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Former neuroscientist here. Umm, your link actually criticizes the study that didn't replicate the original findings in its final paragraph. I'm inclined to be

Former neuroscientist here. Umm, your link actually criticizes the study that didn't replicate the original findings in its final paragraph. I'm inclined to believe their results were due to: 1) The corpus callosum is the dominant interhemispheric tract, but not the only one. Secondary tracts may have been recruited/enhanced to share info, especially given that they've had decades since their surgery. 2) This fits with the progression of callosotomies, (and brain injuries in general), where deficits are most acute right after surgery, and tend to diminish over time. In fact the Nature article's example addresses this; the patient only experienced split-brain behavior for about a year.

vinceguidry 9y ago
Thanks for the clarification. I did not read the link I posted carefully, I was searching from memory for the article that I'd thought I'd read. Obviously I got the wrong one and there have been further developments. The aspect of personhood that I'm referring to is the idea that we have two people inside of us, that develop independently. That's a really weird one to wrap my "brains" around. That the body works to recreate one personhood after the callosum is split is pretty clear indication that there's one only 'self' at play here. Both hemispheres cooperate to create it. While I'm sure you can create some weird Frankenstein by cutting off all the ways for the hemispheres to communicate, this is just doing damage to the self, might as well just put a bullet in there and be done with it. A collosotomy by itself doesn't destroy the self, the cohesive identity of the body as having one mind.
- slavik81 9y ago
  > The aspect of personhood that I'm referring to is the idea that we have two people inside of us, that develop independently. The same experiment informed my understanding of consciousness in a different way. It's not that there are two people inside you. Rather, your mind is composed of many pieces that each individually only understand one apect of the world. The corpus callosum is just an easy place to make a split. You could subdivide further and see a similar effect on each subdivided part. That's a thought experiment that could never be done for many reasons, but I hold out some hope we might some day be able to verify it non-destructively.

vinceguidry 9y ago

Thanks for the clarification. I did not read the link I posted carefully, I was searching from memory for the article that I'd thought I'd read. Obviously I got the wrong one and there have been further developments. The aspect of personhood that I'm referring to is the idea that we have two people inside of us, that develop independently. That's a really weird one to wrap my "brains" around. That the body works to recreate one personhood after the callosum is split is pretty clear indication that there's one only 'self' at play here. Both hemispheres cooperate to create it. While I'm sure you can create some weird Frankenstein by cutting off all the ways for the hemispheres to communicate, this is just doing damage to the self, might as well just put a bullet in there and be done with it. A collosotomy by itself doesn't destroy the self, the cohesive identity of the body as having one mind.

slavik81 9y ago
> The aspect of personhood that I'm referring to is the idea that we have two people inside of us, that develop independently. The same experiment informed my understanding of consciousness in a different way. It's not that there are two people inside you. Rather, your mind is composed of many pieces that each individually only understand one apect of the world. The corpus callosum is just an easy place to make a split. You could subdivide further and see a similar effect on each subdivided part. That's a thought experiment that could never be done for many reasons, but I hold out some hope we might some day be able to verify it non-destructively.