Divided Brains & Divided Minds
In my Metaphysics textbook, there is an article by David Parfit describing split brain experiments and its implications for the philosophy of mind. So, the experiments go something like this. You take a brain and you split it into the two hemispheres. Each part of the brain controls a different part of the body. Next, the patient is shown a card that is half blue and half red. Now, say the right eye is focused on the red, and the left eye is focused on the blue. Then ask the patient which color he sees, and his right arm will write red, and his left arm will write blue, but the patient cannot comprehend both at the same time. He thinks he only sees blue and he also thinks he only sees red. He cannot conjoin the two beliefs. What Parfit says this proves is that our conscious is not a unified thing. Consciousness is supposed to unify all beliefs, and this unified consciousness is what we call the self. But since we know that a single patient can have two streams of consci...