Split-Brain: A Functional Reframing

Reportable Awareness vs. Foundational Competence: A Functional BAL/Looping Account of Split-Brain Phenomena

(Working Paper / Preliminary Account)
Updated as of June 14, 2025 – Section 1 revised with expanded guidance on neuronal proxy structure.

John Mark Norman
Independent Researcher
jnormansp@gmail.com

Abstract

This paper offers a functional reframing of split-brain phenomena – but not one developed for that purpose. The framework described here was originally constructed to explain core features of brain function: perception, imagination, planning, internal modeling, and subjective access. Only once the model was complete did it become clear that it also accounted – with striking precision – for the puzzling dissociations observed after callosotomy. That unplanned alignment lends weight to the structure itself.

To frame this model, we treat the brain as a functional whole – what we call the Brain at Large – understood as a global cybernetic system responsible for goal formation, environmental modeling, and behavioral control. Within this system, we identify a specialized subsystem: the Proxy Transfer Device (PTD), a lateralized expressive mechanism whose internal reuse (Looping) enables reportable awareness. This functional distinction between the PTD and the broader Brain at Large proves critical for resolving long-standing puzzles in split-brain research and clarifying the architecture of conscious experience.

Beyond reinterpreting past data, the framework points toward a new line of research: identifying the difference between looped and unlooped responses. It proposes that what we call “consciousness” corresponds, functionally, to internal looping – a learned reuse of the expressive pathway that allows the brain to examine its own state before acting. On this view, split-brain phenomena are no longer peripheral puzzles or strange edge cases – they take on a new role as central validation points for a structural model of mental function.

Introduction

In my work on brain function, I developed a framework – grounded in cybernetics, evolution, and child language development – before I had studied split-brain research in any depth. When I later encountered that literature, I noticed that many researchers described split-brain phenomena as difficult to explain, even enigmatic. But from the standpoint of the framework, everything seemed entirely expected. The apparent puzzles aligned so well with the model I had constructed that, even before reading the research in depth, I could have predicted the findings based on its core principles.

This paper reframes split-brain phenomena through a functional model developed independently of that field. The framework arose from studying how the brain handles everyday operations –

perception, imagination, recollection, language, behavior, and recall. A further feature was that it accounted for behavior of nonhuman animals, and for the differences between them and humans, where the addition of language naturally resulted in the differences. It’s important to note that it was constructed without reference to split-brain cases. Only later did I realize how precisely it aligned with the findings of split-brain research.

That alignment is, in a sense, a validation – since the framework was not designed with split-brain phenomena in mind, and yet it predicts them in a very straightforward way. The framework may therefore be of interest to researchers in the field, as it dissolves some of the most enigmatic questions that conventional viewpoints have struggled to explain. The rest of this paper lays out the framework in Sections 1 through 3, and then goes on to show how these ideas account for the split-brain findings in Sections 4 through 6.

1. The Foundational Operator: The Brain at Large (BAL)

The account offered here does not begin with language, or even with human cognition. It begins further back – with the basic operational logic that governs any sufficiently complex nervous system. That logic is rooted in physical constraints, and in an evolutionary lineage that long predates hominids.

The framework treats the entire brain as a functional control system – goal-seeking, adaptive, and cybernetic in nature (Wiener 1948; Ashby 1956). This whole-system perspective is referred to as the Brain at Large (BAL), understood as the global agent responsible for guiding behavior, securing survival, and modifying its patterns through learning. Later sections will introduce a specialized subsystem within this whole – the Proxy Transfer Device (PTD) – but for now, we focus on the BAL as the overarching architecture that governs interaction with the environment.

The BAL works by physical means – electrochemical signaling, dynamic networks – and its task is simple in outline: to move the organism from whatever initial state it is presently in toward a goal state that is good for that organism. These goals may be basic – nutritional balance, avoidance of harm, reproductive access, and the brain is informed about them through various sorts of direct or sensory input (metabolic state receptors, sense organs, etc.).

Crucially, the BAL cannot simply shift itself internally into a goal state. It must detect real changes through sensory input. If the stomach is empty, the BAL guides behavior that results in the ingestion of food, at which point the brain is informed through metabolic state receptors and sense organs that the goal state has been reached. This is a key imperative: the only way the BAL can reach the goal state is through interaction with the environment and then monitoring of metabolic receptors and sense organs. This results in a feedback cycle between internal states, behavior, and sensory input.

