Consciousness and Awareness

Half of a person's brain is surgically removed during a hemispherectomy, and this treatment is often only performed on very, very young individuals because their brains are still sufficiently malleable to allow the remaining half to assume the duties of the removed half. And it's typically done because a small child or a baby is experiencing seizures, and the sole treatment is to remove the area where the seizures take place. But now for the query. If one can survive with only half a brain, what if we took two empty skulls, removed your brain in half, and placed one half in one body and the other half in another? Which one of these would you be? You are you, after all. From your own point of view, you are aware of what is taking place. Consider it in this way.

It seems almost as though you are a thing within a body looking out through the eyeballs if you simply stare at anything and try to imagine what it feels like to be you. And no one else will ever view the world in that way. What we refer to as consciousness is the awareness of your own experiences, the awareness that you are having them, and the awareness that you are thinking for yourself.

But would both of the new conscious individuals be created if your brain were divided in half and placed inside of two other bodies? Well, starting with things that we all agree are not conscious is one of the best ways to define and comprehend consciousness.

For instance, the great website Cleverbot.com features a computer program that will cleverly answer your questions, but only because that is how it is built to respond. It doesn't have a sense of itself, thus we wouldn't classify it as conscious. There is no sensation. It lacks a separate inner existence. It's merely a computer program that reacts to my inputs automatically. I now understand that I am not Cleverbot. I am aware of my feelings and the sense of purpose I have within. However, how do I know you do? In addition, how can I know that everyone I encounter is the same as me? How do I know they are not just miniature, intelligent versions of Cleverbot that speak verbatim? Now, the question I have is extremely philosophical, but it is also a very well-known and significant one.

I'm essentially asking if something can exist as a philosophical zombie. Yes, a thing that acts, reacts, and responds just like a typical human being but doesn't actually feel anything. It has no awareness that those thoughts are its own. It simply makes the necessary response on its own, like a robot. What's amazing and weighty about this topic is that science doesn't know the answer, and it's even uncertain when science will learn it, let alone how to find it. The psychology of disorders of consciousness is essentially all we have.

The first condition is anosognosia. In psychology lectures, patients who, for instance, have lost the capacity to use their left hand sometimes serve as examples of anosognosia. They will answer, "Yeah, no problem, here you go" when requested to raise their right hand, but they will add, "Oh, yeah, sure, no problem," but not raise their left hand. When questioned why they didn't move their left hand, they will make up an explanation rather than admitting that they are unable to. An example would be, "Oh, I didn't feel like it."

Even more dramatic is Anton-Babinski Syndrome. Cortically blind patients are those who have this syndrome. Despite the fact that they are blind, they insist they can see. When you ask them a question, like, "How many fingers am I holding up?" they will guess, but if they are incorrect, they will offer a reason for their error. Say, "Oh, well, I don't have my glasses." The majority of people who have anosognosia are stroke patients, and there is a gap between what they are actually going through and what they are conscious of. They are unaware that they are blind since the area of their brain that monitors visual input is not providing any information to the brain. The brain is not even informed that there is no visual input, thus the areas of the brain responsible for speaking and question-answering must fully conjure up a response. We have been able to research patients with anosognosia, but we still don't know how to resolve our initial issue. In fact, all we've managed to come up with are more puzzling questions about identity; the most you can do with them is answer them for yourself in accordance with your beliefs.

Here's one more. The Swampman is the name of it. Imagine that when I'm wandering in a swamp, a lightning strike causes my entire body to be instantly burned to a crisp and shattered into smithereens. A second lightning strike occurs nearby at the exact same time, causing a number of atoms and molecules to arrange themselves in my body's former shape, creating a second me. That's... me? Would I qualify?

Here's one that's even better. Imagine that a surgeon entered the room and began to remove cells from both you and I, replacing each one, one at a time, putting your cells into your body and mine. When did I become formally known as you? Nobody on Earth has the last say on these matters.