Sunday, September 22, 2013

Did splitting the brain split the soul?


"In split-brain subjects, each hemisphere may separately experience the stimuli delivered exclusively to it . If , for example, a key is placed in the left hand and a ring is placed in the right hand and the subject is asked to use his hands to point to a picture of what he felt , the left hand points to a picture of a key and right hand to a picture of a ring. A split-brain subject may even make opposing movements with the two hands—the left hand picking up the phone, the right hand putting it down . Or if a visual stimulus, for example, is presented to just one hemisphere, the other hemisphere knows nothing about it . This was a completely stunning result . Did splitting the brain split the soul? The soul was supposed to be indivisible, not divisible like a walnut . But there they were, the split-brain results, available for all to see: if the brain’s hemispheres are disconnected, mental states are disconnected. Those results were a powerful support for the hypothesis that mental states are in fact states of the physical brain itself , not states of a non physical soul ."

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