Our latest theory - even singlets are not really singlets

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

And this one is based ENTIRELY on scientific fact:

Even singular people are not really singular. Singlets are made of at least four minds:

1. Left brain conscious
2. Right brain conscious
3. Left brain subconscious
4. Right brain subconscious

And think about it... even singlets are made up of at least two different *brains.* Not just minds, but BRAINS. Scientists call these two brains "halves" of one brain, but it really is two brains that communicate with one another and act as one. If you sever the flimsy connection they have with one another, then it literally is two minds in one body that literally don't know what the other is doing. This has been done before. The people it was done to were freaked out by one hand doing one thing and the other doing something entirely different. In the case I heard about, the right hand would be perfectly still while the left hand was inappropriately touching his wife. And of course, anyone with a basic knowledge of the brain knows that the RIGHT brain controls the LEFT side of the body, and vice versa.

Also, in children, when you cut one brain out, the other will take over the functions of the missing brain, but it will be divided (one mass, with each half being Left or Right). Yet, being one brain now, the connection between the two "halves" can no longer be so easily severed. (In fact, it becomes an impossibility, which leads to another question... are people with half a brain actually SMARTER than whole-brained people? We don't have an opinion on this question yet.)

Fascinating to note, the same cannot be done to adults. Cut one of the brains of an adult away, and the individual will die, because <speculation>the two have lived so long with each other that they can no longer function as individuals. </speculation>

One last thing: look at the descriptions of each brain:

1. Left brain: Logical, reasonable, calculating. Good with math, spacial relationships, and linear thinking. Sucks at emotions, creativity, abstract thought, non-linear thinking, and sponteneity.

2. Right brain: Spontaneous, creative, emotional. Good with abstract thought and non-linear thinking. Sucks at logic, reason, math, spacial relationships, and linear thinking.

Now don't those sound like descriptions of personalities of people to you?

Anyway, food for thought.

X-posted at my LJ.

Edit: It should be noted that the two brains connect also at the primitive part of the brain, but their connection with each other there is severely limited.

Edit 2: The thing that connects the two brains is the corpus callosum. Here are some pages about the effects of severing it:
http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/split-brain.html

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=severed+corpus+callosum

http://www.pbs.org/safarchive/4_class/45_pguides/pguide_703/4573_manbrain.html

A comparison of Left and Right brains:

http://www.funderstanding.com/right_left_brain.cfm

More: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=left+brain

About split-brains:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/1997/JULY/970707.HTM

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/100/2/163

http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtools/articlearchives/humanbody/lifewithhalfabrain.htm

More: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=children+with+half+a+brain

Comments

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

The thing that connects the two brains is the corpus callosum. Here are some pages about the effects of severing it:
http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/split-brain.html

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=severed+corpus+callosum

http://www.pbs.org/safarchive/4_class/45_pguides/pguide_703/4573_manbrain.html

A comparison of Left and Right brains:

http://www.funderstanding.com/right_left_brain.cfm

More: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=left+brain

About split-brains:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/1997/JULY/970707.HTM

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/100/2/163

http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtools/articlearchives/humanbody/lifewithhalfabrain.htm

More: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=children+with+half+a+brain

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Now don't those sound like descriptions of personalities to you?

I'm having some trouble understanding what you mean by personalities here. We're people, not personalities. Also, our system isn't one of the kinds where everyone 'represents' an archetype or a part of the brain or something. Those don't sound like descriptions of anyone in here-- we would all just seem like regular people if we got our own bodies tomorrow. We don't have people who are all logical all the time, or all creative all the time-- we all have a little of both, just like single people with their own bodies.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Point taken, poor choice of words. See the edit.

[linnai.livejournal.com]

Not sure I understand what you mean, but from what I read, it just sounds like normal function of a single person. All of us here have a 'logical' and 'artistic' side, just like right and left brain function.

Just because one of us is good at mathematics doesn't mean they aren't also kickass at something like watercolor painting...

Also, there is an operation done on adult epileptic patients wherein the two hemispheres of the brain are severed from one another, so it can be done to adults as well.

All in all I think the description is interesting, because the mind/brain is a fascinating thing, but it seems a bit stretched.

-the mutt

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Granted, the four minds that make up singlets are less complex individually than complete people, but that does not necessarily mean they're not still minds. Look at animals... they have simpler minds than humans do, it doesn't make them mindless though.

[linnai.livejournal.com]

They aren't minds. They're the four parts that make ONE mind.

[kasiawhisper.livejournal.com]

single-minded peoples are made up of 4 minds? I'm confused..

[pengke.livejournal.com]

Not quite. You should do a little more research before you decide to write things like this. You have two hemispheres of your cerebrum. You do not have two brains. Also, conciousness and subconsciousness are not physical. Consciousness is a construct that is probably the sum of all of the areas of our brain working in conjunction.

Cerebral dominance is the term used to identify which hemisphere is dominant in language skills. Generally, this will be the left hemisphere. Usually, the right hemisphere is associated with visual-spatial skills, intuition, emotion, and arts. The left is associated with language skills, mathematical skills, and logic. For some people, the hemispheres are reversed and the right side is dominant in languages. For some people, neither hemisphere is dominant. While one hemisphere is dominant in one skill or task, the other hemisphere will be dominant on other occasions. A person can not be truly right or left- brained dominant all the time. The personality features that you can find in papers that discuss cerebral dominance derive these personality traits from the neurological skills necessary to display those personality traits. It is not saying that the two halves of your cerebrum have different personalities.

Thanks.

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

I knew enough about this to think "Er not quite", but I couldn't describe the objections from a biology perspective coherently in a fashion that wasn't talking out of my ass.

