Mind

Mind, a multiply nuanced and much debated concept in western philosophy and psychology, is a concept developed by self-conscious humans trying to understand what is the self that is conscious and how does that self relate to its perceived world. Most broadly, mind is the organized totality of the mental and psychic processes of an organism and the structural and functional components on which they depend. Taken more narrowly, mind often denotes only cognitive activities and functions, such as perceiving, attending, thinking, problem solving, language, learning, and memory. We normally take all humans and most complex animals to possess minds, but less so with plants, machines, and inanimate objects.

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of minds is how they are known. In order to discover features of the world around us, we have to investigate, explore, evaluate evidence, and draw conclusions. Yet none of that seems necessary in order for us to have knowledge of at least some aspects of our minds. You don't need to undertake any investigation in order to discover whether you have a headache right now, or whether you believe that Berlin is the capital of Germany.

There are many theories of what the mind is and how it works, dating back to Plato, Aristotle, Adi Shankara, Siddhārtha Gautama, and other Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers. Pre-scientific discussions of mind, often attempted to understand the nature of the mind in terms of its connection both with natural and supernatural entities. Modern theories, based on a scientific understanding of the brain, tend to see the mind as a phenomenon of psychology. But the new scientific context has helped to sharpen the traditional puzzlement concerning how the mind can fit into the physical world. Given the intimate connection between the brain and the mind, it is not plausible to claim that the mind is entirely separate from the world (for instance, concussions, fevers and brain tumors have immediate and dramatic effects on our mental lives). But then one might ask: how could there be such a thing as consciousness in a world consisting of physical particles? Consciousness seems to be different in kind from the properties with which physics is concerned.

Such puzzles about the mind appear in philosophical, psychological and theological contexts.

Philosophical persepctives

Philosophy of mind

Main article: Philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, 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.

Stated briefly, the mind-body problem is as follows: we believe ourselves to possess both a physical body and mind, and that these stand in some intimate relation. Mental decisions give rise to physical actions, and physical events (such as a finger being cut) give rise to mental events (such as a feeling of pain). One natural explanation for this relation is that the mind simply is the physical brain. On the other hand, the mind appears to possess features that no physical body does, including consciousness and simplicity. Indeed, further reflection might lead us to conclude that the mind is entirely different from the body. Yet if that's right, then it's hard to see how we could have the intimate relation with which we began.

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 separate from each other in some fundamental way. It can be traced back to Plato, Aristotle and the Sankhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy, but it was most precisely formulated by René Descartes in the 17th century. Substance dualists argue that the mind is an independently existing substance, whereas Property dualists maintain that the mind is or constitutively involves a group of independent properties that emerge from and cannot be reduced to physical properties of the brain, but that it is not a distinct substance.

Monism is the position that mind and body are not ontologically distinct kinds of entities. This view appears to have first been advocated in Western Philosophy by Parmenides in the 5th Century B.C.E. and was later espoused by the great 17th Century rationalist Baruch Spinoza. One type of monists, physicalists, argue that only the entities postulated by physical theory exist, and that the mind can in principle be explained in terms of these entities. On the other hand, idealists maintain that the mind (along with its perceptions, thoughts, etc.) is all that exists and that the external world is either mental itself, or an illusion created by the mind. Finally, neutral monists adhere to the position that there is some other, neutral substance, and that both matter and mind are properties of this substance. The most common monisms in the 20th and 21st centuries have all been variations of physicalism; these positions include behaviorism, the type identity theory, anomalous monism and functionalism.

Many modern philosophers of mind can be sorted into reductive vs. non-reductive varieties of physicalism, maintaining in their different ways that the mind is not something separate from the body. These approaches have been particularly influential in the sciences, particularly in the fields of sociobiology, computer science, evolutionary psychology and the various neurosciences. Other philosophers, however, adopt a non-physicalist position which challenges the notion that the mind is a purely physical construct.Reductive physicalists assert that all mental states and properties will eventually be explained by scientific accounts of physiological processes and states. Non-reductive physicalists argue that although the brain is all there is to the mind, the predicates and vocabulary used in mental descriptions and explanations are indispensable, and cannot be reduced to the language and lower-level explanations of physical science. Continued neuroscientific progress has helped to clarify some of these issues. However, they are far from having been resolved, and modern philosophers of mind continue to ask how the subjective qualities and the intentionality (aboutness) of mental states and properties can be explained using the terms of the natural sciences.

