GrahamH wrote:I suspect they might having something a little like blindsight of the other's eyes. One video showed one reaching for an object only in the other's line of sight. It looked very uncoordinated, like groping in a direction that might be using a general sense of location rather than a clear view.

This might make sense given the connection is in thalamus.

There is evidence[8] that the twins' can see through each other's eyes due to brain conjoining. Their thalamuses are joined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krista_and_Tatiana_Hogan

To put it in a more complex way, recent physiological findings suggest that visual processing takes place along several independent, parallel pathways. One system processes information about shape, one about color, and one about movement, location and spatial organization. This information moves through an area of the brain called the lateral geniculate nucleus, located in the thalamus, and on to be processed in the primary visual cortex, area V1 (also known as the striate cortex because of its striped appearance). People with damage to V1 report no conscious vision, no visual imagery, and no visual images in their dreams. However, some of these people still experience the blindsight phenomenon. (Kalat, 2009)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight ... s_involved

It isn't blindsight - each girl can actually SEE through the eyes of the other! That's actual sight, not blindsight. There's a neural pathway from one brain to the other, that enables it. They are thought to be unique in the world for that.
A more sensible point is how are the two fields of view merged?

Until someone gets a Hogan girl to draw what she sees while the other is fixing her gaze on something, we will not know exactly what is going on with their vision.

"Could we suppose two distinct incommunicable consciousnesses acting the same body, the one constantly by day, the other by night; and on the other side the same consciousness acting by intervals two distinct bodies: I ask in the first case, whether the Day and the Night-man would not be two as distinct persons, as Socrates and Plato; and whether in the second case, there would not be one person in two distinct bodies, as much as one man is the same in two distinct clothings."

(Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 1690. Book II, ch. XXVII, §23)

A baby in a womb:

1 body, 1 C?
1 body, 2 C?
2 body, 1 C?
2 body, 2 C?

Presumably you mean 'a fetus in a womb'.
But of what age or stage of development?

tolman wrote:Presumably you mean 'a fetus in a womb'.
But of what age or stage of development?

If pl0bs is a panpsychist then every grain of sand on a beach is many. many consciousnesses. One foetus, innumerable C.
How the multitude of private subjectives could possibly merge to become one (or 2, 3 etc...) distinct private subjective human mind(s) is an ineffable mystery.

Posts 364 and 366 both rely on the same religion.

People keep saying that it is absolutely impossible and ineffably mysterious for multiple consciousnesses to merge. I actually opened this topic precisely to debunk such claims, to see how those dusty philosophical ponderings hold up against the latest scientific knowledge.

For example, what about split-brain patients then? And what about the human brain, which consists of many particles? If each one supposedly has an individual mind that supposedly cannot merge into a larger one, then how is it that we actually do have a human mind that integrates all the different senses?

What exactly remains of the claim that it is surely impossible to link/merge multiple individual consciousnesses?

pl0bs wrote:People keep saying that it is absolutely impossible and ineffably mysterious for multiple consciousnesses to merge. I actually opened this topic precisely to debunk such claims, to see how those dusty philosophical ponderings hold up against the latest scientific knowledge.

For example, what about split-brain patients then? And what about the human brain, which consists of many particles? If each one supposedly has an individual mind that supposedly cannot merge into a larger one, then how is it that we actually do have a human mind that integrates all the different senses?

What exactly remains of the claim that it is surely impossible to link/merge multiple individual consciousnesses?

Earlier You mentioned Crash Bandicoot. It is easy to understand how a physical system can generate multiple virtual entities that have personal properties and behaviour. Clearly this in no way implies that Crash Badicoot-ness is a property of the matter that constitutes the system generating these characters. This is your blatant error.

To extend your reasoning ( ) up in scale, do you suppose that a gathering of humans results in a separate subjective consciousness of the crowd, which has it's own experiences that are private and unknown to the individual humans in the crowd?

GrahamH wrote:Earlier You mentioned Crash Bandicoot. It is easy to understand how a physical system can generate multiple virtual entities that have personal properties and behaviour. Clearly this in no way implies that Crash Badicoot-ness is a property of the matter that constitutes the system generating these characters. This is your blatant error.

