[ExI] The Chess Room

JOSHUA JOB nanite1018 at gmail.com
Mon Mar 1 04:20:04 UTC 2010


On Feb 28, 2010, at 10:57 PM, Will Steinberg wrote:
> Two separate consciousness registered; one could communicate because it contained speech processing areas. (Note--this is lifted right out of Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind, which is, though sometimes a bit to eager to give merit to its own ideas, a very well-done book, especially on recognizing the uniqueness of intuition.  Poe's Eureka also speaks to the fact.)
> 
> It is absolutely true that we cannot, as of now, comprehend this multi-consciousness existence.  But here is the proof--right there in the pudding!  
I haven't read the article, as it would cost me money, but from the abstract, it was not two separate consciousness's, but rather a single consciousness which had been ripped in two by surgery, which could recognize "itself" in pictures. I don't view split-brain patients as really indicative of normal people, as they have been brain damaged. Normally, the two hemispheres of the brain communicate and cooperate to create our "I". When the corpus collosum is severed, this is no longer possible, and yes each side may then develop a somewhat separate personality, but two separate consciousness's, in our own minds? No, I don't think so. A split-brain patient is more akin to two minds sharing a body that two minds forming one mind.

Of course, it is possible the article itself suggests differently. I only have the abstract to go on. I haven't read Penrose's book, or Poe's. I intend to soon start Hofstadter's "I Am A Strange Loop", though it has been on my bookshelf for nearly a year now, so we'll see. 


Joshua Job
nanite1018 at gmail.com






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