Hi Telmo,
On 04 Oct 2017, at 09:09, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Tue, Oct 3, 2017 at 8:47 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
On 03 Oct 2017, at 15:11, Telmo Menezes wrote:
I think this is quite interesting, although the article is a bit
superficial.
https://aeon.co/ideas/when-you-split-the-brain-do-you-split-the-person
If the conclusions are valid, I would say they put emergentism in
trouble...
Really?
May be I am just tired, and I will have to rethink about this, but
I do not
see why. You might elaborate, when you have the time of course.
Well, in my view emergentism proposes that consciousness emerges from
highly complex / integrated networked activity (see, for example,
Integrated Information Theory). Further, it assumes that it is
possible to detect consciousness (or degrees of consciousness) by
observing external behavior. This leads to attempts to find neural
correlates for consciousness, minimal conscious networks and so on. It
answers the questions: "why am I conscious entity and not my cells?"
and "why is my consciousness distinct from yours?" by saying that this
is because only a sufficiently complex and integrated network can be
conscious.
Cutting the corpus callosum amounts to destroying a large part of the
bridge neurons in the brain. Bridge nodes in a network theory are
nodes that belong to a large number of shortest-distance paths between
pairs of any other nodes. It is trivial to show that removing
connections from bridge nodes increases the modularity of a network,
which is to say, reduces its integration.
However, the experiment in the article shows that this increase in
modularity does not translate to major observable behavioral changes
nor does it split the consciousness in two. More specifically, it
shows that a single consciousness can remain coherent even with much
lower information integration.
In my view, this result would be less fishy for emergentism if split
personality occurred, because then it could be argued that the high
complexity / integration of each hemisphere was enough to generate one
stream of consciousness.
Hmm... may be. I am not sure about this. I would be with Stathis on
this one. I have not got the time to read the Ayahuasca paper, but I
am skeptical that this bear on consciousness. It might bear on the
more elusive notion of personal identity though, and that is
interesting, but well, that is certainly out of the scope of
theoretical analysis. Not sure about that entropic theory of the
brain. It might be contingently correct, but tells more about the
brain functioning than the first person perception per se.
The problem also, with those experiences, is that only the cortex
is split,
but the two persons inherit the same cerebral stem, and same limbic
systems.
So the argument might depend on their role in consciousness and
personhood.
The brain is very flexible, and if you cut the corpus callosum, it
still
communicates by those substructures. There might be two persons,
but just
slightly dissociated from one.
Yes, I agree with you and David that this is the likely reason why
personality doesn't split. When I have a bit of time, I will look for
literature on brain topology. It must be possible to have an
estimation of the connection density on the brain stem, limbic system
and corpus callosum. From there it might be possible to estimate the
increase in modularity. My speculation is that this might be
sufficient to falsify, at least, Integrated Information Theory.
That would be nice. My feeling is that there is something plausibly
correct, but not necessarily fundamental. It might be important when
brain are implemented in four dimensional space-time. If fundamental,
then it might be used to derived geometrical physics from arithmetic
and self-reference, but that is just day dreaming today!
I tend to think we are all already very numerous in our head and
body. My
belly can give orders to my brain, and my heart can tergiverse!
Yes :) With what emergentism proposes, it should be possible to count
the hosts in our mind by analyzing network topology. Long story short,
for me the fact that severely increasing the separation between two
clusters does not noticeably produce a split in personality is not
good news for that theory. But it's not a falsification per se, of
course.
The development of such approach will, no doubt, put some light on
personal identity, but it can be misleading to conclude too quickly on
consciousness.
Salvia might help here, as it leads to experiences which are easy to
repeat, and short, and less nauseous than ingestion of Ayahuasca!
Also, the salvia experience is typically assymetrical. many people
tlak about the dispariation of the "left world", like with hemi-
negligence (except this one is denied by the subject).
I am ready for the Electro-Encephalography! I can brought the salvia!
All the best,
Bruno
Telmo.
Best!
Bruno
Cheers,
Telmo.
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