Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: General Battuta on November 05, 2010, 02:10:52 pm
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have nerve-cap transmitters that allow you to meld your thoughts with another person, as if your brains were physically connected? Could you listen to their thoughts? See what they see? Or is it beyond the brain's capability to handle that much input?
A living model exists. (http://gizmodo.com/5682758/the-fascinating-story-of-the-twins-who-share-brains-thoughts-and-senses) Two separate personalities with distinct consciousnesses, which appear to be sharing wetware.
The sensory area called the thalamus is physically bridged between the two, but suspicions of sharing seems to go beyond shared visual fields (each individual effectively has four eyes) and into true telepathy. As the twins mature it will hopefully become apparent whether they can actually share each other's thoughts.
Hopefully these individuals will open up pathways for humans to network brains or to expand their own cognitive architecture with computer-simulated brain matter.
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Cooooooooooool
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Is it still Telepathy though? It's not like they're actually separate entities...
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Is it still Telepathy though? It's not like they're actually separate entities...
Separate consciousnesses?
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Is it still Telepathy though? It's not like they're actually separate entities...
Are they? They appear to display separate personalities. If they could be viably physically separated, they would be, and they would probably then develop as individuals. They may be analogous to two physically separate entities who have nerve-cap transmitters on their thalamic neurons.
Of course there's a possibility that they have developed special network architecture from birth which could not be easily replicated in two adult brains.
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Yeah, and this is really awesome (if slightly scary).
But Telepathy implies thought transfer at a distance; if you have two consciousnesses technically running on the same hardware, there's bound to be _some_ overlap.
Also, I bet there's a difference between being connected like this since birth, and retrofitting this.
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Well, if schizophrenia can exist, I'd say that was evidence that it was possible, and I mean true schizophrenia, two seperate personalities in the same mind, not the more common version of someone trying to escape into an alternate personality. It shows the Wetware can, in certain cases, keep two completely different perspectives in the same unit (the mind).
I agree with the 'E' that it's not Telepathy, more like 'Networking', or possibly 'User Accounts' ;)
Also, I bet there's a difference between being connected like this since birth, and retrofitting this.
Agreed, the fact the brains grew in that state probably account for the compatibility to a large extent, the brain simply worked with what it was given from a blank slate.
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Definitely not telepathy. If nothing else, the whole 'tele' bit is kinda missing when they're physically connected. What's really interesting about this is that it seems to prove that the human brain is capable is dealing with the kind of input telepathy might give you. Like an extra set of eyes, percieving thoughts that aren't your own, etc.
And that alone is quite something.
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Yeah, and this is really awesome (if slightly scary).
But Telepathy implies thought transfer at a distance; if you have two consciousnesses technically running on the same hardware, there's bound to be _some_ overlap.
Sure, but you could fake the physical connection with nerve-cap transmitters assuming you're in close proximity. Ping's gonna be a real concern, though!
Also, I bet there's a difference between being connected like this since birth, and retrofitting this.
Agreed, the fact the brains grew in that state probably account for the compatibility to a large extent, the brain simply worked with what it was given from a blank slate.
Yeah, that was what I was trying to get at here - "Of course there's a possibility that they have developed special network architecture from birth which could not be easily replicated in two adult brains."
Definitely not telepathy. If nothing else, the whole 'tele' bit is kinda missing when they're physically connected.
Yes, just like telephones aren't telephones when physically connected by a landline
oh wait.
Might want to rethink that one a bit, home slice!
Direct communication between two brains is the only real qualification here, just as direct communication between two computers wired to each other is just as much networking as a wireless link. What's interesting is the transmissivity, not the medium.
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Thank you Battuta for purposefully misunderstanding the point. If you can establish a connection between two minds, the actual implementation is just a matter of bandwidth, and where to get the most of it.
In this case, you have two brains that share A LOT of the basic infrastructure, if you will. It's like two virtualized servers running on one physical computer that communicate via TCP/IP.
Disregard, my reading comprehension sucks.
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But how could I purposefully misunderstand the point when I already made that exact point? :confused:
Of course there's a possibility that they have developed special network architecture from birth which could not be easily replicated in two adult brains.
