The following observations on a new patient, Patient P. The question of whether the essence of human consciousness can be represented bilaterally in the split brain patient has so far remained unanswered.
Gazzaniga, titled, A Divided Mind: Observations on the Conscious Properties of the Separated Hemispheres ( Annals of Neurology 2:417-421, 1977). is fully described in an article by Joseph E. (Reference: Atkinson, Rita L., Introduction to Psychology, Eleventh Edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishers, Orlando, c. Paul’s right hemisphere expressed “dislike,” while his left expressed “like.” The study was performed during the Watergate scandal, and one of the items was Richard Nixon.
#Querious no dog meme series
Both hemispheres were asked to write whether they liked or disliked a series of items. Paul’s right hemisphere stated that he wanted to be an automobile racer while his left hemisphere wanted to be a draftsman. Researchers were finally able to interview both hemispheres on their views about friendship, love, hate and aspirations. For almost all split brain patients, the thoughts and perceptions of the right hemisphere are locked away from expression. The fact that Paul’s right hemisphere was so well developed in its verbal capacity opened a closed door for researchers. Although it is uncommon, occasionally the right hemisphere may share substantial neural circuits with, or even dominate, the left hemisphere’s centers for language comprehension and production. Paul’s right hemisphere developed considerable language ability sometime previous to the operation. (whose case history is discussed in detail on a Macalester College Web page on split-brain consciousness), who underwent brain bisection in the 1970s, and whose right hemisphere (unlike that of most split-brain patients) was able to understand not only nouns, but also verbal commands and also questions, after surgery, and respond to these questions in writing, giving simple one-word answers: I might add another interesting case which I’ve come across, relating to a patient named Paul S. In the case of the patient whose left hemisphere didn’t believe in God but whose right hemisphere did, what did the soul believe? Was the soul a theist or an atheist? If the right hemisphere knows something that the left hemisphere doesn’t, then does the soul know it? What if it’s the other way around, with the left hemisphere knowing something that the right hemisphere doesn’t?ģ. In the case of the man who attacked his wife with one arm and defended her with the other, what did the soul want to do? Is the soul guilty of attacking her? Does the soul get credit for defending her?Ģ. He begins by posing three questions, based on actual cases of split-brain patients, described in the medical literature:ġ.
In this post, I’d like to discuss and respond to KeithS’s reductio ad absurdum argument.
If one side of the brain can no longer stimulate the other, the likelihood of severe epileptic seizures is greatly reduced.Īnswering KeithS’s questions on split brain patients In an effort to prevent such massive seizures in severe epileptics, neurosurgeons can surgically sever the corpus callosum, a procedure called a commissurotomy. In some forms of epilepsy a seizure will start in one hemisphere, triggering a massive discharge of neurons through the corpus callosum and into the second hemisphere. When the corpus callosum of an individual is severed, leaving a split brain, the two hemispheres cannot communicate. In a normal brain, stimuli entering one hemisphere is rapidly communicated by way of the corpus callosum to the other hemisphere, so the brain functions as a unit. The information below is taken from a Web page created by the Psychology Department at Macalester College (bold emphases are mine): What is a split-brain operation?īefore I go on, I’d like to provide a brief scientific explanation of what a split-brain operation is. I then examined the six assumptions used in KeithS’s split-brain argument from the perspective of each of these versions of dualism. I began by distinguishing three varieties of dualism (leaving aside property dualism, whose inadequacies from a theistic standpoint have already been ably exposed by Professor William Dembski – see here and here), which I referred to as substance dualism, thought control dualism and formal-final dualism. In my last post, I discussed the problem of split-brain cases, which was first raised by KeithS in a post over at The Skeptical Zone titled, Split-brain patients and the dire implications for the soul (June 22, 2013).
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