Where is the seat of personality?

[TheMastersSon]

If brain transplants were possible for humans, would the personality of recipients be altered or replaced by the operation? If not, then imo it logically raises the topic question. My own guess is that personality is contained within all of our DNA cells, just as the French discovered when they started using guillotines to put condemned criminals to death. As bizarre and freaky as it sounds, and is imo, often the arms and hands of beheaded people would rise up and start looking for the head that was lying on the ground. This happened so often and audiences were so alarmed they finally started tying the hands of the unfortunate behind their backs beforehand. The French like everyone else assumed intelligence was entirely contained in and limited to the brain.

[Di0nysys]

Ever heard of a transorbital lobotomy?

It is a procedure where doctors used to pierce a patient usually suffering from severe psychological issues or epilepsy with a pick through the back of the eye to sever connections in the frontal lobe of the brain. This severely altered the personality of all patients who went through this procedure in drastic ways.

Personality is an emergent phenomenon of the hardware that houses it, ie our brains. It can be influenced by Biology like you said as well as nurture and society with what a person goes through their life and based upon their accumulated experience.

[TheMastersSon]

Ever heard of a transorbital lobotomy?

 

It is a procedure where doctors used to pierce a patient usually suffering from severe psychological issues or epilepsy with a pick through the back of the eye to sever connections in the frontal lobe of the brain. This severely altered the personality of all patients who went through this procedure in drastic ways.

 

Personality is an emergent phenomenon of the hardware that houses it, ie our brains. It can be influenced by Biology like you said as well as nurture and society with what a person goes through their life and based upon their accumulated experience.

Your first paragraph implies that you believe one's personality would be substantially different (or maybe altogether replaced) after a brain transplant. Is that correct?

 

Also, your example doesn't really address my question. A lobotomy surgically alters a brain to make it intentionally dysfunctional. Of course it will have its intended effects on personality. But I'm asking what you think happens to personality when an unaltered brain is replaced with another unaltered brain. My concept is that the brain itself is an unplayed piano keyboard, and the specific sequence of notes that comprise a given song (i.e. personality and self-identity) is contained within every strand of DNA in our bodies. Ditto intelligence, which would account for France's experience.

Edited October 11, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[Di0nysys]

Whatever brain you place in that body, that brain's personality is the one that remains. Without a brain, there is no personality, no you, no ego, nothing. It's software that needs it's hardware to exist. DNA ie genetics do have an effect like i said, but it's a little preposterous to say any semblance of personality would still exist if a brain is swapped out of it's body. The brain's neural network and the connections it forms is you.

[Harbringe]

I was always told I wore my personality on my sleeve and when I change shirts I get confused. :happy:

[HeyYou]

I was always told I wore my personality on my sleeve and when I change shirts I get confused. :happy:

Maybe you should wear short-sleeved shirts?

[Deleted1205226User]

Before answering that question, you must define what personality is. Not simple as it look.

[TheMastersSon]

Before answering that question, you must define what personality is. Not simple as it look.

A list of any 10 of one's preferences (anything from career choice to favorite foods and ice cream flavor) would be enough to test for personality changes. Changes to self-identity would be even easier to measure, e.g. when looking in a mirror does one recognize their own body as themselves or not etc. It's why imo Di0nysys' view, while popular and maybe even predominant, is absurd. It reminds me of the disdain the first heart transplant doctors got in the 1960's, because a sizable number of other doctors (and even some religious denominations) believed the operation would replace peoples' souls. Edited October 13, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[HeyYou]

 

Before answering that question, you must define what personality is. Not simple as it look.

A list of any 10 of one's preferences (anything from career choice to favorite foods and ice cream flavor) would be enough to test for personality changes. Changes to self-identity would be even easier to measure, e.g. when looking in a mirror does one recognize their own body as themselves or not etc. It's why imo Di0nysys' view, while popular and maybe even predominant, is absurd. It reminds me of the disdain the first heart transplant doctors got in the 1960's, because a sizable number of other doctors (and even some religious denominations) believed the operation would replace peoples' souls.

 

Any of those things can, and do... change over time. In my view, 'personality' is how you interact with the world around you, people/places/things, more than what you really want to be doing for a living.....

[Aurielius]

Since one's personalty is formed in direct relationship with one's experiences and all experiences are stored with your neurons, I'll go along with the position the the brain is the physical manifestation of one's personality..where it goes so goes the persona.