I'd still call it telepathy, though. It's just not gonna hit the mass market for an unmodified human.
pssh nvm
(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/39/2010/10/5da373b130f37a41f5d7fd145d630f6e/340x.gif)
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Sorry, I misread. Carry on.
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Well, if schizophrenia can exist, I'd say that was evidence that it was possible, and I mean true schizophrenia, two seperate personalities in the same mind, not the more common version of someone trying to escape into an alternate personality. It shows the Wetware can, in certain cases, keep two completely different perspectives in the same unit (the mind).
I agree with the 'E' that it's not Telepathy, more like 'Networking', or possibly 'User Accounts' ;)
That's not schizophrenia, that's dissociative identity disorder.
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(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090611092332/babylon5/images/thumb/2/26/Psicorp_wiki-1.png/300px-Psicorp_wiki-1.png)
The Corps is mother, the Corps is father.
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That logo is so familiar, what is it?
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Watch more Babylon 5, kthnx
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Cooool. If it turns out they are telepathic (or whatever we collectively decide to deem it) then I see a ****storm down the line with regards to bioethics groups and laws getting in the way of SCIENCE and figuring out how to recreate/emulate it.
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> implying telepathy is a desirable thing in humans.
NO RIVER I DON'T WANT YOU READING MY THOUGHTS, GORRAMIT.
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I'll stick to simple thought transmission as a definition of telepathy, rather than complete annihilation of ability to have individual experiences. (And possibly ability to have individual memory?)
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Telepathy. When it comes in it's wireless form is when i'll worry about it. When wireless telepathy comes into play, the only thing i want is to not be a transceiver or a receiver...if that's possible.
The great equalizer for telepathics would be the person whose thoughts they can't hear.
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If you could read other people's thoughts, I'm not convinced you wouldn't mostly just hear random/silly/meaningless fragments of "sentences" anyway. It'd probably be really annoying.
Come to think of it, it's really hard to even read my own thoughts. The second I try I realize my thought process has changed. GRRRRR, it's like F'in quantum mechanics all over again. :ick:
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I don't want to read other's thoughts, and i certainly dont want mine read.
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I don't want to read other's thoughts, and i certainly dont want mine read.
OK, just fess up. Where are the bodies?
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This is pretty neat actually.
So if we can create arms that are controlled by thought, can we create a piece of hardware that will read/write thalamus output/input, hook it up to some kind of wireless communication device and have legitimate wireless telepathy? It'd require lots of dangerous surgery, but this way you'd be able to turn it off, too.
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This is pretty neat actually.
So if we can create arms that are controlled by thought, can we create a piece of hardware that will read/write thalamus output/input, hook it up to some kind of wireless communication device and have legitimate wireless telepathy? It'd require lots of dangerous surgery, but this way you'd be able to turn it off, too.
That's what was suggested in the first post, yeah. Discussion of whether these twins in particular had developed special capabilities that an adult wouldn't have left it an open question back on the first page.
I'll stick to simple thought transmission as a definition of telepathy, rather than complete annihilation of ability to have individual experiences. (And possibly ability to have individual memory?)
Given that that hasn't happened here it looks like you don't have anything to worry about. They each clearly have individual experiences.
If you could read other people's thoughts, I'm not convinced you wouldn't mostly just hear random/silly/meaningless fragments of "sentences" anyway. It'd probably be really annoying.
See, that's why this is exciting. It allows us to test that in at least a limited case.
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I'm high-spectrum autistic (Asperger's Syndrome) with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. My head is screwed up enough without other people's thoughts in it. Heck, a telepath would probably go nuts trying to find anything worthwhile.
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Well, if schizophrenia can exist, I'd say that was evidence that it was possible, and I mean true schizophrenia, two seperate personalities in the same mind, not the more common version of someone trying to escape into an alternate personality
Uhh, flip, that's not schizophrenia. Not even close. What you're describing is more akin to dissociative identity disorder [DSM IV], or multiple personality disorder [ICD] (which is incredibly rare... only a few documented cases actually exist).
