
Conjoined twins who share a brain - liuhenry
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/02/a-piece-of-their-mind/print/
======
noonespecial
My brain stalled for about 20 minutes just trying to get some thought around
all of the implications of this. Then it was gradually replaced by a the
sinking feeling one gets when watching tremendous opportunity lost.

 _Her husband, Doug, drums up business. “We deliver food, flowers, whatever
anybody needs,” she says. “We charge $5 for delivery in town.” Money is tight.
Each time they get ahead, there’s a financially draining trip to Vancouver._

What!?

Some of the greatest leaps in understanding about how our brains work, not to
mention untold wonders in technological advancement might be presented to us
on a platter via this once in a multi-generation opportunity and they're
housed in some crap rental trying to deliver flowers to make ends meet??? This
family should immediately be declared a national treasure and have the full
support of the Canadian government.

Expensive? Morally nebulous? Look, we yanks will build a multi-100-million
dollar prison and get over the moral gray-ness of water-boarding just to find
a few bombs. Helping out what might turn out to be a simple disabled pair of
twins in exchange for knowledge that may improve humanity forever shouldn't be
that much of a stretch.

I know this might be an unpopular opinion and attract downvotes, but I just
got a +70 for what I though was a throwaway one-liner. If that's how the karma
flows, then bring it.

~~~
Eliezer
I went inarticulate while reading this, I was literally making noises that
were not English because I did not have English words to express them. These
could be the first and only real telepaths upon the face of the Earth. There
could be things to learn here that we couldn't learn any other way short of
waiting another two decades for the brain-computer interface technology and
then another twenty years for the FDA to approve its use on children and then
ten years after that for the children to grow up and by then the Singularity
would have already happened. Their importance is indescribable.

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iuguy
Interesting. If one of them can distinctly originate a thought separate to the
other then it's possible to say that they're separate people.

Where it gets really messed up is when you look at people who've had major
parts of their brain removed. I remember reading about a man who had half his
brain removed and was able to function almost perfectly after therapy. If you
were able to take half of someone's brain out, then put that half into another
person (who you'd removed the full brain from) would that make them two
separate people or still one?

~~~
JshWright
You can't just remove an arbitrary portion of the brain and still survive.
There are bits of your brain that aren't duplicated, can't be bisected, and
are absolutely necessary for survival.

So while it's an interesting question, it's impossible in practice (even if we
had the capability of "reattaching" a portion of the brain).

~~~
iuguy
Wait, are you inguardian's Josh Wright? If so, hi - big fan of your work.

If not, show me your work and I'm sure I'll become a big fan :)

Thankyou for forcing me to google the wonderful world of hemispheroctomy.

Check out these bad boys:

[http://technorati.com/lifestyle/family/article/girl-has-
half...](http://technorati.com/lifestyle/family/article/girl-has-half-her-
brain-removed/)

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,836175,00.h...](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,836175,00.html)

I'm happy to accept anything you post on the opposite side, I just found these
stories interesting.

------
Afton
I admit my first thought was "Wait...How did they put that hoodie on?" The
simple mechanics of everyday life are what fascinate me about this one.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I was thinking the same thing. Dressing wiggly, noodly babies is hard enough,
much less without being able to pull clothes over their heads.

~~~
Retric
Using a sewing machine to add zipers to everything.

~~~
Afton
check the photo on the left. No zipper.

~~~
Retric
Normally you add such things down the back so they look more normal and less
distracting when talking to people.

~~~
Afton
That simultaneously makes sense, and is an odd thing to know. Thank for the
insight.

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kls
My first thought was imagine the perspective on the world two people with a
communication link between brains would have. It really provides an
interesting prospect for the arts or sciences. These girls are naturally going
to see and experience the world far different than the rest of us. Their
unique experience could be very valuable to humanity, only time will tell.

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cmurphycode
This is fascinating. It reminded me of another documentary on conjoined twins
who are fused partway down the spine. Almost the complement of these twins!

The wiki page for the other girls has information and links:
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Abigail_and_B...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Abigail_and_Brittany_Hensel)

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seunosewa
Why is the article so inconclusive about whether or not they can hear each
other's thoughts? Can't someone just ask them?

~~~
JCThoughtscream
Article says near the end that their communicative abilities are limited to
badly enunciated short sentences. AND they're four years old. Four years old
tend to ignore difficult questions in favor of something more fun.

~~~
scott_s
It's not just that they ignore such questions, such questions don't mean
anything to them yet.

Something else I thought about was the supposed tendency of identical twins to
have have a pseudo-dialect between each other. Perhaps these two don't
communicate with the outside world as much because they're too busy
communicating, silently, with each other.

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100k
Fascinating! Twins, being genetically identical and raised in the same
environment, already seem uncannily similar sometimes. Imagine what they will
be like, with they ability to share each other's sensory experiences...

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cubix
You can watch the documentary here:
[http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/Doc_Zone/1242299559/ID=16163...](http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/Doc_Zone/1242299559/ID=1616373031)

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liuhenry
If they share sensory input and even thoughts, are they separate people with
distinct personalities or one person with a split personality?

~~~
AndyKelley
What's the difference?

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TheSOB88
It seems, as with many other things, everyone wants to see this as a black-
and-white issue: "Are they one people or two people? They can share thoughts!"
We're of course not used to it, but the fact is there's a continuum here. They
are more linked than any other two people, but they do have separate brains,
with separate connections. This is an example of an issue where you just can't
pigeonhole them into one or the other.

~~~
garply
I've always imagined that in the future humans will have some form of
telepathy through neural implants. This sounds almost exactly like how I
envision the experience of well-implemented telepathic communication.

~~~
hvs
Hopefully with better reception than my cellphone.

------
klbarry
Wow. This is so absolutely fascinating. I only wish they could grow up faster
so we could see if they really can read each-others thoughts, or if it's just
hopeful pattern making by the adults.

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itistoday
Anyone else completely baffled by how they got their hoodies on??

The photo on the right doesn't show any buttons and the opening for the neck
seems way too small for them to fit their whole body through it.

