Following Split Brains
A few days ago, I wrote about multiple streams of consciousness and split brains. I gave reasons to think it wasn't the same that there were multiple streams of consciousness, but further into my reading from Richard Swinburne, he presents this thought experiment which I thought was interesting, but he gets it from someone else.
Suppose prior to your splitting of the brain, a mad scientist tells you that after your operation, in which he will put one half of our brain into one body and the other half into another body, he will torture one and set the other free with a million dollars. He then gives you the option of who to torture and who to let go. So the question here is, does it matter who you chose? If bundle theory is correct, then it wouldn't matter, because neither would be true. But that doesn't seem to be true. It does seem that it would matter who is tortured and who isn't, because you have a sense that you would be one of them, and you don't want to be the one tortured.
Suppose prior to your splitting of the brain, a mad scientist tells you that after your operation, in which he will put one half of our brain into one body and the other half into another body, he will torture one and set the other free with a million dollars. He then gives you the option of who to torture and who to let go. So the question here is, does it matter who you chose? If bundle theory is correct, then it wouldn't matter, because neither would be true. But that doesn't seem to be true. It does seem that it would matter who is tortured and who isn't, because you have a sense that you would be one of them, and you don't want to be the one tortured.
Comments
Post a Comment