Actually, here you are making the mistake of assuming that software is some nonphysical thing. It isnt.

To extend your reasoning ( ) up in scale, do you suppose that a gathering of humans results in a separate subjective consciousness of the crowd, which has it's own experiences that are private and unknown to the individual humans in the crowd?

Why restrict the issue to a mere geopraphical proximity ("gathering")? The different parts of a split brain are also in close proximity, yet that alone seems not enough to merge them into a single consciousness.

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:Earlier You mentioned Crash Bandicoot. It is easy to understand how a physical system can generate multiple virtual entities that have personal properties and behaviour. Clearly this in no way implies that Crash Badicoot-ness is a property of the matter that constitutes the system generating these characters. This is your blatant error.

Actually, here you are making the mistake of assuming that software is some nonphysical thing. It isnt.

No, I'm not. In this example it is clearly the activity of physical things. What it is no is some essential property of the physical bits, which is your mistake.

pl0bs wrote:

To extend your reasoning ( ) up in scale, do you suppose that a gathering of humans results in a separate subjective consciousness of the crowd, which has it's own experiences that are private and unknown to the individual humans in the crowd?

Why restrict the issue to a mere geopraphical proximity ("gathering")? The different parts of a split brain are also in close proximity, yet that alone seems not enough to merge them into a single consciousness.

That is as far from an answer as you could get. Do you have any ideas on how conscious bits with their own private experience of being bits can combine to produce your own private experience of being you, and not of being bits?

GrahamH wrote:No, I'm not. In this example it is clearly the activity of physical things. What it is no is some essential property of the physical bits, which is your mistake.

Whats a physical bit? And what is not "essential" about it? Essential to who? Look you had some fairytale conception of there being a semi-mental crash bandicoot inside playstations, or that they exist in some kind of virtual reality(?). I brought you back to reality by showing its a piece of physical hardware. Remember the rock computer? Which part of it is virtual? Which part of rocks isnt essential? This is the problem with people who believe something magical happens inside computers just because they are complex (which happens to be exactly the same error materialists make with complex brains).

pl0bs wrote:

To extend your reasoning ( ) up in scale, do you suppose that a gathering of humans results in a separate subjective consciousness of the crowd, which has it's own experiences that are private and unknown to the individual humans in the crowd?

Why restrict the issue to a mere geopraphical proximity ("gathering")? The different parts of a split brain are also in close proximity, yet that alone seems not enough to merge them into a single consciousness.

That is as far from an answer as you could get. Do you have any ideas on how conscious bits with their own private experience of being bits can combine to produce your own private experience of being you, and not of being bits?

Well according to you it is absolutely impossible to either merge or split consciousness, so how do you account for split-brain patients then?

What is the reasoning behind this idea that it is impossible?

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:No, I'm not. In this example it is clearly the activity of physical things. What it is no is some essential property of the physical bits, which is your mistake.

Whats a physical bit? And what is not "essential" about it? Essential to who? Look you had some fairytale conception of there being a semi-mental crash bandicoot inside playstations, or that they exist in some kind of virtual reality(?). I brought you back to reality by showing its a piece of physical hardware. Remember the rock computer? Which part of it is virtual? Which part of rocks isnt essential? This is the problem with people who believe something magical happens inside computers just because they are complex (which happens to be exactly the same error materialists make with complex brains).

What a waste of time. You are arguing against yourself.
'Semi-mental'? What bollocks is that? Your fantasy.
CB is activity of a physical system, just like you and I and there is no essential-mental involved.

pl0bs wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

To extend your reasoning ( ) up in scale, do you suppose that a gathering of humans results in a separate subjective consciousness of the crowd, which has it's own experiences that are private and unknown to the individual humans in the crowd?

Why restrict the issue to a mere geopraphical proximity ("gathering")? The different parts of a split brain are also in close proximity, yet that alone seems not enough to merge them into a single consciousness.

That is as far from an answer as you could get. Do you have any ideas on how conscious bits with their own private experience of being bits can combine to produce your own private experience of being you, and not of being bits?

