Confusion
We have two hemispheres in our brains; it is two brains each doing half the work of being you. Your two brains coordinate though a wire of nerves, but this wire can be cut and was for a time used as an epilepsy treatment. People remained almost the same during this split-brain situation while some post-split patients describe that while selecting their morning outfit with right hand left might come along to disagree. So what is happening? To investigate, remember right brain sees and controls one half, while left brain controls and sees the other. But only left brain can speak because that’s where the speech center is located. Right brain without this is mute. In normal brains this doesn’t matter because each half communicates across the wire with the other but split brains cant and thus, you can show just the right brain a word, ask the person: “what did you see”, you will hear them say, “nothing” because, left speaking brain saw nothing. Meanwhile, right brain will use its hand to pick the object out of a pile hidden from left brain. This is deeply creepy.
Separate Intelligence
Ask “why are you holding the object?” and speaking left brain will make up a plausible sounding but totally wrong reason. Left brain isn’t lying it’s just doing what brains do: creating a story that explains its past actions to its current self, a behavior which does rather cast doubt onto the notion of free will. And, when asked to draw, a split brain can draw two separate objects simultaneously with each hand, in a way un-split brains find challenging. These revelations about split-brains are unsettling because they really point in the direction of a mute separate intelligence living in the skull. You can even ask questions of a split brain and get disagreements on the answer.
You
So if your brain is split, who is the ‘you’ in this situation? From the outside, it is tempting to think of the part of the brain that’s speaking as the person but something is hearing and answering questions. And though right brain cat speak, it does understand faces, which left brain can’t. If this is you, you don’t know who your friends and family are in a crowd. So there are two minds in one head and the talking mind doesn’t know there’s someone else in the house. The left brain can describe the situation it’s in, but nonetheless will constantly be surprised by right brains actions and explain them away.
Separation
But why does right brain plays along helpfully after separation? One answer is that the cutting doesn’t make the right brain a separate consciousness or intelligence but rather it has always been so. In normal people right brain rose up to be companion without a choice. Feeling at first somewhat equal partners, but then as speech develops that it can’t participate in, it resigns to mutely co-ordinate with left brain. After all this, not much actually changes in your brain.
Transcripted By Benazir Elahee Munni