Schizophrenia has nothing to do with personalities; it is characterized primarily by the manifestation of irrational beliefs, which frequently manifest as aural, and less-frequently, visual, hallucinations from an "other" (dead relative, famous people, God, imaginary person, etc. The diagnostic criteria is oriented more around the irrational beliefs aspect than the hallucinations, though.
EDIT: Sorry iamzack, I didn't see your post.
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There's also this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24012024/
and I'm very keen to follow her life story as well. Edit: nm, she's dead.
I'm wondering a bit how the whole thing works. If the thalamus is heavily shared by the two, it might mean that all brain resources could be utilized by both personalities. It seems it could be the case if they actually share visual fields. I wonder if they share anything else, like tactile input.
They're almost like a Core2Human.
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I remember seeing a special about a set (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_and_Brittany_Hensel) of female teenage conjoined twins who essentially shared one normal body (with some doubled-up organs) between two heads. Each of the sisters has control over their own side of the body, so they have to coordinate activities like walking and driving. There's apparently some anticipation of thought that goes on between them, but nothing as out there as accessing a shared portion of the brain. Semantics aside, that's wild stuff.
(One does wonder how the Hensels will wind up handling more intimate relationships, though. :nervous:)
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Given that that hasn't happened here it looks like you don't have anything to worry about. They each clearly have individual experiences.
See, I don't buy that since we've already admitted they're sharing sensory input. They have individual personalities, which means I presume that they react differently to it, but if they're sharing sensory input that makes it unlikely they have different experiences.
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actually the brain is so adaptable it can eventually learn to use any hardware that happens to be in the way. take an electrode grid chip, or a bunch of them, and stick them on a developing brain (were talking babies here) then have them wired to a radio transceiver. the state of each electrode in the system would be packetized and broadcast. recieved packets are decoded and output on another set of electrodes to provide feedback. their brains will eventually learn to interface with the hardware and might be able to communicate. it wont be like reading somones thoughts, but rather being able to pick up whats going on a small patch of the other person's brain. quadriplegics are already talking to computers with such devices, using them as mice, so we have output. input has been achieved as well, it has allowed us to take camera output (a few pixels worth at least) and feed it directly back into the occipital lobe on such a chip, and formerly blind human guinea pigs who have received the implant say it works. the next step is clear. so lets get some babies, cut open their skulls and start upgrading the hardware.
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Given that that hasn't happened here it looks like you don't have anything to worry about. They each clearly have individual experiences.
See, I don't buy that since we've already admitted they're sharing sensory input. They have individual personalities, which means I presume that they react differently to it, but if they're sharing sensory input that makes it unlikely they have different experiences.
You're going to have a very hard time arguing that sensory input is homologous with experience. Sensory input is modified by personality factors and past knowledge to create experience.
Unless you think that a given sensory input (taste of banana) will produce the same experience in everyone on Earth?
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You're going to have a very hard time arguing that sensory input is homologous with experience. Sensory input is modified by personality factors and past knowledge to create experience.
Unless you think that a given sensory input (taste of banana) will produce the same experience in everyone on Earth?
What we have here is a failure to grasp the definition.
(Also past knowledge would be more or less identical, yes? :P And they're twins so their personalities are likely very similar as well.)
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You're going to have a very hard time arguing that sensory input is homologous with experience. Sensory input is modified by personality factors and past knowledge to create experience.
Unless you think that a given sensory input (taste of banana) will produce the same experience in everyone on Earth?
What we have here is a failure to grasp the definition.
(Also past knowledge would be more or less identical, yes? :P)
I definitely see some failures to grasp going on.
You sound confused. Maybe some empirical evidence will help.
The debate was of the angels-dancing-on-a-pin variety, as though science nerds had stumbled into a philosophy class. “I think it depends on whether they can develop their own personality,” opined one. “But then does that mean they are just one person with a very weird split personality disorder?” Added another: “If one is capable of thought that the other can’t interpret or won’t know about, then I’d say it’s two people. Otherwise I’d say it’s just one person with two functioning bodies.”
