> We had asked a simple question: How does the left hemisphere respond to behaviors produced by the silent right brain? Each hemisphere was presented a picture that related to one of four pictures placed in front of the split-brain subject. The left and the right hemispheres easily picked the correct card. The left hand pointed to the right hemisphere’s choice and the right hand to the left hemisphere’s choice [see illustration at right].
> We then asked the left hemisphere, the only one that can talk , why the left hand was pointing to the object. It did not know, because the decision to point was made in the right hemisphere. Yet it quickly made up an explanation. We dubbed this creative, narrative talent the interpreter mechanism. [2]
Taken together, there's a very disturbing sequence playing out all the time in your head. A great deal of your brain, inaccessible to your conscious mind is incorporating sensory input, making decisions, and taking action while a small part is observing what's going on and narrating it to you in a way that makes it look as if the narration is involved in the volitional process.
It's a nightmarish version of epiphenomenalism[3] that, I suspect, most people would care not to believe is true. Although, reports of some expert meditators read as if they found intuitive evidence this is true and have also made peace with it or in some cases found the insight liberating.
In any case, I have a pessimistic sense that any definitive proof of the limits of consciousness that don't align with people's felt experience or common sense won't ever be accepted as truth.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-brain_interpreter
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20181215020736/https://courses.d...