let's just pretend this is another pointless quiz or meme or something..

[darren_stranger]

Elaine's working on an assignment for Psychology, and is seeking people's views on the distinction (if any) of the mind from the brain. The questions run along these lines:

Does the mind exist and, if so, what is it?
Is it the same as the brain or is it something else?
Where does it reside?
Can the existence of the mind be proven?
How does the mind interact with the body?

Any ideas you good folks might have on these questions would be greatly appreciated. Please feel free to share your wisdom..

Comments

[mr-e-cat.livejournal.com]

I've just been reading about that in the first couple of chapters of science of the diskworld volume 2

[andispandex.livejournal.com]

the mind as in 'conciousness'?

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

They didn't elaborate, but that's how i'm taking it.

[txxxpxx.livejournal.com]

Christian Science addresses this issue. While obviously there is a religious bent to their interpretation it may be worth directing her to some of the books where they deal with that issue.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that, but i think it's more a "laymans" view they're looking for (which i suspect they're going to contrast with whatever the current psychology theory says).

Hope you're doing okay. :|

[txxxpxx.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm doing OK for the moment.

I'd actually love to give the mind/brain debate a shot but I just don't think I have the energy right now. I'm sure you'll understand.

It is however just the sort of discussion that I would enjoy. You never know what might happen over the week-end.

Love the icon too, been meaning to say so for a while.

My take is...

[octobrianaoz.livejournal.com]

Does the mind exist and, if so, what is it?

Yes. It is the current state of the brain, as it processes the information given to it via senses about the world.

Is it the same as the brain or is it something else?

No, it's not. The brain is the hardware by which it exists, but is not the thing itself.

Where does it reside?

Like the image on a old TV screen, which is actually the trace of single cathode ray, as it scans from left-right down the screen, the mind is an accumulation of states within the brain itself. It doesn't reside anywhere as such, but is the current play between ideas and memory.

Can the existence of the mind be proven?

By induction. People get the mind and the soul mixed up. You can say that the soul is the accumulated personality, memory and preferences of a person. Where does the soul reside? My take is that it IS the body, including the brain, of the person. But it is not JUST the brain, but everything else that makes us "us". Anyway, the "hardware" (brain + nervous system + body) is all there. If there is no "mind", what is there?

How does the mind interact with the body?

Er, well my description above covers this.

I think that something that people miss, is that they tend to equate information with identity. People make up models of things all the time, including themselves and other people. We identify others by what they look like, act like, and know. But suppose that such knowledge could somehow be independently stored somehow, and that information could also be retrieved.

That's my take on SPIRIT. SOUL must be grown and cultured, as the person grows and changes. SOUL dies when the person dies, because the organic components that make us who we are, decay after we die. But SPIRIT is an independent repository for the information we accumulate in life. I can't say just where that info is kept, but (somehow) I know that it exists.

Now it just so happens that events and information do occur outside of Science. That is, we can know things by means other than direct experience, recorded accounts, and paramnesia (i.e. forgetting that we learnt the information in the first place). Often, these are never properly explained, but they happen anyway.

When I read Tarot (which I do once a week). The information comes somehow to me. I don't do "cold readings" which are shrewd deductions about the other person,. Rather, I seem to disengage my ego, and the information just comes. I don't consider this to be an "occult" or "religious" thing either -- I think it's something we can all do. When I do my tarot readings, it's NOT to "predict the future". Rather, it's to help the other person make the right decisions in life. They make their own future, based on the patterns within themselves that determine how they will act.

This is getting away from the concept of "mind" perhaps, but I believe that such is information, and thus not dependent upon one set of physical units to store it. Do "we" survive death, then? No. But the information about who we are, and what we know (I believe) does.

Whew - how';s that for "just off the top of my head"?

Re: My take is...

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

"Whew - how';s that for "just off the top of my head"?"

Not bad. Not bad at all. ;)

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

Cool. I presume she isn't after academic/informed views (if she is them my views are useless :)

Does the mind exist and, if so, what is it?
It does, but only in that it's a label to designate the functioning of the brain (the brain being the device, the mind being what that device does).

Is it the same as the brain or is it something else?
See above. It's a result of the brain, so naturally you can have a brain without a mind (eg. a dead brain) but not vice versa. Artifically, I believe a mind could be duplicated using a different device (like a computer). Actually, things like plants and insects that don't truly have brains can have rudimentary minds based on nerve bundles and the like.
Which leads me to say, no it isn't the same as the brain.

Where does it reside?
It resides with (within?) the brain.

Can the existence of the mind be proven?
I've written a deleted this paragraph four times now :) I keep finding questions of reason, free-will and instinct confusing the issue (which I guess means I'm not as certain about my definition of "mind" as I thought :). Setting ideas and concepts like those aside, I think a brain that responds to stimuli is evidence of mind.

How does the mind interact with the body?
It has a sloppy kind of control over the body and the body has a feedback mechanism into the mind, each influencing the other. The brain acts as the medium for the exchange.

I think I'm reducing "mind" to the capability for a thing to alter itself.
Yep, I think that's about it. So, to answer the questions again and succinctly:
Yes, the capability for a thing to alter itself.
Something Else
It's a property of a thing, like colour, that has no place in itself.
Yes, if you can show a thing can alter itself.
The mind alters the body. But being a property of the body, in doing so it alters itself.

:)
I'm kinda happy with all that. I bet Lev can throw a spanner in my brainworks though ;)

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

" I presume she isn't after academic/informed views"

Quite the opposite, i gather (ie us "general public" folks moreso than those that have studied this in depth).

[darkstardeity.livejournal.com]

IMHO, the mind is an abstract concept that has its concrete realisation in the brain and the chemical and electrical processes that occur in it. It is not quite "the same" as the brain, which is after all just a lump of meat. The old saying "the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts" applies here. It is as much the interactions between the neurons and chemicals that make up the brain that make it such a powerful organ - and that is the mind.

[darkstardeity.livejournal.com]

Oh, if you go with this definition of what the mind is, the last three questions are irrelevant (that's sounds more arrogant than I mean it to, apologies).

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Ha - depending on the answer to the first question, the rest may all be irrelevant.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

My first thought was "too easy", but then a reminded myself that I've been studying this for the better part of twenty years. :/

Yes, the mind does exist. It consists of mutually understandable shared symbolic values which are also encoded on the brain in a holographic fashion.

It is not the same as the brain. The brain is a blob, which contains data which acts according to preconditioned and objective behaviour. Whilst the mind is objectively located "on" the brain, it is also the meanings that we share intersubjectively and also interpreted subjectively.

It resides primarily between people. The mind is not something that can be measured in an empirical sense, but it provides meaning not facts.

As long as humans (or any other species) can come up with new shared symbolic values the mind exists.

The mind can direct the body according to will.


The following essay I wrote is probably useful as well...
http://au.geocities.com/lev_lafayette/0111hollway.html

[siin.livejournal.com]

I often lose my mind, but yet to lose my brain.

There's maiki going and being no help whatsever again...

Sorry.

=]