Well according to you it is absolutely impossible to either merge or split consciousness, so how do you account for split-brain patients then?

What is the reasoning behind this idea that it is impossible?

Where did you pull that from? I have not argued that multiple 'minds' cannot be supported by single brains. Indeed that fits the physicality self-model concept perfectly. Of course, if mind is just patterns of some types of activity in physical systems there is no necessarily one-to-one relationship.

What I argue against is the possibility that panpsychism can account for it. Something you have once again completely failed even to attempt.

Split brain patients count against you. How can you not see that?

GrahamH wrote:What a waste of time. You are arguing against yourself.
'Semi-mental'? What bollocks is that? Your fantasy.
CB is activity of a physical system, just like you and I and there is no essential-mental involved.

Then why are you talking about "essential properties" of physical bits?
w
t
f

You are stuck in this view where you confuse your own interpretation of software with the actual plain physical nature of software. Believing that crash bandicoot is a virtual entity that is "not of a property of physical matter" is equivalent to believing that turning over the pages of a book creates unphysical charactars and their lives.

Where did you pull that from? I have not argued that multiple 'minds' cannot be supported by single brains. Indeed that fits the physicality self-model concept perfectly. Of course, if mind is just patterns of some types of activity in physical systems there is no necessarily one-to-one relationship.

First of all, if mind is physical, what do you mean there is no one-to-one relationship?

Secondly, do you think single minds can be split into multiple/that multiple minds can be integrated into one? Or do you think this is impossible and "ineffably mysterious"?

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:What a waste of time. You are arguing against yourself.
'Semi-mental'? What bollocks is that? Your fantasy.
CB is activity of a physical system, just like you and I and there is no essential-mental involved.

Then why are you talking about "essential properties" of physical bits?

YOU are talking about essential properties of physical bits - panpsychism.

pl0bs wrote:You are stuck in this view where you confuse your own interpretation of software with the actual plain physical nature of software. Believing that crash bandicoot is a virtual entity that is "not of a property of physical matter" is equivalent to believing that turning over the pages of a book creates unphysical charactars and their lives.

No, I don't. 'software' is a description of the behaviour of some physical systems. The suggestion is that minds are likewise behaviours of some physical systems.

pl0bs wrote:

Where did you pull that from? I have not argued that multiple 'minds' cannot be supported by single brains. Indeed that fits the physicality self-model concept perfectly. Of course, if mind is just patterns of some types of activity in physical systems there is no necessarily one-to-one relationship.

First of all, if mind is physical, what do you mean there is no one-to-one relationship?

Obviously I mean that minds, or Crash Bandicoots, are not essential properties of physical bits, they are patterns of activity of physical systems. There are no particular parts in your Playstation that are the essential CrashBandicoot, but any Playstation can start, or stop, acting in Crash Bandicoot ways.

pl0bs wrote:Secondly, do you think single minds can be split into multiple/that multiple minds can be integrated into one? Or do you think this is impossible and "ineffably mysterious"?

FFS. I think YOUR notion of panpsychism leave the issue ineffably mysterious but my physicalist notion readily allows for such things. Hence split brain patients support my position but do nothing for yours.

GrahamH wrote:YOU are talking about essential properties of physical bits - panpsychism.

Nupsels, you made such a claim.

No, I don't. 'software' is a description of the behaviour of some physical systems. The suggestion is that minds are likewise behaviours of some physical systems.

I hope you arent suggesting that mind is a description, because then you are back at square one: who describes the mind then? Its the same old "mind is an illusion" bit. Such ideas are the exact opposite of physicalism, since they require the existence of a previous mind to account for the human mind.

Obviously I mean that minds, or Crash Bandicoots, are not essential properties of physical bits, they are patterns of activity of physical systems. There are no particular parts in your Playstation that are the essential CrashBandicoot, but any Playstation can start, or stop, acting in Crash Bandicoot ways.

We are just talking about electricity following the path of the least resistence() here. The crash bandicoot part will not offer any new insights.

