So it seems to me if this sort of condition occurred in a human (conjoined twins that share one body, with two faces) they would still be considered two people. But this article consistently refers to “Frank and Louie” as one cat. Mind you, other than that extra face, they do look like one cat, but isn’t that technically incorrect?
Double standard for non-humans? Seems to me that if you referred to the Hensel twins as one person, you’d make a jerk out of yourself, but for cats it’s okay?
I think for humans, it would matter whether there were two separate brains, or two seperate senses of consciousness. Otherwise, it’s one individual with two faces.
For animals without much noticeable personality (snakes, turtles), two heads might technically be two individuals, but it might not make enough difference to warrant calling it that - so you’d say it’s a two-headed snake.
As I understand it this particular cat has one brain. So it is one cat that just has a few extra body parts. It may have separate DNA in its different parts but that is not as uncommon as one might think.
Well, but brains themselves have two halves, and in people (probably cats too), if you cut the corpus callosum that connects the two brain hemispheres you get something at least approximating two centers of consciousness in one body (on some interpretations of the evidence, at least).
It depends on precisely what question you’re asking. The Hensel twins, for example, are two persons, but one organism. The specimen in the OP is likewise one organism, but might be two… Well, I’m not sure what the analogous term to “person” would be for animals, but it might be two of those.
Also, whether or not a two-headed person is legally one person or two people may be very important. With cats, it’s probably less of an issue since it is unlikely a dispute would arise claiming that each head is owned by a different person.
I was not suggesting that this cat has had its corpus callosum cut, or that there is any reason to think that it is two animals. I was simply pointing out that number of brains is not necessarily equal to number of individuals or consciousnesses. To imply that it is, is a misleading oversimplification of the brain-consciousness-individual relationship.
ETA: And a very common oversimplification as well. I see TruCelt is doing it again.
Way too late to edit, but this sentence I wrote is probably wrong. I blame not enough coffee. Apparently it isn’t the case of a fraternal twin absorption or even a non separated identical twin. Its just a genetic problem called Diprosopus that leads to the extra copies of cranial features being created.
So definitely not 2 cats any more than polydactyl cats are.
Sigh, must remember the sequence goes research first, post second. Not the other way around.
Finally clicked to see the pic. Not the pure horror I had imagined. It looks like a cute cat badly photoshopped.
So, the brain processes the three eyes? It looked like one half head (right) had two eyes that were linked and the other hafl (left) had only one. How would that work?
