Split brain people and democracy

[Pep]

Have you ever heard of split brain patients?. Those are people with the corpus callosum in their brains damaged. The corpus callosum is the pathway that connects both brain hemispheres. When it is damaged, the patient develops two separates conciousnesses in each of their hemispheres. It's not the same as dissociative identity disorders (DID), because in DID different personalities turn themselves in time to control the body. In split brain people the two conciousnesses coexist simultaneously.

Now, think about an science fiction case. Imagine a country (which calls itself "Democratic") that has such a case but has decided to make it public, without knowledge of the patient. Well, at least without knowledge of one of his two conciousness. Then imagine this country organizes something similar to "The Truman's show film" to justify themselves, with the total loss of privacity of (at least) one of the patient's conciousness. Imagine that instead the "pleasant life" of Truman, one of the conciousness is continuosly stalked (using organized and electronic stalking). Do you think such a thing could exist nowadays? Wouldn't it be the Orwellian nightmare of 1984 converted into reality (at least for the targeted conciousness)?.

I'm a spanish citizen and I don't know the laws of my country regarding split brain patients. I would like to know about the laws regarding this subjects in countries with a large democratic past like the US or UK. Those anybody know something about this? I know some american admendmets to their constitution guarantee true freedom and rights to their citizens. Do you know where I can obtain more information about the rights of each of the different conciousness of a split brain patient in US or UK?. If you know laws about this in other democratic countries I would also like to know, but I'm mainly interested in english speaking countries, as it's the only foreign language I know.

 

[AlpsStranger]

This is truly the most awesome question ever asked.

I think.

 

[Borachio]

It is awesomely awesome indeed.

I very much doubt there's any legislation on the issue. I think any legal questions arising would have to be dealt with on a case by case basis.

 

[Arwon]

How do you stalk only one of the consciousnesses?

 

[Yeekim]

When it is damaged, the patient develops two separates conciousnesses in each of their hemispheres.

I'm pretty sure that is not how it works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain

 

[Borachio]

It's surprisingly complicated.

In general, split-brained patients behave in a coordinated, purposeful and consistent manner, despite the independent, parallel, usually different and occasionally conflicting processing of the same information from the environment by the two disconnected hemispheres. When two hemispheres receive competing stimuli at the same time, the response mode tends to determine which hemisphere controls behavior.[11] Often, split-brained patients are indistinguishable from normal adults. This is due to the compensatory phenomena; split-brained patients progressively acquire a variety of strategies to get around their interhemispheric transfer deficits.

The dual brain theory claims that the two cerebral hemispheres of the brain may sense and react to the environment independently from one another and that as a result of emotionally traumatic experience, one half may dominate the other in order to reduce the traumatized hemisphere's exposure. In essence, the person has two minds.

 

[AlpsStranger]

So if one half of the split brain patient believes in Jesus and the other half doesn't and then you kill them both is there half a person in hell and half a person in heaven?

 

[Borachio]

That's just crazy talk, Mr A.

 

[timtofly]

Is this a discordian view, or does the other half not want to talk about it?

It seems prevalent in the first century, since Paul admonished all to be of one mind.

 

[Borachio]

Is this a discordian view, or does the other half not want to talk about it?

It seems prevalent in the first century, since Paul admonished all to be of one mind.

I like to think my brain is connected via the corpus callosum, thank you. I have no reason to think it isn't.

Paul, I've never had much time for. Though I think one should be single-minded ideally, in some ways.

 

[King Kalmah]

Thanks for mentioning this syndrome....I'll always be reading up on such things since they relate to me...

 

[GhostWriter16]

So if one half of the split brain patient believes in Jesus and the other half doesn't and then you kill them both is there half a person in hell and half a person in heaven?

I have no clue.

So I'm going to assume God would have mercy on the person and they'd go to Heaven

Unless they are actually two people. This is really confusing

 

[woody60707]

Who gets the soul?

 

[Ayatollah So]

It's surprisingly complicated.

One complication is that the lower brain provides some paths of communication (source):

What accounts for the normally unified everyday behavior of the patients (Sperry, 1968)? First, there are bihemispherically appreciated visual and manual explorations of space, including conjugate eye movements. For example, Hughes et al. (1992), cited in (Tramo et al., 1995), provided evidence for bidirectional gaze control in each hemisphere of patient JW Second, there is some bilateral representation of sensory information. Third, there is ongoing hormonal communication via blood and cerebrospinal fluid. Fourth, and most important, there are a variety of connecting subcallosal pathways in the cerebellum, midbrain, pens and both hypo- and subthalamus.

So, one-and-a-half people? Kinda one, kinda two.

 

[El_Machinae]

The two hemipheres cannot talk to each other in a rational sense. They'd have similar instinctive urges.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

The great thing about democracy in the UK and the US is that your vote will be counted equally no matter which of the two available parties you vote for.

I'm sure that a voter with a split-personality will have the same amount of power at the election booth as any other voter.

 

[GhostWriter16]

There's only one viable party in the US. Its called the War Party.