In accordance with cybernetic principles, the BAL must possess an internal model of its environment. Without it, the system could not adjust behavior based on past outcomes or anticipate the effects of its actions.

It should be noted that for this sort of cybernetic system to work, it must model its external environment internally. This is a basic concept of cybernetics. In other words, it has an internal model of those parts of the world that are relevant to its behavior. This brings us to the next element in the framework, which is called the “neuronal proxy.” This compound word simply denotes neuronal states or configurations – either distributed or localized – that persist and stand for given elements in the external environment. That’s why they are called “proxies.” There is nothing complex or representational about them. Think instead of the traditional Micronesian stick charts – delicate lattices of wood and shell that mapped the sea by mirroring its features. No names, no coordinates, only a sort of one-to-one mapping. The structure was the knowledge. A curve of reed marked a current. A knot meant an island. The chart didn’t describe the ocean; it stood in for it. In just the same way, these neuronal proxies don’t “represent” things in the usual symbolic sense. They don’t explain the world. They hold its shape. And by adjusting their configuration, the Brain at Large can steer behavior – pushing the organism toward its next viable state, closer to what its biology demands. But once again it must be reiterated that the brain cannot change the states of these proxies directly, but only through interaction with the environment, because the states of the proxies are dictated by sensory input.

The identity of these proxies – their relationship to elements, relationships and qualities in the environment – can be deduced by observing behavioral patterns across species. Scientists observe, for example, squirrels with the ability to distinguish between perishable and nonperishable food as a basis for whether or not to store a food item (Hadj‑Chikh, Steele, & Smallwood, 1996), and ravens able to select and use appropriate tools in novel settings, in carefully designed experiments (Veit et al., 2025). Such observations reveal that internal structures corresponding to objects and qualities are formed through past experience – structures that exhibit a behaviorally verified, endurable fixed identity. In humans, there are further ways to identify these proxies, including certain “cloud chamber” effects, where associated bundles of qualities naturally seen as constituting a discrete element in the environment can split, recombine, or generalize. A classic example is the furriness transfer in Watson’s Little Albert experiment (Watson & Rayner, 1920). Some proxies reflect elemental features the brain uses to organize its internal model of the world – like a hard edge or a warm lap, as opposed to discrete objects an organism might interact with. Others are more layered, built up over time and shaped through reinforcement and repeated exposure. Their structure tends to be idiosyncratic and variable, and not necessarily ruled by the tidy categories of the words used in human language. In nonhuman animals, these proxies operate entirely without words. And even in humans, they retain their nonlinguistic form – they serve as a basis that informs language, which is superficial in relation to these underlying, nonlinguistic proxies. A detailed account of these architectures lies beyond the scope of the present paper, but readers interested in further exploration are referred to the author’s website (Norman, 2025).

These proxies are shaped through interaction. They form and adjust through activity-dependent plasticity (Hebb 1949; Kandel 2001), and they persist only if they’re useful. If acting on a proxy brings the organism closer to a goal, the pattern stabilizes. If it doesn’t, it fades or shifts. The system learns by success and failure, one outcome at a time.

At any moment, there will be an active configuration of proxies, which defines the focus of the BAL in the current situation. The links between them – connecting causes to effects, locations to objects, actions to consequences – form a structure the BAL can use to decide what to do. It’s not a question of blind choice and trial and error, but about prediction: anticipating how the sensory world will shift depending on what it does next. And deciding which actions will bring it toward its goal state.

This entire system – the BAL, its proxy-based internal model, and its reliance on sensory feedback – is capable of supporting complex, adaptive behavior. And in most animals, it accounts for the full range of cognition. It operates without language, and without the particular kind of internal access that will be discussed in the next section (2). This intrinsic competence of the BAL, capable of sophisticated processing and guidance without reportable awareness, serves as the necessary baseline upon which later capabilities, including subjective examination, are built – thus suggesting that competence without reportable presence is a widespread feature of cognition, not merely an anomaly.

