cute but bullshit. The split brain does not extend to beliefs
but gives people problems with associating words and objects. A
person's semantic system is messed up that's all. they just
don't make certain connections that we take for granted. There's
a left-right side of the body split, and it apparently takes
both halves of the brain working together to be able to properly
associate objects and the names of objects - but it's not like
having two brains. It's more like having two bodies that don't
cooperate properly with all of their input signals.
But they learn over time how to adjust for the most part,
although some connections they continue to have problems with.
I've read up on blindsight - one of my favorite topics. I'm
mostly blind in my right eye and have crappy vision in my
left... BUT my left *ear* can't hear anything unless it's REALLY
LOUD - and my right ear only extends to 5000 hz.
Yet I have perfect pitch, great with math, etc.
So, I know experientially about having bad inputs going to
either side of the brain.
Blindsight - which I happen to be good at (as a kid I used to
walk around with my eyes closed, to practice full blindness,
which I never got yet) - and I have a strong awareness of what's
around me. If a ball is coming towards me and my eyes are
closed, I can catch it. It's not hard - it's just that our
bodies have OTHER senses that go beyond the original-5.
Blindsight is usually due to the mechanism that registers blue
light - the wake-sleep cycle. It's kind of like a "third eye"
but nothing that mystical. That, combined with other bodily
sensors that can register changes in the environment, blindsight
isn't really that strange of a concept. Ah - that reminds of me
of alien-hand syndrome.
Yeah, that's what makes it weird. Our *awareness* can be split
in such a way that the right hand doesn't know what the left
hand is doing - literally. But beliefs are over-rated things. We
all have beliefs and need them to navigate the world. I believe
this keyboard will be here while I type. It's a belief. Is it a
fact? Well, object permanence USUALLY doesn't let me down. Yet,
people die. Failure of object permanence and we cry like babies
from before we learned object permanence.
Belief is a weird mix of things but one thing about certainty -
certainty is an emotion. Doesn't matter of it's mathematician or
Bible thumper - all beliefs are emotions, even beliefs in
numbers, logic, etc, because certainty is an emotional state,
not a logical one.
