Are there 2 people within a normal human or is there only 1

[tj444]

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Problems of Personal Identity
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/#ProPerIde

See e.g. Nagel 1971. Puccetti 1973 argues that there are two people within the skin of each normal human being.)

[BadgerJelly]

Every human being probably has about a million masks to cover up their true being.

You'll have one for your boss, your wife, your mother etc ... Also this is an internal dialogue too. You may think you know what you are capable of because you tell yourself you can or cannot do something.

Who has never been surprised by their own actions? The realisation of our capabilities is a scary thing. Some are made to look at themselves and some are not.

The question comes down to how much of us is us and how much is just a result of the interactions in our lives forced or chosen.

[tj444]

So this doesn't mean that are 2 people inside a normal brain. For example a split brain individual. It is just refering to the different masks we wear. Is this correct

[owleye]

So this doesn't mean that are 2 people inside a normal brain, like a split brain individual, it is just refering to the different masks we wear. Is this correct

I don't think Nagel is referring to masks. Rather I think the "two people" he is referring to are the person associated with our left-brain plus a different person associated with our right-brain. Note that the topic itself falls within the area associated with the issues of personal identity. What I believe he is he getting at is that each of us possesses two (persistent) identities. I suppose then that this should have a number of ramifications in many areas of our lives, but I'm afraid I'm not all that familiar with what he has to say.

James

[tj444]

Are there any other views on this subject or is this a fact? The fact that both sides of the brain are constantly commutating makes me think they are one. Take for example if someone invented a machine which allows 2 brains to communicate telepathically would this not mean they are one entity.

What about 2 humans who are just normally interacting are they not considered 1 organism.

[BadgerJelly]

Well this argument was about 40 years ago.

Science has come on a bit since then. If we are referring to the separate halves of the brain then it has been eluded to that through learning how to speak the concept of colour switches to one side of the brain to the other in neurological studies (Not sure how accurate the data is. Watched something about this in part on documentary).

[neuro]

Badger,
The OP cyted a pair of scientific papers which may or may not be superseded by subsequent research. However, he/she was asking for elucidation. You first proposed the first idea that stroke your mind and then dismissed the papers based on your opinion and a documentary you have seen in part.

I do not think this is a constructive contribution to the discussion.
Although this is the Philosophy forum, we are supposed to deal with philosophy of science, and it would therefore be profitable if we followed some methodological rules.

Please, when you feel you can dismiss an argument on the spot, please offer references in support to your position.

[BadgerJelly]

Dismissed nothing.

It comes down to belief. Some people may want to believe they have several "people" running around their head and some don't. The mind acts differently in different situations and "normal" humans don't have their brains severed in two to my knowledge and when they do it does appear there could well be two different "people" in some respect but they still persist to act together through other machinations of the brains function from what I know from personal experience and what I have read.

Cannot find this (For FREE!) : Puccetti, R. (1973), ‘Brain bisection and personal identity’

In reference to split mind patients :

What one naturally wants to know about these patients is how many
minds they have. This immediately raises questions about the sense in
which an ordinary person can be said to have one mind, and what the
conditions are under which diverse experiences and activities can be
ascribed to the same mind. We must have some idea what an ordinary
person is one of in order to understand what we want to know whether
there is one or two of, when we try to describe these extraordinary patients. - Thomas Nagel

If Nagel wants to take up this question then I ask where does this stop? I think my reference to masks is very appropriate in this case. Never the less it is a VERY interesting topic especially as each hemisphere has its own attributes and acts accordingly.

To look at this from a different angle, that Nagel seems to be inclined to, are both hemispheres separate or merely twinned. Could one half grow and function normally without the other? If not I don't see them are separate minds merely separate aspects that can become separate minds but still be reliant on each other?

You know more than me though neuro on this subject and I do not pretend to know the correct terminology.

I wish I could remember where I saw the clip I mentioned. It was about childhood development of speech and concepts but other than that I cannot remember :(

[tj444]

I still don't see an answer are there 2 people or more in every human or just one unified whole? Or is there no consensus and never will be?

[Watson]

I still don't see an answer are there 2 people or more in every human or just one unified whole? Or is there no consensus and never will be?

A person can act totally different depending on their moad. So it is possible that you show the world one of your different internal persons, depending on your mood.

[BadgerJelly]

This may help:

Split brain patient born without a corpus callosum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHgClWAPbBY

[tj444]

Also when it comes to personal identity of a person over time what theory is correct and why?

To name a few there is the bundle theory we are always changing and never the same person. There is also the
personality theory same personality same person over time. The body theory same brain same person over time. So which one is correct? There is also Derek Parfit can someone just confirm Parfit view on personality idenitity over time and please use something more credible than Wikipedia and please it explain it simply for me. I think parfit is a bundle theoriest is this correct?

On a tangent I once heard a theory that if scientist chopped a live brain they could discover the function of the different parts of the brain. So instead could scientist unlock the secret of the brain and every function by using anesthesia on different regions and when they got to the part that controls breathing they could just put you on life support so you won't die?

