Where is the seat of personality?

[gnarly1]

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.

It's an interesting question and seeing that would indeed be rather unnerving (excuse the pun). However, it seems to me that the question of where personality 'resides' and the anecdote about beheaded people aren't necessarily linked. Are you saying that the beheaded person is consciously thinking "where has my head gone, I must find it?" It could be a reflexive action caused by the enteric nervous system. Also, the human heart contains neurons, but the presence of neurons doesn't imply any form of consciousness.

 

 

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

<snip>

This is an important question - your response didn't answer it. You can't determine whether a personality change has occurred if you can't define 'personality'.

[TheMastersSon]

I'm not a psychologist but I believe standardized personality tests do exist. So it shouldn't be hard to gauge personality or self-identity changes in brain transplant recipients, since (if most people are correct in their claim that personality follows the brain itself) these changes would be drastic in many if not most cases. I still don't buy that argument, the brain like the rest of our bodies is a product and physical expression of our DNA, not vice-versa.

Edited October 31, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[Mudran]

I would say it is connected to memories, so instead of implantates, if you would insert a data injection, displaces or washes out different memories, or override their painful / happy connections, there could be a different person.

[PkSanTi]

It is a fasscinating question. I don't think I have any answer, but I'll try to contribute. (English not my native lenguage, sorry if mistakes are made.)

 

I believe that an important piece of the puzzle has been overlooked, and we can not talk about personality without talking about it. When asked if our brains worked as a computer (wich is an underlying topic of the discussion, the similarity of brain and hardware), John Searle developed a mental experiment. A pretty interesting one, I might add. Essentialy, it goes like this: picture yourself in China, locked in a room. People who locked you handles you a manual, in which they explain that, for certain symbols and chinese words you'll be given, you have to pass through the door other determined ideograms to them. With only this information, you can work propperly; they give you certain symbols, you pass them the correct responses (the ones the manual says you have to), even if you do not speak chinese! And they may even think you do.

 

The analogy is clear: information comes, information goes, but machines, hardware and computers have no idea what they are saying (to play the game: they don't speak chinese). They do not think. Thinking is a complex process; much more complex than what we imagine.

 

The factor I believe is not being put under consideration is will, that other force Schopenhauer discovered in its true essence for us. We do know that the processing of the information we receive has its place in the brain, the same way we know that the law of gravity has its place in this little part of the universe. But calling them processes, laws and forces gives us no clue of what they truly are, but, in the best case, of how, when, and where they ocurre. Saying our brains works like a hardware is a very forced and simple way to look at it, since we ignore what is the true form of what's happening there, even if we know how, where and when it's happening. We are so much more than our brains; we are things our brain has no relation with. Our subconsciense has no true place; neither the great and unaccountable phenomenon of beauty. Our personality is, I'll give a very poor and provisional definition, the way we react to stimulus of the world -word being the extramental world just as much as our thoughts and subconscience-; and yet who we are is a question with no true awnser, since we constantly change, in a material and unmaterial way. Many affirmed that we would be the sames if our brains were moved to another body, but can't even truly know who we are. Identity is the true problem here: who are we?; are we information coming and leaving an organ?; are we the social persona we have been given when we were born?, or are we, like the greek said, as is the river, never staying the same, always changing? I do not know the answer, but for the reasons I've given, I don't believe we are the first option: information placed in an organ, an odd kind of hardware.

 

(I'm not saying DNA or the way or neurons work have nothing to do, or anything such as that. Only a sloppy lecture of this would make that interpretation. Sorry for my english!! :sad: )

Edited November 1, 2017 by PkSanTi

[Mudran]

Maybe we are simply DNA then. Because according to what you wrote - that we make calculations, assumptions in our brains, yet the result is independent on our brain, then it is tweaked and subjectivised in some way.

And 1 way how it could be is based on our subjective perception of the world around us - as you said - then our subjective perceptions doesn't come only from our experiences, the way we were rised by parents, but also by those multiple connections in our DNA based on thousand or millions of possibilities of our predecessors.

 

Example (very simple one :p)- if my mother loved coffee, my father loved coffe, but my grandfather didn't, I will most likelly do like drinking coffee.