2. Two Evolutionary Add-Ons

2a: Interindividual communication

While the BAL alone is generally sufficient for adaptive behavior, something further developed in humans – something that allowed for a new kind of coordination between individuals. That

development wasn’t magic, and it wasn’t separate from the rest of the system. It was a new tool, grounded in the same principles of function and feedback.

The framework calls this tool the 'Proxy Transfer Device' (PTD). Others might call it the language faculty, but that term often comes loaded with assumptions. Here, we define it only by what it does: it allows one BAL to convert its currently active proxy configurations into signals that another BAL can receive and then used to activate the same or similar proxy configurations within itself.

The BAL uses the PTD in the same way it uses any other tool. It can initiate its use, just as it initiates reaching, walking, or vocalizing. And the likely reason it took hold in evolutionary terms was simple: it allowed internal states – what the BAL is tracking, thinking, or feeling – to be transferred across individuals in a structured and usable form.

Next comes a key assumption, but in entirely plausible and perhaps necessary one: for this tool to be of any use to the BAL, the transfer must be proxy-based. Proxy activation on one end, and proxy activation on the other. Meaningful communication, in this system, isn’t about symbols or ideas in the abstract. It’s about activating one proxy configuration in one BAL, and triggering a matching activation in another. That’s the whole point. Since these proxies are the BAL’s fundamental functional elements – its internal correlates of environmental or bodily significance – they must form the basic units of meaning.

To achieve this kind of transfer, the PTD has to operate through a transitive structure – one that can translate internal states into external signals, and then back again into internal states on the receiving end. This process has stages, forming a structured pathway between internal proxy configurations and the signals that carry them. On the expressive side, the process begins when the BAL selects a proxy configuration for outward transmission. Why? To achieve a goal. How? The same way it moves a hand or begins to walk – it simply initiates the action. After initiation, the signal passes through increasingly concrete stages as it moves toward externalization:

o1: From among its overall proxy configuration, the brain strategically selects a subset for interindividual transfer. (This is the specific content the BAL intends to externalize, that is, transfer to another brain.)

o2–o4: These are formatting stages. The system applies structure – first the highest level structure, then syntactic, then lexical, then phonological or gestural, starting at the level of higher order complexity and ending (in speech or writing), in a linear stream of discrete code units (cf. Levelt 1989).

o5: This is the final stage before contact with the world. Motor plans are set into motion – whether for speech, gesture, or writing – but the environment has not yet been affected.

(between the two series is the environment)

On the input side, the process begins with the arrival of a signal.

i1: The sensory organs detect the signal – sound waves, visual forms, physical marks on a surface.

i2–i4: The signal is decoded: it is rendered into units corresponding to neuronal proxies. These are activated and, through internal processing, organized into a coherent configuration.

i5: In this way, the strategically selected subset of neuronal proxy configurations in the transmitting brain is finally rendered in the receiver brain as a similar neuronal proxy configuration – ideally matching what the sender had at o1, though with idiosyncratic differences.

Together, these stages – o1 through o5, through the world, and then i1 through i5 – form the complete external series of the PTD. In communication between individuals, this series carries meaning from one BAL to another.

2b. Looping

In infancy, a remarkable pattern emerges: when the BAL initiates speech, it immediately hears that same speech.This reliable link between output (especially stages o2–o4) and input (i5) creates a stable correlation the brain can learn from. Over time, the system begins to notice: when I start to speak, a familiar meaning follows.

From a functional standpoint, this is exactly the kind of correlation the BAL is built to exploit. Under activity-dependent plasticity (Hebb 1949), paired signals strengthen their connection. Under predictive modeling, the brain learns to anticipate the outcomes of its actions (via efference copy; Crapse & Sommer 2008). And through mechanisms of circuit repurposing and selection, it favors functional shortcuts (cf. Anderson 2010; Edelman 1987). All three tendencies converge here: a repeated, high-fidelity correlation between expression and meaning. Indeed, given the brain’s proven tendency toward reuse and convergence, it would be surprising if the infant brain did not discover this internal shortcut. Once that correlation is noticed, the BAL begins treating early-stage expression as a reliable trigger for proxy activation. In essence, it learns to loop.

