The mind...storage of information?

[Sandform]

Ok, I heard something interesting about the human brain =). Maybe it is a lie...but I heard it in a debate, I haven't been able to track it down since I saw it but...here we go. Information of tools is stored in a specific part of your brain, if that part of the brain is numb, or missing, you will not be able to recognize tools. Some people with epilepsy have had their brains split in half (how i'm not sure, I suppose it is a treatment), which cuts off one side of their brain from that part. If you cover one of their eyes, they will not be able identify tools with the other, however if you cover the opposite eye I imagine they would be able to. The same thing applies to if you whisper in one of their ears about the objects name/function. They will not recognize what your speaking of..wtf is that? lol.

[R.D.735]

It's a case of distributed functions. If one imagines that the brain is an immensely-parallel computer, then certain tasks are delegated to certain areas so that they can be completed more efficiently. When the brain is damaged, tasks must be reassigned to other areas. The brain is quite adaptable, but unfortunately not quite adaptable enough to completely recover, and some tasks must rely on previously unrelated parts of the brain being active, or they are not recovered at all. What's most amazing to me is that those who have had the half-brain lobotomy are not severely impaired by the procedure. The brain takes a long time to redistribute the tasks of small amounts of faulty brain tissue, but for some reason losing one half of the brain isn't a significant challenge.

[Xaqaria]

Its not tools, but objects, and its not that they can't recognize them. What you are describing is patients who have had their corpus callosum severed. Basically what the tests have shown is that if you were to show someone with a severed corpus callosum an object in such a way that only their left eye could see it (meaning their right brain sees it), then they will be unable to communicate to you what they see because the center for communication is typically in the left hemisphere and their hemispheres cannot communicate. The person can still retrieve a specific object with their left hand (controlled by the side of the brain that sees the object) when instructed to. I would be willing to bet the reason why your source of information confused tools with this phenomena is because the classic test that most people refer to used a hammer as one of the objects.