 

And somewhere in between we choose based on those intersecting tendencies inherited from our parents.

 

In that way it is partially possible why some nations in Europe tend to like similar things, while in USA, they are very different - meaning the same background, different race, different result of tendencies.

 

So if some people would say - it is like my grandfather would be inside of my head - they are actually right!

[skyquest32]

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.

The personalty is not the self, yet without that and will there is ''pragmatically speaking'' no you to speak with. It is used. Brain is not mind and the mind is not the self. If you seek to be sentient, know this. The statement I think therefor I am...is a damnable lie.

[PkSanTi]

Maybe we are simply DNA then. Because according to what you wrote - that we make calculations, assumptions in our brains, yet the result is independent on our brain, then it is tweaked and subjectivised in some way.

And 1 way how it could be is based on our subjective perception of the world around us - as you said - then our subjective perceptions doesn't come only from our experiences, the way we were rised by parents, but also by those multiple connections in our DNA based on thousand or millions of possibilities of our predecessors.

 

Example (very simple one :tongue:)- if my mother loved coffee, my father loved coffe, but my grandfather didn't, I will most likelly do like drinking coffee.

 

And somewhere in between we choose based on those intersecting tendencies inherited from our parents.

 

In that way it is partially possible why some nations in Europe tend to like similar things, while in USA, they are very different - meaning the same background, different race, different result of tendencies.

 

So if some people would say - it is like my grandfather would be inside of my head - they are actually right!

 

We can not be our DNA, and I'll try to express my point with more clarity than I did before.

 

Forces of the world obey to one universal law: causality. As good scientific people, I believe we'll all agree on that. And yet, all cause is an occasional cause, in the sense that it determines when and where a phenomenon occur. I'll give an example: when we throw a rock to the air, gravity causes it to fall down. But the cause was before outside of the time and space; it didn't truly exist; it only existed when she determined an occasion, a specific phenomenon related to her: the falling of the rock. So the law of gravity is the name we put on a manifestation of a force, on a phenomenon, on the falling of the rock, but it's true "essence" exists outside of time and space, and its undetermined and unaccountable for us. What I'm trying to say is: every law of the universe tells us the way a phenomenon occurs: what that phenomenon is, what is the real and original force that makes the rock fall, and that stays out of space and time before an occasional cause forces her to manifest, we do not know it. We can name it law of gravity, but that doesn't help us in anyway.

 

I believe this is a pretty solid reasoning. And it also applies to DNA. We know that specific forms of the genetic code determines the formation and development of the cells and beings he constitutes, the same way we know certain metals, when in contact one with each other, can produce magnetism or sparks. We can reduce that knowledge to its smallest part: we can say that the sparks are formed by certain chemical reaction occurring when the metals collides, and so on keep reducing this knowledge to the most specific. But we will still be stuck'd on one thing: some type of force acts or reacts, and nothing can tell us what that is.

 

Certain DNA codes create certain type of beings and structures, yes. But that tells us in what conditions certain effects happen; this is, gives us the cause: the occasion. But what is the event, the force triggered by that occasion? What's the irreducible, undivided and ultimate force that lies there? Because occasions tells us nothing about what something is; and a cause is always and occasional cause. So saying that the DNA is the cause of what and who we are doesn't tell us what and who we are; it tells us in what specific conditions he or she are formed. The 'he' and the 'she' still unexplained.

 

I'm very sorry for my english; it is even harder for me to debate, since it forces me to use words and expressions I'm very familiarised in my language, but not at all in english. I do hope I made myself clear and that I overcame this disadvantage.

Edited November 30, 2017 by PkSanTi

[TheMastersSon]

Forces of the world obey to one universal law: causality. As good scientific people, I believe we'll all agree on that.

Causation is an abstraction of Aristotelian cosmology, which was obsoleted by Albert Einstein. A relative universe doesn't require a first or primary cause, since time itself is relative. The ancients including Aristotle assumed and conceived time to be unchanging and eternal, which in turn created the need for a pre-existing cause. Their bad. :) In a relative universe it's entirely possible (and probable imo) that you are the only possible cause and effect of "the" (actually YOUR) entire universe.

