Thread: Holy Spirit in the brain?

Sources on information and studies before discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
http://www.intropsych.com/ch03_state..._observer.html
http://www.anthonypeake.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=8

When the corpus collosum is cut in epeleptic patients, both sides of the brain take on a seperate personage. The same thing can happen in MPD. The seperate personalities must exist prior to the split otherwise they could not have developed.

Originally Posted by ExoByte

Sources on information and studies before discussion.

God, your such a prickly pear with your requirements for information and your coloured text.

I've always understood the Holy Spirit as a 'separate' entity, not necessarily residing within everyone. But words get muddled up, maybe it is the same as the Higher Self?

All I know is I've had a couple of dreams where so called dream characters have told me things, and spoken to me in a way that made me feel I was speaking with conscious beings. While being lucid and aware this is just a dream! And they didn't act like the rest of the dream characters, because they were also 'aware' that this was a dream.

Others who know more about this stuff suggested to me, I was speaking with none other than myself! For me, imagining a spirit visiting me in a dream is easier than to imagine that this being that I spoke to, was me!

The other me

Originally Posted by Idolfan

In science and neurology it has been discovered that there is at least one other seperate personality or consciousness in the brain. This has been demonstrated through various experiments which range from hypnosis to split-brain procedures.

Originally Posted by Idolfan

When the corpus collosum is cut in epeleptic patients, both sides of the brain take on a seperate personage.

I'm sorry, but that is patently false.

It appears that the only evidence that you have for this notion is a single line tacked onto the end of a Wikipedia article by God-knows-who: "There are some theories that the different hemispheres may have different 'personalities' and contradictory goals." No explanation, no references, not even a listed author - to even call this evidence would be a stretch, let alone bad evidence.

Regarding the primer on hypnosis that you posted; perhaps I am missing something, but I fail to see how a person - who is clearly and explicitly not deaf - responding to an auditory command is evidence of some sort of hidden personality.

As for the link to a forum on precognition - is that a typo or what? What are we supposed to do with that?

You can offer up whatever theory you like, but don't try to convince people that there is any sort of scientific backing behind it - there's not. That, I have a problem with.

Originally Posted by DuB

I'm sorry, but that is patently false.

It appears that the only evidence that you have for this notion is a single line tacked onto the end of a Wikipedia article by God-knows-who: "There are some theories that the different hemispheres may have different 'personalities' and contradictory goals." No explanation, no references, not even a listed author - to even call this evidence would be a stretch, let alone bad evidence.

Regarding the primer on hypnosis that you posted; perhaps I am missing something, but I fail to see how a person - who is clearly and explicitly not deaf - responding to an auditory command is evidence of some sort of hidden personality.

As for the link to a forum on precognition - is that a typo or what? What are we supposed to do with that?

You can offer up whatever theory you like, but don't try to convince people that there is any sort of scientific backing behind it - there's not. That, I have a problem with.

I wouldn't mention that to the patients themselves though, they tend to be very insistent on keeping 'the big hoax' going.

I also suggest you don't talk to any of your dream characters. Because obviously, the scentences that come out of their mouths are just random gibberish which require no conscious influence at all. You know, there's no other consciousness, in the brain, wasting it's time bothering to string a decent scentence together. I mean you have to be conscious to construct scentences in real life but that in NO WAY implies that it has to be the same for your dream characters.

And lets not give a fuck about sleepwalking, involuntary movement or the hundreds of reports of appiritions and 'possessions'.

Do you honestly think that we're the only consciousness in our head?

Originally Posted by Idolfan

I wouldn't mention that to the patients themselves though, they tend to be very insistent on keeping 'the big hoax' going.

I'm sorry, have you studied split-brain patients? Because I have. Please show me one piece of solid evidence suggesting that split-brain patients have multiple personalities.

The fact of the matter is that split-brain patients show very little disruption of their daily functioning. They report some strange occurrences immediately following the procedure, but usually within a week's time they are functionally the same as before. In the "real world," almost all stimuli are presented to both hemispheres, which allows split-brain patients to process information in a basically normal fashion. Experimental lab settings are designed to tease out the underlying deficits associated with having a severed corpus callosum, but they are just that - experimental lab settings. Rarely, if ever, in the real world is a stimulus presented only to one visual or auditory field, or is a person limited from using both hands to feel for something. In the real world, split-brain patients are not very different from other people at all.

Originally Posted by Idolfan

Do you honestly think that we're the only consciousness in our head?

Absolutely. It seems that a very important point needs to be made here.

The examples that you describe involve a person performing acts which are outside of their conscious awareness. There are many examples of this, and they are a well documented and scientifically verified set of phenomena. However, this unconscious behavior does not necessitate that some kind of distinct and hidden ego force is responsible. This is simply an unparsimonious explanation, and one which does not logically follow from the empirical data.

So while no one is disagreeing that we are not fully conscious of our entire mental life, you are taking this a step further and asserting that there is a separate entity in each of us with its own personality and set of motivations. As I mentioned, there is no empirical support for this conclusion. If you are aware of any, please bring it to my attention - I would genuinely love to read about it.