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Comment by lolc | Hacker News Reader

The way I understood the situation it's two brains fused together, not one brain in control of two bodies. The twins were described as having different personalities.

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The same can happen to schizophrenic patients. They are still one person (from a juridical point of view). Neuroanatomically, what I see here in this situation is a highly intermingled brain, so intermixed that it is impossible to separate without killing both personalities and their bodies as well.

I believe you're referring to Dissociative identity disorder (DID), or multiple personality disorder (MPD), not Schizophrenia, and a friend who's a psychiatrist told me that in quite a few decades of practicing, he hasn't encountered even once such a diagnosis so he doubts it even exists outside of Hollywood movies.

As far as I'm concerned what matters is how many entities exist who display a behavior of a separate entity (at least to the degree that we acknowledge as being separate) - i.e display different personalities each with a cohesive structure and integrity. It really doesn't matter how many physical brains they share.

Your friend is wrong, there are persons who are delusional to the point of losing grip with their own bounds of personality, but of course Hollywood creates a dramatic picture of them all.

SPLIT was a fantastic movie in any case! :p

> schizophrenic patients

Schizophrenia has to do with some degree of failure to separate reality and delusion. It's got nothing to do with multiple personalities. Are you talking about dissosiative identity disorder, instead?

I am talking about all of these syndromes. I used schizo thinking that would be easier for most persons to recognize.

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