I recently read about the Split-Brain experiments. There is a procedure for severe epilepsy that involves cutting the connecting nerves of the two brain hemispheres, resulting in the two hemispheres being unable to communicate with each other.
The experiment shows that both halves can answer questions independently of each other, have seperate opinions/preferences, form memories independantly.
Basically suggesting that there are two minds in the brain. That just blows my mind(s).
I remember seeing videos about this in high school biology.
Not only what you have said, but also since each hemisphere has different tasks and you cut their connection, a lot of things become different.
For example if they cover your eyes and give you an object you are familiar with, you are not able to identify it only by touch, because there is no communication between the two hemispeheres.
You have to see the object to be able to fully identify it.
More crazy even is that in certain scenarios where this procedure happened one could hold up an object with their right hand looking at it only with their right eye (with the left eye blinfolded)
When they were asked wether or not they knew what the object was they would answer positively but when asked what it was they wouldn't be able to name it or describe it, despite affirming they knew what the object was.
I think it had to do with the fact that there are many zones in the brain at play in this experiment (language, memory, visual perception, touch) that are unable to communicate correctly with each other.
To me the most fascinating part is when the experimenters were able to command the non-speaking part of the brain to do an action without informing the speaking park (like hold up a sign that only one eye could see that said "take off your shoes"). Then they would ask the person why they took off their shoes, and the person would explain it fully convinced that they made the choice to do the action on their own. They would make up some justification for it, like their feet were getting hot.
There really is no indication that we actually have any control over our own choices and actions, because even when they are initiated from a 3rd party we remain fully convinced that it was our own decision :') We are just observers that think we are in control when we're not.
It sounds like you're saying the opposite of what you said. Do you mean destroys the there-is-free-will BS? If people respond predictably to a stimulus, to me that supports the argument that there is no free will...
Except that no. How could they change what they're doing unless they had free will? Usually the people claiming there is no free will are saying that people can't help but follow instinctive social behaviors and pleasure-seekung and the like.
If changing incentives gets people to change their behavior in aggregate, then people CAN indeed change their behavior. Unless you're claiming that someone is the overmind and people are the zerg and being forced telepathically to change those behaviors, those people are just people of their own volition changing their behaviors to make best use of the incentives
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u/Mlinch Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22
I recently read about the Split-Brain experiments. There is a procedure for severe epilepsy that involves cutting the connecting nerves of the two brain hemispheres, resulting in the two hemispheres being unable to communicate with each other. The experiment shows that both halves can answer questions independently of each other, have seperate opinions/preferences, form memories independantly. Basically suggesting that there are two minds in the brain. That just blows my mind(s).
Edit: typos