This kind of shortcut is consistent with existing models of language processing. For instance, the TRACE model (McClelland & Elman 1986) shows how layered feedback can link phonological, lexical, and semantic levels, creating stable resonance across stages. Such architectures demonstrate that the brain is already equipped for the kind of cross-stage correlation Looping exploits. So rather than needing a new system, the BAL simply begins treating early-stage expression as a reliable trigger for proxy activation.

Looping is a learned reuse of the expressive system for internal purposes. Instead of completing the outward expressive cycle (o5 → environment → i1–i4), the BAL senses its own incipient output and internally reactivates the corresponding proxies – directly linking o1 or o2 to i5. It’s not about modeling the act; it’s about sensing the intention, and experiencing the meaning that would normally follow.

The structures involved – syntax, phonology, code units – are scaffolding. Their purpose is to help re-trigger proxy configurations, whether in another brain during communication, or in the same brain during looping. Meaning lies in proxy activation itself, not in the code. That is what Looping achieves.

This reuse of a pathway developed for outward communication – now turned inward for inspection – is a clear case of neuronal reuse. It doesn’t require new circuitry, only a new purpose. The BAL applies the same functional system to a new task: examining its own internal states.

Once established, Looping becomes the foundation for a range of higher operations:

▪ Recollection: forming a potential expression about past experience and looping it to reawaken the relevant proxies.

▪ Imagination: forming possible expressions about unreal scenarios and activating their associated proxies.

▪ Planning: looping proxy sets to simulate outcomes before acting.

▪ Conscious perception: reinforcing incoming input by shaping it for expression, then experiencing the reactivation (this step operates within the limits of overview and focus).

Because the PTD is sequential, these operations are inherently serial. You cannot deeply recall a memory and fully analyze a visual scene at once. What feels parallel is just fast switching.

Most important, this defines the boundary of subjective experience: if something cannot be prepared for expression, it cannot be looped. And if it cannot be looped, it is not available to conscious awareness. Looping marks the functional edge of the reportable mind. It's important, however, to note that most experiments in split-brain research have not designed to distinguish looping from direct output. In these cases, what gets reported may simply be the output of the o-series, not involving internal reactivation of proxies through looping.

3. Looping as a tool

It is not an evolved module or a specialized instinct. It is a learned capability, forming early in development as a direct consequence of the BAL operating on the PTD. And it has a specific function: it allows the BAL to reactivate a proxy configuration not by hearing its own voice or seeing its own writing, but by sensing its own expressive impulse before it reaches the outside world. It anticipates the meaning effect internally – not by modeling the act, but by directly sensing its own expressive impulse – achieving the effect without needing to complete the full expressive cycle (o5 → world → i1–i4). Instead, the series goes something like o1 → i5 or o1→ o2→ i5. It is important to reiterate that the only meaning in the looping process lies in the reactivation of proxy configurations. The intermediary linguistic structures themselves – phonological fragments, syntactic templates, or serial encodings – matter only insofar as they serve as scaffolding within a broader functional process. These elements are transient formatting stages within the PTD, helping to trigger the reactivation of underlying proxy configurations. Proxy activation is not a side effect of Looping; it is its central functional purpose.

This internal shortcut forms a self-contained feedback loop, allowing the BAL to sense and make use of its own incipient signals before they ever reach the world. In doing so, it reuses a pathway that was originally structured for outward expression – but now turned inward, for internal inspection. This is a clear case of neuronal reuse (Anderson 2010): the brain taking a structure

developed for one purpose – external communication – and repurposing it to support internal processing. But crucially, it does so functionally, not through an additional circuit or module. The same physical structure, running on the same principles, becomes a new kind of tool, once the BAL learns to use it that way.

Once the BAL learns to use this shortcut, a new kind of operation becomes available: the internal examination of its own proxy configurations. Looping allows the BAL not only to generate behavior, but to access and manipulate its own internal states directly – before they are acted upon or expressed.

This is the basis for the full range of activities typically associated with human subjective experience:

Recollection, where the Brain at Large begins to form an expression about prior experience, based on internal states – much like an archaeologist interpreting artifacts at a dig site. These potential expressions are then looped, activating proxies akin to those triggered during the original experience; Imagination, where possible expressions are considered and looped, bringing about proxy activations corresponding to hypothetical situations; Planning, where the brain uses expressive potential to pretest proxy configurations for viability; and Conscious Perception, where the Brain at Large examines and reinforces incoming sensory input by preparing potential

expression about it, which gets looped back onto the same or closely overlapping neuronal proxies – though with some difference, due to the patterning imposed during the initial semantic workup in the expressive output pathway.

