Was Jesus of two minds ... literally? (Part 1 and a half)

In my last post I laid down the raw materials for an account of how Jesus could be simultaneously omniscient (qua his divinity) and finite in knowledge (qua his humanity). I did so by outlining the dual consciousness of split brain patients. In those fascinating cases people who suffered from severe seizures were given a corpus callosotomy, an operation which consisted of the severing the corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. Amazingly, with the corpus callosum severed, the two hemispheres of the brain could no longer communicate directly, and this resulted in two streams of consciousness.

How is this a model for the incarnation? While much more remains to be said, the nuts and bolts are there: these cases demonstrate that it is possible for a single individual to have two streams of consciousness. As it is for the split brain patient,so it is for the incarnation. The incarnation could consist of two "minds", the mind of Jesus finite in knowledge and the mind of the Word/Son of God, infinite in knowledge.

But everything depends on our willingness to accept that split brain patients are single individuals. I certainly accept this and most others do as well, but Sorceror took issue with this claim in the thread. By his lights, a split brain patient is in fact two people:

"I just don't share your 'intuition' that "a single agent may possess two streams of consciousness." Especially when they can - and do - frequently act to oppose each other. That's pretty much the definition of separate agency."

If this claim is plausible then it spells trouble for the two minds model, in effect usurping its illustrative force, for we lose our account of how two minds could equal one person.

But why think that Sorceror's take on a split brain patient is correct? Here's what he says:

"Imagine a block of marble completely sheathed in rubber. A sharp blow cracks the marble in half, but the rubber sheath remains intact, holding the pieces together. Despite the fact that they are held together, in the same relative positions, and can even be picked up as a unit... you can't say that there's just one piece of marble there now."

Ironically, this explanation actually works against Sorceror. It is indeed (trivially) true that there are two pieces of marble just like there are two streams of consciousness. But are there two statues? Not at all. There is one statue that is split in two. Likewise, a split brain patient is one human person who has a conscious life that has been "split in two".

I pointed out to Sorceror as well that his view entails that the spouse of a split brain patient becomes a bigamist, for if there are two persons in a split brain patient then the spouse is ipso facto married to two people.

And would you believe it gets worse for Sorceror's view? Think about Lucy. After she gets the surgery she has two streams of consciousness, one arising from each hemisphere of her brain. Sorceror believes that each of these two "minds" are themselves people.

But Sorceror's view leave us with enormously implausible analyses of personhood. Here is one possible account:

Lucy is the conscious life of two hemispheres of a brain. When the corpus callosum is severed, Lucy ceases to exist (i.e. she is killed) and two new persons are created.

In other words, even though Lucy's body looks the same and remains animated, with the same memories, characteristics, traits, and so on, she is no longer with us. Lucy's spouse became both a bigamist and a widower all with the same surgery.

Other metaphysical analyses of Sorceror's two persons claim are no more plausible than this, leaving me to conclude that we really ought to reject his reasoning that split brain patients are two persons. No, instead a split brain patient is one person with two minds.

With that settled, we can turn in the next post to consider the two minds model of the incarnation more fully.