different, even in mutually conflicting, mental experiences that run along in parallel.”
When I interviewed Dr. Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, an authority on split-brain patients,I asked him how experiments can be done to test this theory. There are a variety of ways to communicate separately to each hemisphere without the knowledge of the other hemisphere. One can, for example, have the subject wear special glasses on which questions can be shown to each eye separately, so that directing questions to each hemisphere is easy. The hard part is trying to get an answer from each hemisphere. Since the right brain cannot speak (the speech centers are located only in the left brain), it is difficult to get answers from the right brain. Dr. Gazzaniga told me that to find out what the right brain was thinking, he created an experiment in which the (mute) right brain could “talk” by using Scrabble letters.
He began by asking the patient’s left brain what he would do after graduation. The patient replied that he wanted to become a draftsman. But things got interesting when the (mute) right brain was asked the same question. The right brain spelled out the words: “automobile racer.” Unknown to the dominant left brain, the right brain secretly had a completely different agenda for the future. The right brain literally had a mind of its own.
Rita Carter writes, “The possible implications of this are mind-boggling. It suggests that we might all be carrying around in our skulls a mute prisoner with a personality, ambition, and self-awareness quite different from the day-to-day entity we believe ourselves to be.”
Perhaps there is truth to the oft-heard statement that “inside him, there is someone yearning to be free.” This means that the two hemispheres may even have different beliefs. For example, the neurologist V. S. Ramanchandran describes one split-brain patient who, when asked if he was a believer or not, said he was an atheist, but his right brain declared he was a believer. Apparently, it is possible to have two opposing religious beliefs residing in the same brain. Ramachandran continues: “If that person dies, what happens? Does one hemisphere go to heaven and the other go to hell? I don’t know the answer to that.”
(It is conceivable, therefore, that a person with a split-brain personality might be both Republican and Democrat at the same time. If you ask him whom he will vote for, he will give you the candidate of the left brain, since the right brain cannot speak. But you can imagine the chaos in the voting booth when he has to pull the lever with one hand.)
WHO IS IN CHARGE?
One person who has spent considerable time and done much research to understand the problem of the subconscious mind is Dr. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine. When I interviewed him, I asked him, If most of our mental processes are subconscious, then why are we ignorant of this important fact? He gave an example ofa young king who inherits the throne and takes credit for everything in the kingdom, but hasn’t the slightest clue about the thousands of staff, soldiers, and peasants necessary to maintain the throne.
Our choice of politicians, marriage partners, friends, and future occupationsare all influenced by things that we are not conscious of. (For example, it is an odd result, he says, that “people named Denise or Dennis are disproportionately likely to become dentists, while people named Laura or Lawrence are more likely to become lawyers, and people with names like George or Georgina to become geologists.”) This also means that what we consider to be “reality” is only an approximation that the brain makes to fill in the gaps. Each of us sees reality in a slightly different way. For example, he pointed out,“at least 15 percent of human females possess a genetic mutation that gives them an extra (fourth) type of color photoreceptor—and this
When I interviewed Dr. Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, an authority on split-brain patients,I asked him how experiments can be done to test this theory. There are a variety of ways to communicate separately to each hemisphere without the knowledge of the other hemisphere. One can, for example, have the subject wear special glasses on which questions can be shown to each eye separately, so that directing questions to each hemisphere is easy. The hard part is trying to get an answer from each hemisphere. Since the right brain cannot speak (the speech centers are located only in the left brain), it is difficult to get answers from the right brain. Dr. Gazzaniga told me that to find out what the right brain was thinking, he created an experiment in which the (mute) right brain could “talk” by using Scrabble letters.
He began by asking the patient’s left brain what he would do after graduation. The patient replied that he wanted to become a draftsman. But things got interesting when the (mute) right brain was asked the same question. The right brain spelled out the words: “automobile racer.” Unknown to the dominant left brain, the right brain secretly had a completely different agenda for the future. The right brain literally had a mind of its own.
Rita Carter writes, “The possible implications of this are mind-boggling. It suggests that we might all be carrying around in our skulls a mute prisoner with a personality, ambition, and self-awareness quite different from the day-to-day entity we believe ourselves to be.”
Perhaps there is truth to the oft-heard statement that “inside him, there is someone yearning to be free.” This means that the two hemispheres may even have different beliefs. For example, the neurologist V. S. Ramanchandran describes one split-brain patient who, when asked if he was a believer or not, said he was an atheist, but his right brain declared he was a believer. Apparently, it is possible to have two opposing religious beliefs residing in the same brain. Ramachandran continues: “If that person dies, what happens? Does one hemisphere go to heaven and the other go to hell? I don’t know the answer to that.”
(It is conceivable, therefore, that a person with a split-brain personality might be both Republican and Democrat at the same time. If you ask him whom he will vote for, he will give you the candidate of the left brain, since the right brain cannot speak. But you can imagine the chaos in the voting booth when he has to pull the lever with one hand.)
WHO IS IN CHARGE?
One person who has spent considerable time and done much research to understand the problem of the subconscious mind is Dr. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine. When I interviewed him, I asked him, If most of our mental processes are subconscious, then why are we ignorant of this important fact? He gave an example ofa young king who inherits the throne and takes credit for everything in the kingdom, but hasn’t the slightest clue about the thousands of staff, soldiers, and peasants necessary to maintain the throne.
Our choice of politicians, marriage partners, friends, and future occupationsare all influenced by things that we are not conscious of. (For example, it is an odd result, he says, that “people named Denise or Dennis are disproportionately likely to become dentists, while people named Laura or Lawrence are more likely to become lawyers, and people with names like George or Georgina to become geologists.”) This also means that what we consider to be “reality” is only an approximation that the brain makes to fill in the gaps. Each of us sees reality in a slightly different way. For example, he pointed out,“at least 15 percent of human females possess a genetic mutation that gives them an extra (fourth) type of color photoreceptor—and this
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