I think there is a conflation of two different things:
Human brain has two hemispheres which communicate through a relatively lower-bandwidth channel, which means they process a lot of things independently.
There is the dissociative identity disorder / alter ego / tulpa phenomenon, where a human can produce two or more identities. This is probably something that exists on a spectrum, where the extreme forms are full different personalities with dissociative amnesia; imaginary friends and brainwashing are somewhere in the middle; and the everyday forms are role-playing or different moods.
If I understand it correctly, Ziz assumes that these two are the same thing. Which is pseudoscientific, and in my opinion clearly wrong.
First, because there can be more than two identities (but no one has more than two brain hemispheres, I suppose). Yes, two is the most famous number, but that’s simply because two is the smallest integer that is greater than one, and more personalities are less frequent.
Second, even if there are exactly two identities, there is no evidence mapping them to two hemispheres (as opposed to each of them using both hemispheres), and a lot of obvious evidence against that, for example the fact that each personality can use both hands etc.
However the idea of “left brain, right brain” is quite popular in our culture. And there were a few experiments showing that the hemispheres can be separated, and then weird things happen. Which means that Ziz’s theory may sound plausible to many people, even in the rationalist community.
Ziz assumes that there are (1) exactly two (2) permanent “cores” in every human. The number two and the permanence are the crucial parts of her ideology; in my opinion this is incompatible with any Buddhist doctrine, which would actually put the emphasis on their impermanence.
The permanence of the “cores”, and the Manichean perspective that each of them is either perfectly good or perfectly evil, is the basis of social control that Ziz has over her followers. You can’t meaningfully disagree with Ziz, because she is 100% good, and you are 50% good and 50% evil, which means that any disagreement must obviously originate in your evil half, and therefore you should mobilize your good half to fight against it (or kill yourself, if you cannot win). The only moral choice is to believe and obey Ziz unconditionally.
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I kinda assume that multiple personalities are “just” a stronger form of what people normally do, and that different personalities can present as different genders (including agender etc.).
I reject the “exactly two” and “it maps to hemispheres” parts, the permanence of the personalities, and the Manichean ethics.
I think there is a conflation of two different things:
Human brain has two hemispheres which communicate through a relatively lower-bandwidth channel, which means they process a lot of things independently.
There is the dissociative identity disorder / alter ego / tulpa phenomenon, where a human can produce two or more identities. This is probably something that exists on a spectrum, where the extreme forms are full different personalities with dissociative amnesia; imaginary friends and brainwashing are somewhere in the middle; and the everyday forms are role-playing or different moods.
If I understand it correctly, Ziz assumes that these two are the same thing. Which is pseudoscientific, and in my opinion clearly wrong.
First, because there can be more than two identities (but no one has more than two brain hemispheres, I suppose). Yes, two is the most famous number, but that’s simply because two is the smallest integer that is greater than one, and more personalities are less frequent.
Second, even if there are exactly two identities, there is no evidence mapping them to two hemispheres (as opposed to each of them using both hemispheres), and a lot of obvious evidence against that, for example the fact that each personality can use both hands etc.
However the idea of “left brain, right brain” is quite popular in our culture. And there were a few experiments showing that the hemispheres can be separated, and then weird things happen. Which means that Ziz’s theory may sound plausible to many people, even in the rationalist community.
Ziz assumes that there are (1) exactly two (2) permanent “cores” in every human. The number two and the permanence are the crucial parts of her ideology; in my opinion this is incompatible with any Buddhist doctrine, which would actually put the emphasis on their impermanence.
The permanence of the “cores”, and the Manichean perspective that each of them is either perfectly good or perfectly evil, is the basis of social control that Ziz has over her followers. You can’t meaningfully disagree with Ziz, because she is 100% good, and you are 50% good and 50% evil, which means that any disagreement must obviously originate in your evil half, and therefore you should mobilize your good half to fight against it (or kill yourself, if you cannot win). The only moral choice is to believe and obey Ziz unconditionally.
.
I kinda assume that multiple personalities are “just” a stronger form of what people normally do, and that different personalities can present as different genders (including agender etc.).
I reject the “exactly two” and “it maps to hemispheres” parts, the permanence of the personalities, and the Manichean ethics.