Edited December 1, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[PkSanTi]

I wish I knew more about Einstein and his position about a relative universe. That way I could perhaps contribute more to your post :/ Anyhow, I wasn't talking about a primary cause; I too wanted to speak about a kind of subjective cause, in the sense that causality, being outside of time and space (until a phenomenon occurs) is not a property of the universe, but of our own mind and reason. To use the classic example Kant used: as if a man who always wore blue glasses would see everything as blue, we, who posses this mind, see things through the categories and notions that pre-exist (a priori) in our minds, such as time, space and causality. (This is the reason why Hume's objection to causality can't be true: causality is not an empiric phenomenon of the world, but a category of the mind.)

 

Following that reasoning, we do not need to seek a primary cause, such as Aristotle wanted, but to assume that world itself, if is considered apart from the way our minds shape it as its object, is outside of time and even space, in the way those are categories and forms of our minds. (I'm assuming a minimal knowledge of Kant's theory; if anyone wants more information about why time, space and causation are categories outside of the world, just ask Kant, haha).

 

Then, if we follow the previous arguments, we can agree on your idea of a relative and subjective universe (to which I agree in its general form, although I got to the same conclusion by different means (I know so little about Einstein's theories)) and also on the one that I posted before: that causation orders the universe; this is, OUR universe, since its one of the categories through which we represent to ourselves the world and universe. Again, the world and universe as our own representation (I'm borrowing Schopenhauer's words here).

Edited December 3, 2017 by PkSanTi

[twowolves80]

Whoo boy...I guess I'll throw my hat into this ring with a long-winded explanation.

First, scientists do not all agree on what reality is in the first place, and reality is the subjective perception we hold of the universe's eternal nature that allows the human mind/brain to interpret what it perceives through the senses to form order from chaos.

 

That being said, our personality is formed based on the interaction of active perception and passive awareness. Scientists have found that the brain doesn't need to be whole to completely recall something missing from a section of the brain that was removed. Think about that for a moment.

That is essentially like playing a game of billiards. Each ball has the same information on it (for the sake of argument)--whatever it is. Let's say each ball has Elianora's phone number on there, lol. Now, one by one, the balls drop off into the pockets, and even though the balls were the "brain," so to speak, removing one ball doesn't diminish the information each contains--because that information was written on all the balls simultaneously when it was initially perceived.

This has been proven conclusively, using rats in the 1920s. It is quickly becoming clear that we live in a holographic/fractal universe because of the way that the universe stores information. That has world-shaking implications, both for what it means to be human, and what it means for the concept of personality.

Here's the thing about Nature. It uses the same patterns over and over and over again. They're so complex that we don't really perceive the patterns on anything but the most subconscious level, and those patterns are always in the form of fractal mathematics. Trees use fractal laws when growing branches (seriously, this was on Scientific American Frontiers when they were talking about how Mandelbrot discovered fractal mathematics), as do mountains, land masses, rivers, solar systems, galaxies, and even DNA. Nature is the ultimate recycler of old patterns, using them to create infinitely new variations of itself over and over and over. Eternally. A good example would be the orbits of electrons around the atom. Similar to how planets orbit a star. It's a pattern.

We live in a binary universe. Everything is binary. Yes/No. Hot/Cold. On/Off. Either/Or. Before you start saying, that's not true, just wait, hear me out. You'll see we're talking about two different, but very related things. In terms of the laws of the universe, things are binary. Positive/Negative, up/down, matter/antimatter. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle plays into this--essentially, we can never know the exact position of a particle, and it's momentum, at the same time. It's one or the other--and there's that binary system again. Not only that, the math says that merely the act of perceiving one or the other changes the outcome of the system (quantum physics, anyone?), which in turn brought about the Schroedinger's Cat paradox, but that's another debate... :P So, this means that perception itself solidifies the universe around us, and if there were no one to consciously perceive the universe in an intelligent way does that mean that it would cease to exist? One question I have yet to find an answer to...

 

But anyways, think about algebra. Basic non-linear algebra. In order for you to solve a non-linear equation, you have to balance both sides of that = symbol. Again, there's the binary--you have to balance both sides for the math to be true and correct, and give the correct answer. There are no three-sided algebra equations.