And just to confirm in a normal person it is one person not 2 individuals and in split brain patients it is always 1
person not 2 separate individuals. Correct?

[neuro]

Also when it comes to personal identity of a person over time what theory is correct and why?

Aren'y you asking too much in wishing somebody here will tell you "what theory is correct"?

Possibly, what may be considered correct is what all theory agree on, the common part. There are changing aspects, there are persisting features.

My way of looking at all this is to underscore that elaboration of information in our brain proceeds in a parallel way, several modules independently processing overlapping chunks of information, each one according to its own "algorithms". The result is that several different representations and interpretations of reality, readings, hypotheses, suggestions, possible chioices, behavioral strategies, even feelings (love and distaste or aversion) simultaneously arise in the brain and have to be continually examined, compared, conciled.

There are overall differences in the way all this occurs in the right and left hemisphere, which may lead one to consider that they give rise to two personalities, but this obviously is an oversimplification because, as long as inter-hemisphere connections are there (corpus callosum), all the "suggestions" of the two hemispheres (it is not only one each) have to be concurrently examined and conciled. In a sense, consciousness simply is choosing a consistent reading putting together as many suggestions as possible.

Similarly, a series of structures are in charge of elaborating answers and responses mostly based on instincts and learned "heuristics" (algorithms and procedures that are inborn or have proven valid in the past), whereas other structures are oriented at pinpointing inconsistencies, problems and conflicts and searching for alternative, novel, algorithms, readings and answers. Still, this does not mean a conservative person and an innovative one coexist in the brain.

Whatever information is processed by the brain will produce changes in the brain structure, connectivity, function and performance. Thus, saying that one does not change would be a nonsense. On the other hand, all changes are based on the way each one of us "lives" their own experiences, so that changes are not arbitrarily imposed by experience and passively suffered, but are heavily marked and molded by one's own way of mental processing, which surely evolves but can only do it in a self-consistent way.

So instead could scientist unlock the secret of the brain and every function by using anesthesia on different regions

This has been done by injecting amobarbital in single branches of carotid arteries (mostly for diagnostic procedures), and can instead be done quite easily today, even for mere cognitive research tasks, by means of TMS (transcranic magnetic stimulation) which can briefly and reversibly "switch off" local neuronal activity in small areas of the cortex

[tj444]

I think neuro is saying that the brain is connected in both hemispheres making it one enity. Is this correct? Also I asked this question on another forum and the response I got is that nobody knows the answer, so which answer is correct? Here is a link http://www.medicine.utas.edu.au/neuro_f ... ddbef32510


Also when nuero talks about persistence of identity he is saying that a person has persistence. Is this correct?

I also have another question could someone make an argument for any of the different perspectives in persistence of personal identity, body theory, bundle theory and personality theory and in the end which ever one you choose is correct because they all have valid arguments?

[neuro]

tj444,
I think the best answers to your questions won't come from neuroscience, but rather from philosophy.

Looking at such questions as if the two hypotheses were fully contrasting and mutually exclusive won't lead you anywhere.

A guy called Hegel, some time ago, introduced a way of thinking to face contradicting theses by way of dialectics. Though some relevant elaboration has followed on the question, and dialectics may not be the only way of looking at controversial questions, I think one should not stop before Hegel.

You may wish to try that approach...

[tj444]

I looked up hegel and found that you pick out the flaws you than form a new answer or you pick the antithesis and combine that with the thesis. I am having trouble doing that. Is that what neuro was trying to do before?

So my question is do we have persistence or do we do not? In an earlier post neuro said that in some aspects we do and some we don't. When does a person does and does not have persistence. Also you can ignore branching and other weird examples

Also just one more thing is it agreed on that people with a corpus callosum or even without one are one entity and not 2 separate entity? What about when I showed the link and the person said it is unkno
wn is he correct?



Also I would prefer if this was explained simply because I am not that smart.

[tj444]

Sorry for being such a bother. I am having trouble understanding one term self-consistent. Can someone explain it to me?

Also I assume neuro is saying that we do have persistence of self is this correct and is this position if correct agreed upon by most modern philosophers?

Also if you have a fully intact corpus callosum is it agreed on by most philosophers or researchers on the topic that you are 1 person not 2 seperate existing entities?

[Alan Masterman]

Actually the Grand Master Quatzlecatuatl teaches that there are 1368 people in each one of us (Wilson, Keppel & Betty, 1956). Some have argued that there are really only 1367, but they are considered rather radical (Morecambe & Wise, 1968). Personally, I have never been able to count more than 11. See also Hancock, Anthony (1964).

[Gregorygregg1]

There is a theory that you can never really know any more than 11 people. Perhaps that is the reason you are unable to count the other 1357. The others are all strangers.

[Alan Masterman]

My god, I hadn't considered that! I must try to be more sociable.

[Wilson]

When we think, don't we have a conversation with ourselves? I believe I do. It's almost like we're talking with someone else in there, bouncing ideas off him. I don't thnk he says much back, however. Another way of looking at it is that if we tell ourselves not to think about something, there's a bad boy in the mind that that brings the forbidden to the surface, no matter how hard we try to avoid it.