate conscious entities residing in the same skull after such an operation. So is Richard's construct, the QE, merely damaged after a split-brain operation or is it destroyed entirely and two new QEs created inside the same brain? If we maintain that a QE cannot exist without the physical structure necessary to manifest it, then clearly that physical structure exists in both the right and the left hemispheres, although those hemispheres provide the QEs with differing cognitive skills. Best regards, Scott Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25316