All of these rely on the same mechanism – Looping through the PTD. And because the PTD is an internal channel that operates in sequence, these modes are inherently serial. One cannot vividly recall a memory and fully examine a visual scene at the same time. What feels like parallel experience is, within this framework, the result of rapid serial switching – not genuine simultaneity in the loop.

Most crucially, this also reveals a natural boundary. The domain of loop-accessible experience is co-terminous with the domain of potential expression. If something cannot, even in principle, be shaped for expression through the PTD – whether through language, gesture, or symbol – then it is not subject to Looping. And if it is not subject to Looping, it does not enter into what we recognize as subjective experience. Reportability, in this functional sense, may thus define the practical boundary of this mode of awareness.

These functional operating principles underlie the analysis to follow. For the case of split-brain phenomena, the key distinction lies between the foundational competence of the bilateral BAL and the specific, often lateralized, function of the PTD/Looping mechanism that enables reportable subjective examination.

4. Modeling Assumption: Functional Isolation Post-Callosotomy

Although some low-level coordination may remain after callosotomy – things like posture, mood, or general arousal – these are likely handled by subcortical systems, such as hypothalamic inputs,

rather than any continued sharing between the hemispheres. For clarity, we’ll work from a simplified model: once the corpus callosum is cut, the two sides no longer share intentional states or proxy configurations. Each hemisphere runs its own BAL, guided by its own inputs. The main disruption lies in the loss of proxy-level sharing – and in the fact that only one side typically retains access to the PTD and Looping. That assumption fits well with what’s been observed in experiments: after the split, the hemispheres can no longer coordinate on higher-order tasks that depend on internal sharing.

5. Explaining Split-Brain Dissociations

With the framework laid out, and this modeling assumption in place, the split-brain findings fall into place. They follow naturally from how the system is built. For clarity, we’ll stick with the usual case – where the PTD and Looping mechanism sit in the left hemisphere. Notably, none of the classic split-brain experiments were designed to isolate looping; nearly all observed behaviors could have resulted from direct output via the o-series alone.

▪ Action without Reported Awareness: A stimulus presented to the right hemisphere (e.g., in the left visual field) activates proxy configurations within the right-side BAL. This hemisphere remains behaviorally competent: it can guide its own contralateral response, such as the left hand selecting the correct object (Sperry 1968). However, the left hemisphere – where the expressive PTD is typically located – has no access to the right-side proxies and therefore cannot report the stimulus. This does not mean the stimulus was not processed, nor that it failed to influence internal states on the right. It means only that the hemisphere equipped for verbal expression cannot access the relevant content. The dissociation is straightforward: the right hemisphere processes input to guide its own behavior; the left hemisphere can report, but only on what it can access.

▪ Confabulation: When the right BAL initiates an action and the left hemisphere is asked to explain it, the left side has no access to the proxy configurations that gave rise to the behavior. It reconstructs a plausible explanation using whatever is locally available: contextual cues, memory fragments, and general knowledge. This is not deception, but the BAL behaving as it always does when data are missing – filling in the gaps. The left hemisphere acts like a “naïve archaeologist,” assembling a coherent story from fragments (cf. Schacter 1996; Gazzaniga 1985). The resulting verbal account feels confident not because the system has access to the true cause, but because under normal circumstances, this same reconstructive process tends to yield reliable results – so there is no evolutionary need for a built-in uncertainty gauge.

▪ Right Hemisphere Competence (e.g., Pointing/Spelling): Although the right BAL lacks access to the PTD – and so can’t produce speech or engage in Looping – it still retains full proxy-based competence. It can recognize objects, recall words it’s seen before, and guide the left hand to point or spell them using charts or letter tiles. These behaviors reflect real understanding, built from proxy associations and purposeful action. But they happen

without the help of internal language structure or expressive rehearsal. The right BAL acts like a trained but non-verbal agent: it can map visual forms to meaning, based on experience, but it can’t carry out even a simple semantic workup. That function belongs to the PTD – and without it, the system can’t shape or structure new content for expression.