It’s safe to say no one in the twins’ family has any such doubts. The girls were distinct from the get-go, and they grow more so as they age. Krista is the larger and stronger. Tatiana, while smaller, is the work horse. Her heart does much of the pumping, her kidneys and liver do most of the filtering. “Krista is my bully. I think she always will be,” says Simms. “But [lately] Tati has taken a lot of the authority,” she adds. “ ‘If you’re going to be mean to me, I’m going to stop being nice.’ [Tati] is not as laid back as she was before. It’s a good thing.”
I think your attempted point is DOA.
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In the meantime I think we can safely considered this freakout:
I'll stick to simple thought transmission as a definition of telepathy, rather than complete annihilation of ability to have individual experiences. (And possibly ability to have individual memory?)
handled.
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On the impetus for this discussion:
The girls seem to be sharing hardware in a way that allows them to somehow transmit thoughts to each other, if that connection were lost the shared thoughts would most likely go with it. Honestly, I don't know if I'd put them through it.
On Telepathy:
The classic definition of voluntary(or not), direct mind to mind communication with no connecting hardware of any kind. What is being discussed is more along the lines of a Hive Mind or Consensus(the governing "body" of the Edenists)
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On Telepathy:
The classic definition of voluntary(or not), direct mind to mind communication with no connecting hardware of any kind. What is being discussed is more along the lines of a Hive Mind or Consensus(the governing "body" of the Edenists)
That's as absurd as a telephone not being a telephone if there's any connecting hardware involved!
Here is a pretty good definition of telepathy:
Telepathy (from the Greek τηλε, tele meaning "distant" and πάθη, pathe meaning "affliction, experience"),[2] is the transfer of information on thoughts or feelings between individuals by means other than the "five classic senses"
Or another good one, from Merriam Webster
communication from one mind to another by extrasensory means
I think that's enough arguing about word choice. Unless you want to evoke supernatural, nonphysical phenomena this definitely qualifies; it does not (appear) to require the use of any form of sensory input as a symbolic representation.
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It's not wi-fi, they have a serial cable connection. So it's not really Jedi stuff. I'd say it was cool if it didn't mean a snowball's chance in hell for a normal life for the twins.
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If you could put axon caps on the thalamic bridge neurons you could then separate them and get a wi-fi link. Would be interesting to see what latency would do.
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Bad ping. Your thoughts are so.. intermittent..
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Wh-- -as th--? Ge---ng pret-- -a- -acket l-ss her-.
Also, earlier comment reminded me of http://xkcd.com/644/
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the brain would write its own drivers eventually.
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OK, just fess up. Where are the bodies?
Hidden with my buffie the body posters.....guess you'll have to read my mind for the rest.
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If you could put axon caps on the thalamic bridge neurons you could then separate them and get a wi-fi link. Would be interesting to see what latency would do.
Sorry, this is confusing what neurology I know. Axon cap? What differentiates it from an axotomy?
Externally it looks like they're sharing a parietal lobe, which would explain why they'd be able to share spatial sense. I wonder if they also share motor cortices as well...
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"Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting ..."
:rolleyes:
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If you could put axon caps on the thalamic bridge neurons you could then separate them and get a wi-fi link. Would be interesting to see what latency would do.
Sorry, this is confusing what neurology I know. Axon cap? What differentiates it from an axotomy?
Externally it looks like they're sharing a parietal lobe, which would explain why they'd be able to share spatial sense. I wonder if they also share motor cortices as well...
An axon cap is a science-fictional device that just consists of a little (very little) implant that goes at the end of a nerve. One component is an action potential sensor, the other is a transmitter. It's coupled to another axon cap on the nerve(s) that Nerve A would normally connect to. Basically it's a wireless bridge.
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Excellent in-depth update on the case here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/magazine/could-conjoined-twins-share-a-mind.html?_r=3&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all)
Evidence is still mixed. It's too early to know whether there's any neural transmission going on, but my hunch is there is at least some form of signaling outside of simple nonverbal cuing.
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Excellent in-depth update on the case here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/magazine/could-conjoined-twins-share-a-mind.html?_r=3&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all)
Evidence is still mixed. It's too early to know whether there's any neural transmission going on, but my hunch is there is at least some form of signaling outside of simple nonverbal cuing.
