Philosophical Speculations

The corpus callosum connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres and If disconnected, one mind becomes two. So, here the dissociation process is demonstrated. But in cojoined twins, each keeps his or her own personality. They have acces to eachothers memories and inner life, but they act as if they both are two minds in cojoined brains.

If we are an alter and we cojoin with another alter, according to Bernardo's theory whe should become less dissociated. Or, maybe a bigger whirlpool. What are your thoughts on that?

MaartenV wrote: ↑Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:23 pm The corpus callosum connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres and If disconnected, one mind becomes two. So, here the dissociation process is demonstrated. But in cojoined twins, each keeps his or her own personality. They have acces to eachothers memories and inner life, but they act as if they both are two minds in cojoined brains.

If we are an alter and we cojoin with another alter, according to Bernardo's theory whe should become less dissociated. Or, maybe a bigger whirlpool. What are your thoughts on that?

If we realize there is only One Mind and many differentiated perspectives, these issues are mostly cleared up. We know this from our own experience, such as the perspective when we are awake and when we are asleep, younger and older, etc., but also from empirical exoteric science such as developmental psychology and in the case of split personalities you mention. There is also no reason for us to think reintegration of perspectives means a smearing out of those perspectives, i.e. no ideal content or true knowledge is forever lost, as is also the case in our own experience of development.

I can actually speak in a very personal way about the reintegration of perspectives, if that's okay. One of the things that initially drew me to Kastrup's work was precisely his use of DID as a central metaphor for his perspective, as someone who was a dissociated system (not DID, but OSDD, but the differences don't matter much in this discussion). My own journey has taken me through a reintegration of perspectives. In the case of an Alter with alters, the vocabulary gets a little fuzzy, so for convenience, I'll distinguish that way: capitalized for the Dissociative Boundary that appears as metabolism, lowercase for the dissociative boundaries that appear as shifts in brain activity.

The answer to the question you asked, at least in my case, is "neither." The Dissociative Boundary remains unaffected by the resolving of the dissociative boundaries, because the DB is comprised of transcendental dualities that stick around regardless of how many alters (or, in the case of twins, whole brains) are involved in the internal world of the Alter. And the "size of the whirlpool," as a spatial metaphor, sorta breaks down here: in an infinite ocean, the size of a particular whirlpool doesn't mean very much. Even in terms of the mental content itself, nothing is gone: those aspects of my emotional and mental landscape which once perceived walls between them no longer do, but the ground remains the ground. It's the same ideal territory.

Ultimately, it's like Ashvin said: whether alters or Alters, the reintegration of perspectives is ultimately taking place within a single M/mind. Although much is transformed in the process of integration, nothing is ultimately lost. In Kastrup's work, he takes care to say that the D/dissociative B/boundaries were illusory all along, and if they're illusory, then what even could be lost or change in size?

MaartenV wrote: ↑Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:23 pm The corpus callosum connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres and If disconnected, one mind becomes two. So, here the dissociation process is demonstrated. But in cojoined twins, each keeps his or her own personality. They have acces to eachothers memories and inner life, but they act as if they both are two minds in cojoined brains.

If we are an alter and we cojoin with another alter, according to Bernardo's theory whe should become less dissociated. Or, maybe a bigger whirlpool. What are your thoughts on that?

Most cojoined twins have separate brains. Can you cite a particular case you are talking about?

Also, the corpus callosum isn't the only connection between the hemispheres of the brain. The hemispheres are also connected at the brainstem.

Jim Cross wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 12:52 pm
Most cojoined twins have separate brains. Can you cite a particular case you are talking about?

Also, the corpus callosum isn't the only connection between the hemispheres of the brain. The hemispheres are also connected at the brainstem.

No, I had no particular case in mind. I mean twins who are attached at the head.

MaartenV wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 12:57 pm

Jim Cross wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 12:52 pm
Most cojoined twins have separate brains. Can you cite a particular case you are talking about?

Also, the corpus callosum isn't the only connection between the hemispheres of the brain. The hemispheres are also connected at the brainstem.

No, I had no particular case in mind. I mean twins who are attached at the head.

Even the ones attached at the head I'm not sure are attached at the corpus callosum.

There is syncephalus type with one head with a single face but four ears, and two bodies but I assume that would be one brain. Most of the others joined at the head seemed to be at the side or top.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjoined_twins