--Me

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

1. Left brain: Logical, reasonable, calculating. Good with math, spacial relationships, and linear thinking. Sucks at emotions, creativity, abstract thought, non-linear thinking, and sponteneity.

2. Right brain: Spontaneous, creative, emotional. Good with abstract thought and non-linear thinking. Sucks at logic, reason, math, spacial relationships, and linear thinking.

Now don't those sound like descriptions of personalities to you?

In a word, no.

It sounds like different types of information processing, which could be influenced perhaps, by the personalities of the people in a system, but that doesn't, in and of itself make it an accurate description of said people, or their respective personalities.

--Me

[kasiawhisper.livejournal.com]

the right hand would be perfectly still while the left hand was inappropriately touching his wife.

o.O the hell? it's the evil hand!

yessss....

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

the sinister hand ;-)

Re: yessss....

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

Now you've got me thinking of "Idle Hands" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138510/).

--Me

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Not evil. It just doesn't know what the other brain is up to anymore. See the new edit.

[kasiawhisper.livejournal.com]

is confused..

._.

an analogy

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

If you make a big projection holograph of an object, you
will see a projection of the object if you put the holograph
in laser light.

With the big holograph you can see from many perspectives.

If you drop the holograph breaking it into pieces, each piece
still contains the WHOLE image, just from a different perspective.

"Scientific" Theories

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

2c. Cite this. If it's FACT, I want to see the source.

Seconded. If this theory is worth it's salt, you should be able to cite sources, and point us to the studies that were referenced, so that we could draw the same supposedly clear conclusion.

--Me

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

See the new edit. Sources cited.

[miss-sephiroth.livejournal.com]

Going by that (ridiculous) theory, that means I must have a million billion personalities, all for the individual cells that I am made up of!

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

The minds of the parts of the brain are obviously quite simple on their own, and get simpler the farther you go down.

Actually, though, it is true that your mind is the collective consciousness of your entire body. Why else do you think you feel pain where the damage is, rather than in the brain? Logically, you would think the brain would feel it and yet know where the damage really was. But no, it's felt in the damaged part.

All theories are rediculous until they become accepted. People used to think it was rediculous that the world would be round and going around the sun. Really, I could care less who believes me because it doesn't really matter to me what others think. Whether my theories are ever accepted or not does not matter. I just put them out there for people to mull over.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

You are "theorizing" about concepts that you don't understand. You are using incorrect ideas to come up with so-called theories that have already be completely invalidated by neuroscience. Pulling out the old Gallileo argument can't change that.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

You are not worth my time.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

If you don't like it, don't read it. And please save us all some valuable time and stop wasting time by replying. If you have nothing nice to say, then please just shut the eff up.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

*Stares at you like you've sprouted a second head, looks back and forth between my words and your reply, then shakes head sadly.*

That was me, by the way (Alexander)

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

That was me, by the way (Alexander).

[melange-fiesta.livejournal.com]

Babe, I know that even singlets are not really singlets. Not a person in the world uses ONLY one half of the brain.

[melange-fiesta.livejournal.com]

Although, as other people have pointed out, that doesn't mean every singlet has two personalities JUST because of right brain / left brain. It doesn't work like that.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Complex systems are made of simple parts. Cells on their own have simple reflexes. Groups of cells are a bit more complex (and if you think groups of cells have no mind, then I ask you, where do trees keep their brain? Where is a jellyfish's brain?), as brain pieces are added to a brain, the mind gets more complex. I think the right and left brains have personalities like a dog or a cat... they can feel and they can think in images, and they can process data, and they are have less complex personalities, but together they come together to make a complex human mind.

Plus, there are some unexplained and unknown aspects to the human brain that seem to make it prone to be able to have more than one complex mind inside of it. Anyone who's ever had imaginary friends or been a convincing actor has at least some weaker form of multiplicity. And the truth is, multiples and mid-continuum people were far more accepted in the old Pagan days and often became shamans or clergy because of their ability to "shapeshift" into animals or to channel Deities and whatnot.

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

However, the question is: do these "simple parts" constitute a personality, or person, as indicated by a person when referring to those within their system?

To put it in other terms, is a cell, or even an organ, the same thing as a human being?

--Me

"And this one is based ENTIRELY on scientific fact:"

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

From the funderstandting (http://www.funderstanding.com/right_left_brain.cfm) site (Emphasis mine):

This theory of the structure and functions of the mind suggests that the two different sides of the brain control two different "modes" of thinking. It also suggests that each of us prefers one mode over the other.

This is a theory, which means that it is unproven. Your usage of "fact" implies proven fact, although it could be used to mean that which can be proven or disproven, regardless of it's accuracy or correctness, which would actually add little weight to the arguement.

It is also referring to a person having a preference for certain modes of thinking, not personalities, personas, or persons, as meant when discussing multiplicity.

Having an aptitude for artand math does not make someone two people.

--Me

Re: "And this one is based ENTIRELY on scientific fact:"

[duathir.livejournal.com]

"This is a theory, which means that it is unproven."

That is not correct:

"A scientific theory is an established and experimentally verified fact or collection of facts about the world. Unlike the everyday use of the word theory, it is not an unproved idea, or just some theoretical speculation. The latter meaning of a 'theory' in science is called a hypothesis."
~Definitions of theory (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&defl=en&q=define:theory)

A premise may be 'based on' scientific fact without itself being either factual or scientific. The premise under scrutiny here seems to be based in part on established facts, but more on untested or untestable hypotheses. Therefore it may at best be considered 'speculation beyond the data', though the dubious assertion that it is "based on fact" might tend to push it toward the less-respectable category, 'not even wrong'.

"Having an aptitude for art and math does not make someone two people."

Well-said.