From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wupost!uunet!ckgp!thomas Mon Nov  9 09:36:15 EST 1992
Article 7461 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wupost!uunet!ckgp!thomas
>From: thomas@ckgp.UUCP (Michael Scott Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <748@ckgp.UUCP>
Date: 31 Oct 92 14:22:50 GMT
Organization: F.O.C.U.S. Systems Inc., MI
Lines: 83

In article <7672@ckgp.UUCP> max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb) writes:

> Sever the corpus callosum, and the mind can split into independent
> fragments. 2 awarenesses - which one gets the mind-pearl? How is it that the
> other half can be aware without having a mind-pearl?

  Actually this proves to be a good example. This "I" that I cam talking
about does not double as the mind does. I have talked and done tests with
five people who have had their corpus callosum severed (epilepsi). In all
cases this Foucs of "I" still exists and is unchanged and is singular.
What you do however notice is that the person has two personalities, two
sets of preceived emotions at any given point, etc. Just remember that your
personality is handled by your brain in the frontal cortex, and emotions
in the limbic system which really should not be effected by the corpus
callosum being cut. The point becomes two, (1) this is a great example of
what I have been saying because of the fact that we could assume by the
nature of the design (of the brain) that it is expected to work only under
the condition of the two neuro-cortexs being attached (I think that this
is safe to assume; there is probably some dependance of neurons in one
cortex on neurons in the other) basically what we see though is that the 
person develops two minds, and keep a single focus or rather "I". Then the
person's focus jumps back and forth between the two minds (having a
dominant and recessive mind; or hemishpere). In my example in other posts
where I talk about domains, the person would have to exteroceptive and two
active domains (there are always multiple virtual domains). So, for
example when your mind creates the domain of the room you are in and it 
puts itself (the focus or "I") in that domain (the item's object), it
would in some cases be such that when the corpus callosum is sevred that
they would just have an exteroceptive domain in the other hemisphere
without them in it (no item's object) until something occured that that
hemisphere must handle (say language, or mathmatics) where the focus would
switch to the other exteroceptive domain. The intresting point of all of
this is that the focus or "I" does not take with it anything from the
other exteroceptive domain. (kind of like a CPU multiprocessing, but
thinking of the cpu moving to the program rather than the program [LP
register] moving to the memory location). and (2) this point brings me two
your second question about how can one hemisphere be aware without having
the mind-pearl? See this is the tricky part to understand. Since
everything that your perceive to to out side of you is really just a model
in your brain, this model being the mind. But the Focus is also the mind.
I guess the best explination is just to say that it is like a huricaine,
with the eye of the storm being the "I" and the rest of the mind is
whirling around it. But say for example that the focus was a basket ball
and it moved into the eye of the storm and in a sense watched the mind
whirling around it. With a split brain there would be two huricaines and
just one basket ball and when an emotion trigures the attension of the
focus, or "i" the basket ball would move to the eye of the other
huricaine... the hard part is how/why this ball move if the mind and the
brain are the same... that would require a long explination of
non-dimensional space (which I will probably post to the net in a few days
if there is any intrest). But basically since your mind is something which
is virtual (mind meaning the model of your world) and since something
virtual has no real dimension the prbolems that we must face in developing
a model (for us to think about) are that we give the mind physical
characteristics/qualities. here is the point, the focus controls the mind
(to some degree) the idea being this that your brain retreives the stimuli
from the world say a picture of an apple. Well as long as your visual
cortex contains the stimulus of the apple and the person's (with split
brain) focus moves to that hemisphere the apple will be modelled by the
mind (cognition of the apple will take place). Note, the perception is
always current in the cortex, the cognition is just not taking place. A
bad example might be this, like a laser without anything to scatter the
light. The laser is there it is just not hitting anything. The brain's
half of the mind is the laser (the stimuli) and the dust is the mind (the
mental model of the world) which brings attention to only certain things.
(so a person with split brainhas two seperate lasers and the dust move
from one to the other [without having to really move] say a metimorphisis
(sp?))  

   Okay, enough of that... The question now becomes (for some people)
why or what is the difference between someone who is split brain and
say anyone else, we all have two hemispheres? Well, we all have a
dominaint and recessive hemisphere... and the info passsed over the corpus
callosum works to deterimine the nature (characteristics) of the single
exteroceptive&&active domain...

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                      | "When the Mind is evolving the abstractions which will
  Thank you,          |  lead to physical comprehension, all of us must cross 
  Michael Thomas      |  the line between ignorance and insight many times 
(..uunet!ckgp!thomas) |  before we truly understand."  
                      |                                 -- David Hawkins
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