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Learn more about "Mind"
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Mind
Mind collectively refers to the aspects of intellect and consciousness manifested as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, Free will|will and imagination; mind is the stream of consciousness. It includes all of the brain's conscious processes. This denotation sometimes includes, in certain contexts, the working of the human Unconscious mind| unconscious or the conscious thoughts of animals. "Mind" is often used to refer especially to the thought processes of reason.
The mind is a model of the universe built up from insights. Thoughts of the mind fall into 2 categories: 1) Analysis of past experience with the purpose of gaining insight for use within this model at a later date; and 2) Simulations of future scenarios using existing insights in the mind model in order to predict outcomes. A mature mind has assimilated many insights and understands cause and effect. When insight is not subordinate to a validation discipline like the scientific method|Randomized controlled trial, fallacious thinking can result in a confused mind. A "common" or "world" mind refers to minds that are in exchange of ideas and insights with each other and form similar conclusions about cause and effect. Through the form of books and other media, minds from the past are able to communicate their insights about cause and effect to present and future minds.
There are many theories of the mind and its function. The earliest recorded works on the mind are by Zarathushtra, Gautama Buddha|the Buddha, Plato, Aristotle, Adi Shankara and other ancient Greek philosophy|Greek, Indian philosophy|Indian and Islamic psychological thought|Islamic philosophers. Pre-scientific theories, based in theology, concentrated on the relationship between the mind and the soul, the supernatural, divinity|divine or god-given essence of the person. Modern theories, based on scientific understanding of the brain, theorize that the mind is a phenomenon of the brain and is synonymous with consciousness.
The question of which human attributes make up the mind is also much debated. Some argue that only the "higher" intellectual functions constitute mind: particularly reason and memory. In this view the emotions - love, hate, fear, joy - are more "primitive" or subjective in nature and should be seen as different from the mind. Others argue that the rational and the emotional sides of the human person cannot be separated, that they are of the same nature and origin, and that they should all be considered as part of the individual mind.
In popular usage ''mind'' is frequently synonymous with ''thought'': It is that private conversation with ourselves that we carry on "inside our heads." Thus we "make up our minds," "change our minds" or are "of two minds" about something. One of the key attributes of the mind in this sense is that it is a private sphere to which no one but the owner has access. No-one else can "know our mind." They can only interpret what we consciously or unconsciously communicate.
Aspects of mind
Mental faculties
Thought is a mental process in which the mind allows the being to model (abstract)|model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends and desires. Words referring to similar concepts and processes include cognition, sentience, consciousness, idea, and imagination. Thinking involves the cerebral manipulation of information, as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason and make choice|decisions.
Thinking is a higher cognitive function and the analysis of thinking processes is part of cognitive psychology.
Memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and subsequently recall information. Although traditional studies of memory began in the realms of philosophy, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century put memory within the paradigms of cognitive psychology. In recent decades, it has become one of the principal pillars of a new branch of science called cognitive neuroscience, a marriage between cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
Imagination is accepted as the innate ability and Process (philosophy)|process to invent partial or complete personal realms the mind derives from sense perceptions of the shared world. The term is technically used in psychology for the process of reviving in the mind perception|percepts of objects formerly given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists have preferred to describe this process as "imaging" or "imagery" or to speak of it as "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" or "constructive" imagination. Imagined images are seen with the "mind's eye". One hypothesis for the evolution of human imagination is that it allowed consciousness|conscious beings to solve problems (and hence increase an individual's fitness (biology)|fitness) by use of mental simulation.
Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perception|perceive the relationship between Personal identity (philosophy)|oneself and one's environment (biophysical)|environment. It is a subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. Some philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness, which is subjective experience itself, and access consciousness, which refers to the global availability of information to processing systems in the brain.[ Ned Block: ''On a Confusion about a Function of Consciousness" in: ''The Behavioral and Brain Sciences'', 1995.] Phenomenal consciousness is a state with qualia. Phenomenal consciousness is being something and access consciousness is being conscious of something.
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental property|mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body. The ''mind-body problem'', i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as the central issue in philosophy of mind, although there are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the physical body.[ ]
Dualism (philosophy of mind)|Dualism and ''monism'' are the two major schools of thought that attempt to resolve the mind-body problem. Dualism is the position that mind and body are in some way separate from each other. It can be traced back to Plato,[Robinson, H. (1983): ‘Aristotelian dualism’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1, 123-44.][ Nussbaum, M. C. (1984): ‘Aristotelian dualism’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 2, 197-207.][Nussbaum, M. C. and Rorty, A. O. (1992): Essays on Aristotle's De Anima, Clarendon Press, Oxford.] and the Samkhya and Yoga schools of Hinduism|Hindu philosophy,[Hart, W.D. (1996) "Dualism", in Samuel Guttenplan (org) ''A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind'', Blackwell, Oxford, 265-7. ]
Monism is the position that mind and body are not ontology|ontologically distinct kinds of entities. This view was first advocated in Western Philosophy by Parmenides in the 5th Century BC and was later espoused by the 17th Century Rationalism|rationalist Baruch Spinoza.[ Spinoza, Baruch (1670) ''Tractatus Theologico-Politicus'' (A Theologico-Political Treatise).] ''Physicalism|Physicalists'' argue that only the entities postulated by physical theory exist, and that the mind will eventually be explained in terms of these entities as physical theory continues to evolve. ''idealism (philosophy)|Idealists'' maintain that the mind is all that exists and that the external world is either mental itself, or an illusion created by the mind. ''neutral monism|Neutral monists'' adhere to the position that there is some other, neutral substance, and that both matter and mind are properties of this unknown substance. The most common monisms in the 20th and 21st centuries have all been variations of physicalism; these positions include behaviorism, the type physicalism|type identity theory, anomalous monism and functionalism (philosophy of mind)|functionalism.[Kim, J., "Mind-Body Problem", ''Oxford Companion to Philosophy''. Ted Honderich (ed.). Oxford:Oxford University Press. 1995.]
Many modern philosophers of mind adopt either a ''reductive'' or ''non-reductive physicalist'' position, maintaining in their different ways that the mind is not something separate from the body.[Pinel, J. ''Psychobiology'', (1990) Prentice Hall, Inc. ISBN 8815071741][LeDoux, J. (2002) ''The Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are'', New York:Viking Penguin. ISBN 8870787958][Dawkins, R. ''The Selfish Gene'' (1976) Oxford:Oxford University Press. ISBN]Well, you get f** idea. There are billions of refs for this---> Other philosophers, however, adopt a non-physicalist position which challenges the notion that the mind is a purely physical construct.
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