▪ No Access to Verbal Input: Because the right hemisphere lacks the PTD, it can’t decode structured verbal input into proxy configurations. Spoken instructions don’t trigger meaningful internal states on that side. It’s not that the system fails to comprehend; it’s that the required pathway just isn’t there. There’s no route from the incoming signal to the proxies it would need to act on.

▪ Apparent Unity vs. Subjective Division: Even with the corpus callosum cut, behavior can still appear coordinated. That’s not just because both sides are responding to the same environment – it’s also because they’re regulated by shared systems beneath the cortex. Hormones, arousal mechanisms, and mood circuits are all shaped by structures like the hypothalamus, which help keep both hemispheres broadly aligned, even when they no longer share content. Those overlapping influences can keep the whole system looking coordinated from the outside – even though the core channels of internal access are now divided. But under this framework, the true division lies not in behavior, but in access to reportable internal content. Reportability depends on expressive infrastructure – specifically the PTD and its internal feedback loop – and this capacity is typically confined to one hemisphere, usually the left. The right hemisphere continues to act based on its own proxy configurations, but cannot express or internally examine them. The result is a superficially integrated system masking a deeper asymmetry in subjective access.

5.b Clarifying Agency vs. Reportability

A common mistake in reading split-brain cases is thinking that if a person can’t report what’s happening inside, then there must be no one in there – no agent behind the action. That confusion makes sense. In everyday life, the part that acts is usually the part that talks about it. But once the corpus callosum is cut, that link is broken.

The right hemisphere still has a fully working BAL. It can model its surroundings, form goals, adjust its actions, and handle changes just fine. What it lacks is access to the PTD and the Looping mechanism – the tools that allow for internal inspection and structured expression. So it can’t report. But it still acts.

In this framework, agency and reportability are two different things. The right BAL is still an intelligent operator. It just can’t say what it knows. And if we judge intelligence by what can be said, we’re making a category error. Reportable experience is only one kind of operation. The lack of access to it doesn’t make the system passive, unintelligent or a non-agent. It just means it’s an agent without a voice.

6. Conclusion: Resolving the Enigma Through Functional Distinction

The persistent puzzles of split-brain research dissolve when seen through the functional lens developed here. The core distinction is not between two consciousnesses, nor between a “knowing” hemisphere and a reactive one. It’s between the foundational competence of the Brain at Large – operating bilaterally through proxy-based models – and the unilateral access to reportability, which depends on expressive mechanisms typically housed in one hemisphere.

After callosotomy, each hemisphere retains its own BAL intact. What’s lost is the sharing of proxy configurations. The non-dominant hemisphere still functions competently, guiding behavior with its own internal models, but it lacks access to the expressive system required for subjective reporting. The dominant hemisphere retains that expressive capacity, but its view is now partial. When asked to explain actions it didn’t initiate, it does what the BAL always does: it works with what it has – reconstructing meaning from fragments, often yielding a coherent, even if confabulated, account.

This reframes reportable consciousness not as a unified state spread evenly across the brain, but as a specific operation tied to one hemisphere’s ability to express its internal proxy activations. Split-brain cases don’t imply a fractured self; they show a break in expressive access. The underlying intelligence remains bilateral. What looks paradoxical from a consciousness-first view turns out, under a functional one, to be entirely expected. While classic experiments have not yet distinguished looping from direct output, the framework here makes clear that such a distinction could define the next frontier in understanding the structure of subjective access. The framework offered here avoids metaphysical speculation by focusing on what each part of the system is able to do.

Notably, classic split-brain experiments were never designed to tell the difference between looping – internal feedback for self-examination – and direct output through the o-series. That’s a real gap in the literature. Future studies that isolate these two processes could clarify when reportable expression involves internal reactivation of proxy configurations, and when it proceeds directly through the o-series without looping. Split-brain conditions may offer a uniquely useful setting for observing this distinction – a kind of test case that could reveal how looping functions in ways less visible in the intact brain. The implications would reach far beyond split-brain cases – into what people have long referred to, somewhat loosely, under the placeholder term of “consciousness.” The framework suggests that this, too, might turn out to be another puzzle that dissolves away once the system is properly understood.

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