Great read. Certainly sounds like at least some form of neural signals. The taste sensory input seems to belie nonverbal cues as an explanation. Pretty amazing.
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It'll be a really tragedy if they do manage to firewall each other. I wouldn't put it past the brain.
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It'll be a really tragedy if they do manage to firewall each other. I wouldn't put it past the brain.
Nor I, but while it would be a tragedy for scientific discovery, these are individual personalities; it might be more of a blessing for them. The scientist in me thinks this is incredible; the soon-to-be parent in me is really conflicted.
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That's what concerns me, as personalities develop, the brain tends to 'fix' connections that were otherwise malleable, I'm a little concerned as to the impact it will have on these two.
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More like a biological (i.e. not cybernetic) model for the Borg?
In any case, WOW. :eek2:
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MP-Ryan, I have a question for you.
Occasionally, one hears stories about somebody turning back or just diverting from the planned action just because they had a sort of feeling that something's wrong. The stories go on that the person who diverted tends to find someone having an accident or a sudden attack of illness for example. Also, some wives knew at the time of the accident that something just happened to their husbands - even if there were hundreds of kilometers between them. This sounds folk-loresque, but then again I have met some people describing this happening to them. This is not exactly telepathy in a way I understand it, but some kind of remote sensing without any apparent communication possibilities between two persons. It is usually described as a sudden feeling that something's gone wrong and they have to do something, but that's the only piece of information they seem to share.
Are you aware of any studies over this?
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What you're describing is probably just confirmation bias.
If someone has a funny feeling and then nothing goes wrong, they fail to recollect it.
If they have a funny feeling and then something goes haywire, they remember it and spread the story.
All there is to it. And no, there are no studies which provide any evidence for said claim, as far as I am aware.
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I'm not aware of any studies either, though I'm a little more open-minded than Battuta on the subject of what is essentially extrasensory perception because there are some cases of it in my own family :) In one such instance, my grandfather met us at the hospital because he heard an ambulance in his own community (which was not where we lived) and knew something had happened to my mom. Meanwhile, my mother had just been standing under an old pear tree when it fell on her, breaking her ankle. My grandfather had no idea we were at my other relatives property picking pears that day, nor any way of knowing Mom had been hurt. Even the ultra-skeptic scientist in me can't find a credible explanation in confirmation bias for that one (given that my grandfather had never exhibited the same drive-to-the-hospital-on-siren behaviour before or after). This was not the first nor last instance my grandfather demonstrated strange quasi-senses, though. Maybe it was coincidence, but it sure was bizarre.
The optimist in me suspects there are aspects to human sensory perception that go well beyond what we've scientifically documented to date. There are a lot of species that humans tended to view as having a sixth sense about natural phenomena until we learned to understand it, so I wouldn't be surprised if similar perceptive abilities exist in humans, albeit at extremely low levels. That's rampant speculation on my part, though, and has no foundation in experimental evidence.
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There have been studies done in the lab on very controlled forms of precognition, and one of them even claimed to get a result. But it turned out to be a methodologically flawed outcome. By and large they all come back as nulls.
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There's also instances of things like 'Twinspeak', where identical twins speak a language unique to themselves, though, in fairness, that is a slightly different relationship than 'other family members', and Twinspeak rarely lasts into the teens, since individual personalities become more fixed at that stage.
It also shouldn't be discounted that the Human brain notices a lot more than it lets the conscience in on, I had a 'bad' feeling about my Dad several months before his heart attack, but those feelings were almost certainly based more on observational cues than phsychological ones.
