From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ckgp!thomas Mon Nov  9 09:36:33 EST 1992
Article 7491 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ckgp!thomas
>From: thomas@ckgp.UUCP (Mike Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: RE: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <749@ckgp.UUCP>
Date: 2 Nov 92 20:44:07 GMT
Organization: CKGP Assoc. Inc. Birmingham, MI
Lines: 85


Hi,

In Article 7679 Thomas Lund writes:
> An excellent suggestion for a discussion topic.  Granted, there is
> no way of knowing what has happened to the "mind"; whether it has turned into
> a hurricane or two is unobservable.  However, there are some behaviors that
> split brained patients exhibit that need to be considered by AI theorists.

   I must disagree that the results of what happens to the mind is unobservable.
I do agree that you would not ne able to tell unless your brain was severed.
I must however argue that if the brain alone is the producer of the mind and
that if minds are what brains do, then there would be two minds. That is all
I offered of the hurricanes. We are assuming that we all have one mind with
dominaint and recessive characteristics (in personality, charater, etc...).
Other results found in testing split-brain patients before and after the
operation was that before their operation they might say that they want to
be a race car driver, and after they may say a forest ranger. This is perhaps 
a result of our minds having dominant and recessive characteristics. If this
is true then when the two hemishperes are seperated the person would basically
have two minds, or two of the same mind with their natural characteristic..

   Another point I must add, is that usually the anterior commissure and the
 hippocampal commissure are not cut when the Corpus Callosum is  cut. Yet,
I have heard of the hippocampal commisure needing to be servered as well as the
Corpus Callosum.  The point is that these to structures (paths) still 
communicate information between the hemishperes. (Myers & Sperry, 1985) Over
a short period of time the two hemishperes find ways to cooperate with
each other.

> Another phenomenon.  When a split brained person is instructed to
>do a spatial-oriented task such as tangrams or other shape/pattern matching
>games, they can do it much more effectively using ONLY left hand (right brain)
>The right hand (left brain) is very ineffective, and OFTEN, if the person is
>trying to solve the problem with just the right hand, the left hand will 
>try to take over.  THE TWO HANDS ACTUALLY INTERFERE WITH EACH OTHER'S WORK.

 This does help explain what I was saying. One split-brain person described
his experience -- or rather, his left hemishpere described his experience --
as follows (Dimond,1979): "If I'm reading I can hold the book in my right
hand; it's a lot easier to sit on my left hand, than two hold it with both
hands.... You tell your hand -- I'm going to turn so many pages in a book --
turn three pages -- then somehow the left hand will pick up two pages and
you're at page 5, or whatever. It's better to let it [the book] go, pick it
up with the right hand, and then turn to the right page. with your right
hand you correct what the left has done." 
  What I was explaining before about the two hurricaines was just that with
two minds both seeing the book, one can read while the other is bored. If 
you did not sit on your left hand it would continually try to turn pages out
of the blue because the other mind can not tell it to stop. Now for us
our one mind can tell each hemishpere to wait. But the point I wanted to
make was this. The patient admitts to being able to control both hands.
The problem was that one mind/hemishpere desided to do something, then the
focus/"I" would jump to the other side not knowing what it wanted to do but
responds to the domain/environment/stimuli of the book... hence turning the
page the incorrect number of times... the the "I"/Focus jumps back and the
mind gets frustrated because the other hemishpere did not respond correctly.
The important part is this, that you need both the mind and the focus/"I" to
get the mind to control the body/brain, and that when useing language or
symbols that will need to be used, the focus/"I" does not take the symbols
with it, the symbols are created in the mind that handles symbols (left
hemishpere, right hand) but the function hand in this exmple (the left hand,
right hemishpere) does not have the numbers to control the count of pages to 
turn. Remember that the act of jumping is not noticable since your perception
is the same in the two domains/minds (looking out at a book). 
  
  I am basically saying that you have two minds because you hae two
sets of cortexs which are operating independantly of each other. And since
this is the case, the result should be that same as with two seperate
brains, except for the lack of two Foci/"I's".

  Another intresting point, for those of you who do not know anyone who is
split brain, you might want to try some experiments on children under the
age of 3 years. the corpus callosum does not begin to mature until the
ages of 3-5 years. I am sure there are several things which one can think
of to confuse thee kids 8^) (I know of one which will cause them to fall
down, but I won't tell you because kids don't like it.)

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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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