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At first when I was asked to make one unified response to the two papers you have just heard, I could see no common theme at all between a discussion of the philosophical problems concerning brain representations and their relation to the external world, on the one hand, and the philosophical problem of the identity of split brain patients on the other. In fact, there seemed to be no problem at all, let alone a common one. After all, we all have brains which are affected by energy in the physical universe, and we deal with things in the everyday world, but these levels of description seem so unrelated as to leave no space for a problem. In the same way, the brain and the person are so different it should be no surprise that a patient whose brain hemispheres have been surgically severed can function in the everyday world like a normal integrated person. Why should anyone suppose that brain representations cut a person off from the world, or that separate brain functions going on in one head cut a person off from himself?

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-1473-1_9

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