The press had given him the nickname 'worm man,' but his friends knew him as Derek. Scientists had manipulated his DNA to mimic one of the most amazing features of the common worm: the ability to regenerate lost tissue. And it had worked. When they chopped off his hand to test him out, a new one had regrown within in a month.
Then it all went wrong. His body was slowly deteriorating. To save his life they had to transplant his brain into a new body. However, a major mistake during the operation severed his brain in two.
Fortunately, both halves fully regenerated and both were successfully transplanted into new bodies. The only problem was that both the men who now had one of the brains believe they were Derek. What is more, both had Derek's memories, mental skills, and personality. This created problems for Derek's girlfriend, who couldn't tell them apart. It also led to the Dereks getting entangled in a legal battle to claim Derek's assets. But which was the real Derek? They couldn't BOTH be him, could they?
Derek died once he split his mind (not necessarily physically) into two and created two different personalities. They would neither be him, but rather branches to a trunk, but the branches are never the trunk. When the both become unique, it becomes aparent that the branches of the two personalities are formed. Ever since they declared their own individuality, Derek became two different people, and thus not Derek. This would be different if one died the instant the other would be made, because none would have been individual personalities but the same because the instant the man was vaporized, he could not intake new experience to make himself different. They can both be named Derek, but would never be Derek ever again.
I'm not sure about this, though... I need to come up with a good definition for a personality. A person's sum of experience and set conditioning to produce certain actions according to this conditioning.
It is possible for a personality to be exactly the same, but never lasts too long because of certain factors. The brain is like a system, a machine, and could be copied to produce the same reactions from the person copied.
A person's individuality is concept within a personality. (thats just a short statement)
A change in the personality means a change in the person, and should be recognized as a different mind within the same body for every new experience, but the person could recognize himself as the same personality. A person is the sum of the body and mind, and since the mind of Derek changes, once again the three Dereks are different from each other.
I'll continue this later, I feel my argument is missing something crucial.
Ok think of it like this, you are on the internet oen day and the phone rings. You answer it and you find out that there was an accident taht accured a year ago were your brain was removed and split in half, then they pute both haves into a new body of their own. You discover that there is someoen who is exactly like you!
Now you would not ever beleive this because you would ahve no memory of such things happening. You would feel as if this was some sick game someoen is tryign to pull. How can someone else remember the first time you got stung by a bee or when you wrecked your mom's car. Wouldnt you have remembered being in a new body or at least the accident that accured.
Now I know that this is not Derek's situation, but both Dereks feel as if the memory should belong to them alone. When you are standing in the Dereks' shoes... then you dont feel like a different person than who you originaly were be4 the accident. You feel like the other you should not evin exist. Then you have to remember that the OTHER Derek feels the exact same way.
The Dereks may have different body's but to them, they are the original. I still beleive that the essets would have to be split the best the could, but along the lines of what Carlie said, this most likely would not have a happy ending.
When I said taht Derek's situation is different than the oen i made up, I meant it was different in the way that the Dereks were more aware of each other's existance. Other than that Derek Kind of is in the same situation.
I understand, I realized that I started talking about the physical stuff some. In the last thing I said I kind of realized myself taht it works like this.
If Dereks brain was not split in two and transfered to a new body would his identity change? I beleive taht having his brain split in two is basicly the same principle except he has 2 of the same identities. They both have his identity, 100% of it. Over time, as with everyone in this world, their identities will change as they change and eventualy the two would gain their own identities as they begin acting different and obtaining their own memories.
um, I think my idea is focused on physical, my bad, but I think they would have the same identity. and like NN said, they would eventually begin to have different personalities because they wouldn't BOTH experiance the same things, and with that, their ways would change based upon experiances like a normal person.
But wouldn't they be individuals (even in personality) as soon as they come to surface consciousnesses? (I've already explained this, actually, I just want to hear an argumental point that I missed)
Well you can't split a persons soul into 2... it just doesn't work that way. Or at least I would imagine it wouldn't. I think that if someone had to be split in 2, then perhaps what was really him, his soul and his core of being, was released in the procedure.