Now, about math--math is the purest science there is, and here is what I mean by that. Math never lies. If the math is correct, and the answer is correct (i.e., it balances both sides of the equations), there's no arguing it. There's no shades of gray. You're either right, or you're wrong. Scientists long ago discovered this to be true, especially in higher math like calculus and trigonometry, and have used this principle as the foundation of all of our greatest scientific discoveries. But here's the thing--it's the one science humankind has at it's disposal to use as a measuring stick against the universe.

And here is why the binary universe is important: Human perception spans the gap between negative and positive, yes/no. That perception gives us the ability to perceive all the colors of the rainbow between the black and the white, the positive and the negative. Human perception/consciousness is an anomaly in an otherwise binary system, and that makes us unique.

There's no such thing as a binary system! Oh, yeah? Look at DNA. Only contains four letters, and only two sides of the strand. The chromosome is either on or it's off. The cell is either alive, or it's dead. We perceive, or we don't. We're awake, or we're unconscious.

Not only that, scientists have also found that everything in creation vibrates with energy. Where this energy comes from is a mystery (no, really). The latest fad was string theory. I discovered this one night while studying the trigonometry of music, and why music is always expressed as a sine wave and nothing else. The sine wave seems to be Nature's most simple form of energy transmission, and like all the other patterns it recycles, the sine wave is no different.

 

Think about it. Everything in creation can be expressed in the form of a sine wave. Everything. Life, death, perception, time, reality itself--everything. And because the universe is infinite, not to mention relativistic, we exist in an infinite fractal spiral that continuously spins off new probabilities and new potentials (and maybe even new universes) because infinity is infinite--it can create new variations forever, and never run out of possibilities. Life? Top of the sine wave. Death? Bottom of the sine wave. Back and forth, over and over.

What does this mean for perception and consciousness, you say? Here's what I believe to be true due to personal experience. I believe we repeat. The life we are in now, I believe we will relive over and over and over in infinite variation. We've already had this debate before in infinite combinations, and we will continue having this debate anew in infinite combinations moving forward through time. Because death is merely an energy transitional phase as we travel along the sine wave of reality (remember, because Nature repeats patterns from the very small to the unthinkably large--micro to macro), and when we come back up out of the trough, we enter life again, or our perception does because energy can never be created or destroyed, merely change phases. This would explain de ja vu, and that whole, "My life flashed before my eyes!" trope--perhaps time, in that singular moment, flows backwards to our perception until we hit the big bang of our creation/conception, and poof, back in the universe again. Almost a rhythm, you say? Exactly. A rhythm. A wave. A sine wave, to be specific. A Pattern.

And since those tests on rats prove that you don't need the whole system to recreate the whole system (i.e., our consciousness/perception/personality), that means that even if a single photon survives from our brain when we die, that photon contains all the information about our life, and everything that makes us who we are, and it can transfer that energy to something else, or recreate the whole. That's why the soul weighs nothing (according to those experiments in the 1800s when they tried finding the weight of the "soul"). I believe the "soul" is nothing but the energetic imprint we leave on the surface of the universe. Nothing is forgotten--we don't have to be afraid of dying and losing ourselves because we're all still there, and we'll all get to travel together forever, even if we don't remember each time we do.

This is a very ephemeral pattern, yes, I'll admit that, but it's one that, in my experience, I have found to answer a lot of my most deep-seated questions. And here's the beauty of it: This means that we are all brothers and sisters on our voyage through the infinite as we create infinite new probabilities every day just by existing, and we just haven't realized it yet, or internalized it in a way that makes it real. And that, in turn means that we are a part of the furnace of creation, and have the ability to create new variations if we perturb that infinite field by making conscious decisions one way or the other. Either for negative or positive impact (there's that binary system again! lol).

Just my opinion, but maybe it's one that will help awaken someone else, and if it's wrong, it's wrong! But maybe it will unlock something in someone else who will then give us the correct answer! Ha! :tongue:

Thanks for listening, guys/gals!

Edited December 8, 2017 by twowolves80