FFS. I think YOUR notion of panpsychism leave the issue ineffably mysterious but my physicalist notion readily allows for such things. Hence split brain patients support my position but do nothing for yours.

So you do think its possible for minds to merge/split, yet when it comes to panpsychism, suddenly this is absolutely impossible and ineffably mysterious?

Also, if you yourself think its possible for minds to merge/split, then on what do you base the conclusion that individual particles must have individual minds?

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:YOU are talking about essential properties of physical bits - panpsychism.

Nupsels, you made such a claim.

Are you arguing for panspychism or not?

pl0bs wrote:

FFS. I think YOUR notion of panpsychism leave the issue ineffably mysterious but my physicalist notion readily allows for such things. Hence split brain patients support my position but do nothing for yours.

So you do think its possible for minds to merge/split, yet when it comes to panpsychism, suddenly this is absolutely impossible and ineffably mysterious?

Of course. A flock of birds, a storm, a cloud of electrons or a solution of molecules can divide or merge because there is no private internal subjective essence splitting or merging. All that happens is that some go this way and some go that way. The dace varies. In panpsychism we must suppose that the mysterious private subjective that is me is a combination of private subjectives that are not me, that multiple experience of others can become quite different experience for me. How could that possibly work?

pl0bs wrote:Also, if you yourself think its possible for minds to merge/split, then on what do you base the conclusion that individual particles must have individual minds?

Of course, as I have explained many times, I do not think minds in YOUR conception of panpsychism could split or merge, but of course in physiclaism it is not a problem since there is NOTHING ESSENTIAL about consciousness so it is just the stuff in motion moving different patterns.

Come on pl0bs, try to justify the notion that panpsychim makes any sense at all. You might be able to do it. How can an essential private subjectivity of parts amount to a quite distinct private subjectivity of a whole human? What separate the subjectivities of such 'whole humans' one from another?

GrahamH wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:YOU are talking about essential properties of physical bits - panpsychism.

Nupsels, you made such a claim.

Are you arguing for panspychism or not?

No.

Of course. A flock of birds, a storm, a cloud of electrons or a solution of molecules can divide or merge because there is no private internal subjective essence splitting or merging. All that happens is that some go this way and some go that way. The dace varies. In panpsychism we must suppose that the mysterious private subjective that is me is a combination of private subjectives that are not me, that multiple experience of others can become quite different experience for me. How could that possibly work?

It happens in split-brain patients, no? How can you reject panpsychism on such grounds then?

Of course, as I have explained many times, I do not think minds in YOUR conception of panpsychism could split or merge, but of course in physiclaism it is not a problem since there is NOTHING ESSENTIAL about consciousness so it is just the stuff in motion moving different patterns.

Come on pl0bs, try to justify the notion that panpsychim makes any sense at all. You might be able to do it. How can an essential private subjectivity of parts amount to a quite distinct private subjectivity of a whole human? What separate the subjectivities of such 'whole humans' one from another?

I think you have me confused with someone else.

But to get to the point: you think the seperation of multiple human minds (and possible merger) is ineffably mysterious/impossible, yet this principally equivalent to what happens with a split-brain inside a single skull.

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:Are you arguing for panspychism or not?

No.

OK, what is your position?

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:YOU are talking about essential properties of physical bits - panpsychism.

Nupsels, you made such a claim.

Are you arguing for panspychism or not?

No.

Of course. A flock of birds, a storm, a cloud of electrons or a solution of molecules can divide or merge because there is no private internal subjective essence splitting or merging. All that happens is that some go this way and some go that way. The dace varies. In panpsychism we must suppose that the mysterious private subjective that is me is a combination of private subjectives that are not me, that multiple experience of others can become quite different experience for me. How could that possibly work?

It happens in split-brain patients, no? How can you reject panpsychism on such grounds then?

...

AFAIK, panspychism does not restrict itself to split brain patients. Therefore, it should be rejected as an explanation of the behaviour of split-brain patients (or anyone else). Such patients really do have two personalities, sharing one body, because the two brain hemispheres function entirely separately in the absence of the corpus callosum, having their own opinions, etc.