Re:Not everyone should meditate
by rahoulb on Thursday March 03, 2022 @05:57AM
(#30539476)
The word "agency" is important there ...
There have been experiments on split brain patients (where there Corpus Callosum has been severed, so their two hemispheres no longer communicate), that seem to imply that the self is more of a way of monitoring and understanding what's going on and tying it all together.
For example, asking the subject, whispered in one ear, so only one hemisphere receives the request - "can you get me a can of Coke from the vending machine please, I'm really thirsty". Then when the subject returns, asking the other ear (and hence the other hemisphere) "why did you get that can?" - to which the subject replied "I thought I would need a drink on my way home" - in effect filling in an explanation for the "black box" behaviour their body was expressing.
There have been experiments on split brain patients (where there Corpus Callosum has been severed, so their two hemispheres no longer communicate), that seem to imply that the self is more of a way of monitoring and understanding what's going on and tying it all together.
For example, asking the subject, whispered in one ear, so only one hemisphere receives the request - "can you get me a can of Coke from the vending machine please, I'm really thirsty". Then when the subject returns, asking the other ear (and hence the other hemisphere) "why did you get that can?" - to which the subject replied "I thought I would need a drink on my way home" - in effect filling in an explanation for the "black box" behaviour their body was expressing.