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I am VERY loathe to call this telepathy, it seems to be a very innacurate way of describing what is a sharing of neural tissue. Just because they only share a hypothalamus (or is it thalamus, been a while since I read the article) does not mean that routed through that they do not have a great deal of neural connectivity. Telepathy refers to something entirely different, which is connectivity of thoughts without any shared tissue/conjunction. Telepathy is, as far as we know, a supernatural/preternatural phenomenon and consequentially does not exist. Given just how essential the tissues they share are, and how closely situated they are to things like the Optic Chiasm (in the Tectum) and the cerebrum, I'm not surprised that as a stable pair of cephalically joined twins they can share thoughts and visual data. (For reference, we refer to the 5 major areas of the brain, developmentally, as the myencephalon [Medulla Oblongata], metencephalon [Pons and Cerebellum], mesencephalon [Tectum], dienecephalon [Epithalamus, Hypothalamus, Thalamus] and the telencephalon [Cerebrum, hippocampus and the olfactory lobes], moving from the spine upwards. This should demonstrate that the whole sharing thoughts/visual data has the 'sites' in the brain situated around where they are actually physically joined)
There might be ways to 'fake' it using technology later on, and perhaps it may exist in the natural biology of some organisms somewhere in this vast universe, but as far as we (biologists, and I say this as someone doing his Honours projects on neurobiology, specifically adult neurogenesis in the hypothalamus) know and believe, true telepathy would be impossible.
Edit:
@ Flipside - Yeah, it's data you subconsciously picked up on being sorted by your brain and attempting to push it through to your conscious thought by the manifestation of it as an 'uneasy' feeling. It's a fairly well documented phenomena, but not mystic in any way, shape or form. (Well, except for demonstrating the capacities of the brain). On the note of confirmation bias, well obviously that happens and sometimes your subconscious is very, very wrong. You tend to forget those times and only remember those when it turned out your subconscious was correctly cueing you in on something.
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I am VERY loathe to call this telepathy, it seems to be a very innacurate way of describing what is a sharing of neural tissue. Just because they only share a hypothalamus (or is it thalamus, been a while since I read the article) does not mean that routed through that they do not have a great deal of neural connectivity. Telepathy refers to something entirely different, which is connectivity of thoughts without any shared tissue/conjunction. Telepathy is, as far as we know, a supernatural/preternatural phenomenon and consequentially does not exist.
I disagree with your definition there, telepathy just seems analogous to telephony to me.
true telepathy would be impossible.
Well this seems to be true telepathy, the transmission of thought. I don't know why you'd include 'supernatural phenomenon without any causal link' as a definition because that just means it's impossible.
Are you coming into the thread thinking this is some kind of argument that woo-woo psychics have a leg to stand on? It's not. I'm coming at this from the same angle you are.
ed: Oh I think I see where you're coming from. The reason this is interesting as a model for wireless telepathy is that it proves the brain can develop the protocols for transmission. In an optimistic scenario, cut these kids' bridge apart and fit the nerve endings with axon caps and voila you've got wireless telepaths.
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I am VERY loathe to call this telepathy, it seems to be a very innacurate way of describing what is a sharing of neural tissue. Just because they only share a hypothalamus (or is it thalamus, been a while since I read the article) does not mean that routed through that they do not have a great deal of neural connectivity. Telepathy refers to something entirely different, which is connectivity of thoughts without any shared tissue/conjunction. Telepathy is, as far as we know, a supernatural/preternatural phenomenon and consequentially does not exist.
I disagree with your definition there, telepathy just seems analogous to telephony to me.
true telepathy would be impossible.
Well this seems to be true telepathy, the transmission of thought. I don't know why you'd include 'supernatural phenomenon without any causal link' as a definition because that just means it's impossible.
Are you coming into the thread thinking this is some kind of argument that woo-woo psychics have a leg to stand on? It's not. I'm coming at this from the same angle you are.
ed: Oh I think I see where you're coming from. The reason this is interesting as a model for wireless telepathy is that it proves the brain can develop the protocols for transmission. In an optimistic scenario, cut these kids' bridge apart and fit the nerve endings with axon caps and voila you've got wireless telepaths.
Okay, there I agree with you, but in there current case I would not call it Telepathy as they essentially share the same brain, they've just got doubles of some part and they've got stable neurological links between them, which actually makes it a VERY fuzzy area biologically to define whether they are in fact seperate entities. Note I say biologically, as the fact that they have different Cerebrum's and slight developmental differences means that these two seperate portions of the brain have distinct personalities. I imagine, given the sharing in input stimuli and thought, it's like having the most extreme form of being bipolar.
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I don't think their behavior supports that claim at all, though.
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I don't think their behavior supports that claim at all, though.
