The Real Rule of Two: There’s More Than One Opinion In Your Head

Star Wars nerds know about the “The Rule of Two.” It states there can only be two Sith lords at any one time - a master to hold the power, and an apprentice to crave it. Like all great myths, Star Wars is a metaphor for the inner struggle we all face. When Luke defeats Darth Vader’s hologram on Dagobah, the face under the villain's cracked mask is Luke’s own.

The psychological idea of a shadow personality inside all of us is too abstract for some people to accept. Psychiatrist Carl Jung introduced the concept of a dark version of the self that needs to be integrated, but religion has always talked about angels and demons. Literature has Jekyll and Hyde. Movies have The Nutty Professor, Bruce Wayne and Batman - or Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. The list goes on.

“Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our viewpoint.” 
— Obi-Wan Kenobi,?Star Wars Episode VI:?Return Of The Jedi        

But what if it goes beyond art and metaphor? What if there are actually two opposing entities in your head, each providing evidence for its version of the truth? Normally, this is all done instantaneously and subconsciously, but what if it wasn’t? Imagine your right hand actually fighting your left hand over what clothes to take out of the closet, or how to put a puzzle together? What if half of you thought the other half was going to hell?

Your brain has two hemispheres - right and left - which are responsible for different processes. The combined input makes up your perception of the world. Each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body. The two hemispheres communicate via a band of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum. Epileptic patients with severe symptoms sometimes have their corpus callosum cut to stop seizures from spreading throughout the brain. The procedure prevents communication between the two hemispheres.

It turns out the two hemispheres see things very differently when they aren’t connected. Drs. Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga pioneered research into these split brain patients, and found that they could perceive things on one side of their brains that the other side wasn’t aware of.

In the experiments, an object only seen in the right visual field wasn’t consciously known by the right hemisphere, because the right visual field projects to the left hemisphere. However, the left hand, which is controlled by the right hemisphere, was able to draw the object. The patient couldn’t say why he’d drawn it, or would make up a story to justify the drawing.

In one experiment, a patient was shown paintings of faces made up of objects like fruit or books. The right hemisphere saw a face, the left hemisphere saw the fruit. The right hemisphere saw the big picture, while the left saw the detail. A connected brain would have seen a face made of fruit.

Another of Gazzaniga’s test subjects found that when she consciously picked out what to wear, and tried to take her clothes out of the closet with one hand, the other hand would pick out something that was the complete opposite of her taste. She’d often become frustrated by the selection laid out on the bed.

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the 
other, or he will be devoted to the one  and despise the other.

Matthew 6:24”        

An experiment by UC San Diego neurologist, VS Ramachandran, PhD., saw a subject with a severed corpus callosum whose right hemisphere was an atheist, while his left hemisphere believed in God.

If essential elements of personality can be split within a person’s brain, which of the two is the truth? According to Dr. Gazzaniga, the final decision is made in the left hemisphere (which controls language), after all the information is considered. The left hemisphere is the interpreter that makes sense of new information using past knowledge.

All these processes happen without you noticing, and because your corpus callosum is likely intact, it’s all seamless. Still, those opposing perceptions exist ever so briefly. There is unconscious conflict happening within you before you’ve consciously made your decisions.

According to Dr. Sperry, each hemisphere, “...is indeed a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing and emoting, all at a characteristically human level.”

Much of the right hemisphere’s processing is unconscious, as in the quick categorization of shapes and faces. Those right hemisphere processes are mediated and interpreted by the left hemisphere. Without a connection, the left side of the brain will make up a story to justify the right hemisphere’s visual cues.

While there aren’t two consciousnesses inside of us, there are two streams of consciousness, aware of separate things, according to Sperry.

“Both the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in different, even mutually conflicting mental experiences that run along in parallel.”

Most of us can relate to the idea of conflicting mental experiences that run parallel. To paraphrase philosopher Alan Watts, human beings deliberate over difficult choices only to make a snap decision in the end. Our likes and dislikes can be overridden by reason or emotion using a split second analysis of all our sensory data, some of which is unconscious.

Our beliefs can even be turned on and off by stimulating certain parts of the brain, according to research by Michael Persinger, a neuropsychologist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. He found that using magnetic stimulation to disrupt the brain region that responds to threat resulted in less negative and less ideologic reactions when confronted by conflicting moral views. Test subjects showed a 32% reduction in their belief in God, and were 28% more positive toward immigrants who criticized their countries.

If your personality and beliefs are just a series of electrical signals in just the right places, why should you fight so hard to protect them? If you are actually seeing two different things when you look at anything, how can you call someone else’s perspective wrong? We all seem so certain of what we believe, but we may only be seeing half the truth. For our brains, two perspectives create a more complete picture, but in the society we’ve built, different opinions are threatening. The light is afraid of the dark, and the left and right can’t seem to get along. When it comes to our internal war, the goal shouldn’t be for one side to conquer the other, but for both to contribute their unique perspective to a solution. Nature has provided the template, all we need to do is follow it.