It's a very odd area though - they have one brain, due to the shared parts of the Diencephalon, and their stable neuronal links, which allow for the comprehension of thoughts and visual data from parts of the brain belonging to the other half. It just happens that the presence of two distinct areas other than that is leading to the development of two personalities, backed by the fact that they (I assume) have control of mostly seperate bodies as well. Honestly? I'd love to be with the neurologists working on this case, because we're going to have to write up a few definitions and throw out a couple of books to describe this one.
(And I thought my HP was cool, a pioneering study that hopes to prove if there is adult neurogenesis [associated with seasonal rythmns] in the Hypothalamus, using sheep as a model. Neurogenesis has never been definitively proved in the Hypothalamus, though a few studies have hinted that it might be occurring)
Edit: I think the differences in opinion between the two of us (because for the most part we seem to be in agreement) is that I'm approaching this purely in terms of neurology/biology, and not factoring in Psychology. Mostly because doing psychology in my first and second years as an elective convinced me that the scientific method of that particular school is severely lacking, and that the only trustworthy part of the school was Biopsychology. Of course, I'm just stating my opinion (backed up by some education in the area), and I could be 100% wrong. I just find that being neurally joined makes it very, very hard for me to call them seperate organisms and I think we simply differ about the usage of telepathy to describe this. If they were neurally seperate, then I would be 100% behind calling this telepathy, I just think calling it so just now is rather sensationalist. If they manage to seperate their brains (Which I imagine will be impossible for the forseeable future), and perform the axon capping you just described, then it would be true telepathy, albeit technologically aided.
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I just find that being neurally joined makes it very, very hard for me to call them seperate organisms and I think we simply differ about the usage of telepathy to describe this.
They each appear to have independently-functioning nervous systems. While the neurologist remarked that each girl has one hemisphere slightly smaller than the other, the only apparent neural connection documented in their brains appears to be what they're calling a thalamic bridge. Indeed, the video and anecdotal evidence from the article points to two discrete personalities (and before we talk about MPD, in MPD the splits are not fully-functioning independent personalities). The physical and neural connection does not negate their status as discrete organisms; they are more akin to symbiotes than a single organism.
Telepathy is loosely-defined as the transfer of thought from one discrete consciousness to another. (Oxford English Dictionary: "the supposed communication of thoughts or ideas by means other than the known senses. ") Again, the video and article seem to point to the transfer of both sensory input and higher thought via a previously-undocumented neural connection through anecdotal accounts; that fits the definition, if it can be substantiated.
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Yeah, what MP-Ryan said. And your experience with psychology does not match mine (though I had the benefit of one of the better/more rigorous psych departments in the country, and I think it perfectly believable that there's a lot of crap out there you might have run into).
I just don't see the argument that these are in any way one organism. They're connected by a wire, but severing that wire would probably leave them intact and independent were it feasible.
In particular I'd like to take issue with
If they were neurally seperate, then I would be 100% behind calling this telepathy, I just think calling it so just now is rather sensationalist. If they manage to seperate their brains (Which I imagine will be impossible for the forseeable future), and perform the axon capping you just described, then it would be true telepathy, albeit technologically aided.
this.
The distinction you're making doesn't seem functionally meaningful to me. In one case, they are connected by a neural bridge which transmits information through action potentials. In the other, they're connected by a neural bridge which transmits information through radio waves. Either way information is being passed; the medium just doesn't feel relevant.
I think of it as the difference between wired and wireless networking. Either way you've got two computers; plugging them in with an ethernet cord doesn't make them one.
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Yeah, what MP-Ryan said. And your experience with psychology does not match mine (though I had the benefit of one of the better/more rigorous psych departments in the country, and I think it perfectly believable that there's a lot of crap out there you might have run into).
I just don't see the argument that these are in any way one organism. They're connected by a wire, but severing that wire would probably leave them intact and independent were it feasible.
In particular I'd like to take issue with
If they were neurally seperate, then I would be 100% behind calling this telepathy, I just think calling it so just now is rather sensationalist. If they manage to seperate their brains (Which I imagine will be impossible for the forseeable future), and perform the axon capping you just described, then it would be true telepathy, albeit technologically aided.
this.
The distinction you're making doesn't seem functionally meaningful to me. In one case, they are connected by a neural bridge which transmits information through action potentials. In the other, they're connected by a neural bridge which transmits information through radio waves. Either way information is being passed; the medium just doesn't feel relevant.
I think of it as the difference between wired and wireless networking. Either way you've got two computers; plugging them in with an ethernet cord doesn't make them one.
It's more like a dual core processor with each core controlling a different OS installed on a different hard drive at the same, you're still running them off the same neurological basing, because the Thalamus is so utterly critical to the proper neurological functioning of the brain and body. Calling the Thalamus/Hypothalamus (which they share) a "wire" is VASTLY underestimating what it actually is (More analogous to the motherboard or processor than a wire), and is probably why they have problems like the satiety signals of one girl affecting the other. If I were to call them seperate or to be able to call this Telepathy, there would have to be no neurological "cock ups" like that occurring, especially since that part of the article implies that they have seperate GIs, and therefore one girl could be detrimentally affected by feeling satisfied when she has not eaten but her conjoined twin has. This is not telepathy, because it goes beyond mere sharing of thought (into hormonal stuff) and relies on the fact that their brains are joined, not distinct.
It's exactly what it says on the tin, their brains are physically joined and they share the Thalamus, resulting in a thalamic bridge, which has allowed some crosswiring of their cerebellum and tectums. A step in the right direction for understanding how to create or form telepathic connections, yes, but with a lot of bugs and excess things that do not make it true telepathy in my point.
As stated before, my issue is concerned with biology and neurology of it. I'd also think that the sharing of thought and so on might end up reducing the distinctiveness between the twins, as they're going to be sharing their perspectives, and thoughts on situation, and god knows what their subconsciousnesses are doing whilst they're asleep.
“It’s like they are one and two people at the same time,” Todd Feinberg, a professor of psychiatry and neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, told the Times
This is my stance, except that I lean towards calling them one person given how essential the shared part of the brain is - They've just got two hard drives running two different OSes at the same time.
Again, speaking as a biologist, I want to know what their neuronal structure radiating out of that shared thalamus is like, and how they conduct signals, especially given that they share their visual data. (One might assume they may be capable of sharing others, as the Thalamus routes a LOT of sensory data, but scent and sound would be harder to distinguish as coming from yourself or your conjoined twin, I imagine)
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I'm not aware of any studies either, though I'm a little more open-minded than Battuta on the subject of what is essentially extrasensory perception because there are some cases of it in my own family In one such instance, my grandfather met us at the hospital because he heard an ambulance in his own community (which was not where we lived) and knew something had happened to my mom. Meanwhile, my mother had just been standing under an old pear tree when it fell on her, breaking her ankle. My grandfather had no idea we were at my other relatives property picking pears that day, nor any way of knowing Mom had been hurt. Even the ultra-skeptic scientist in me can't find a credible explanation in confirmation bias for that one (given that my grandfather had never exhibited the same drive-to-the-hospital-on-siren behaviour before or after). This was not the first nor last instance my grandfather demonstrated strange quasi-senses, though. Maybe it was coincidence, but it sure was bizarre.
I can understand it when for example bouncers or police feel that somebody shouldn't be let in and later on it is seen that the person was carrying a weapon. This I would understand as not so conscious level detection of some kind of anomaly (visual, aural, smell, attitude) in person's behavior pattern and manifest it as a feeling that something is wrong. I have participated in saving a person's life exactly because of this. But then I was pretty close and was able to see them all the time, and decided to stop for a while.
The incidents that I'm talking about are cases where there was absolutely not any sort of possibility of someone knowing about it at all. From what I understand, that kind of feeling is very sudden and unmistakable, and it doesn't happen often. It is these cases, I can't find a credible explanation from the confirmation bias either. One of my friends says that when she is sad and cries, her childhood friend calls and asks if something is wrong. Not even once has her friend called her when she hasn't been sad (and this has happened reliably over years). The problem? There's a 300 km distance between them...
So I don't know what gives, but confirmation bias as the simplest explanation seems inadequate to me.