Mental faculties

In the Republic, Plato argued that the mind or soul should be seen as divided into certain parts. Since then, philosophers (and, more recently, psychologists) have worked to delineate the various functions, faculties and aspects of the mind. As one would expect from the fact that each person has privileged access to his or her own mind, the starting point for this project is common-sense walks of thinking and talking about the mind (often referred to as 'folk psychology').

Two types of divisions of mental faculties stand out in the history of philosophy. First is a division of the mind into 'higher' and 'lower' faculties. The tradition often described as rationalism (whose members include figures of no less stature thanPlato, Descartes and Leibniz) is based on just such a division. Rationalists tend to view our ability to engage in abstract reasoning and mathematics as indicative of a special faculty (often called 'reason'). Rationalists typically associate such a faculty with the divine, which earns it the title of the 'higher' faculty. Reason is often portrayed as in conflict with one or more 'lower' or 'animal' faculties that are the source of (among other things) desires for bodily pleasures. By contrast, the traditional known as empiricism (perhaps most famously exemplified by John Locke and David Hume) resists any such distinction, insisting that all mental operations are the result of the same set of basic powers.

The second prominent type of division of mental faculties is that between faculties that represent how the world is (such as belief and knowledge) and those that represent how the world in some sense should be (such as desire). While one might be tempted to see the former sort of faculty (sometimes termed 'cognitive') as an instance of a higher faculty, and the latter sort (sometimes termed 'conative') as an instance of a lower faculty, this has certainly not been a consistent pattern throughout history. Plato, for instance, saw the desire for knowledge as emanating from the highest of faculties, and Kant explicitly assigned pure moral motivation to the faculty of reason.

Science of mind

Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior. As both an academic and applied discipline, Psychology involves the scientific study of mental processes such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, as well as environmental influences, such as social and cultural influences, and interpersonal relationships, in order to devise theories of human behavior. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental health problems.

Psychology differs from the other social sciences (e.g., anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology) due to its focus on experimentation at the scale of the individual, as opposed to groups or institutions. Historically, psychology differed from biology and neuroscience in that it was primarily concerned with mind rather than brain, a philosophy of mind known as dualism. Modern psychological science incorporates physiological and neurological processes into its conceptions of perception, cognition, behavior, and mental disorders.

See also: Sigmund Freud , Carl Jung , and Unconscious mind

Social psychology and group behaviour

Social psychology is the study of how social conditions affect human beings. Scholars in this field are generally either psychologists or sociologists. Social psychologists who are trained in psychology tend to focus on individuals as the unit of study; sociologists tend to favor the study of groups and larger social units such as societies, although there are exceptions to these general tendencies in both fields. Despite their similarity, the disciplines also tend to differ in their respective goals, approaches, methods, and terminology. They also favor separate academic journals and societies.

Like biophysics and cognitive science, social psychology is an interdisciplinary area. The greatest period of collaboration between sociologists and psychologists was during the years immediately following World War II (Sewell, 1989). Although there has been increasing isolation and specialization in recent years, some degree of overlap and influence remains between the two disciplines.

Brain

In animals the brain, or encephalon (Greek for "in the head"), is the control center of the central nervous system, responsible for thought. In most animals, the brain is located in the head, protected by the skull and close to the primary sensory apparatus of vision, hearing, equilibrioception, taste and olfaction. While all vertebrates have a brain, most invertebrates have either a centralized brain or collections of individual ganglia. Primitive animals such as sponges do not have a brain at all. Brains can be extremely complex. For example, the human brain contains more than 100 billion neurons, each linked to as many as 10,000 others.

Mental health

By analogy with the health of the body, one can speak metaphorically of a state of health of the mind, or mental health. Merriam-Webster defines mental health as "A state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life." According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is no one "official" definition of mental health. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how "mental health" is defined. In general, most experts agree that "mental health" and "mental illness" are not opposites. In other words, the absence of a recognized mental disorder is not necessarily an indicator of mental health.

One way to think about mental health is by looking at how effectively and successfully a person functions. Feeling capable and competent; being able to handle normal levels of stress, maintaining satisfying relationships, and leading an independent life; and being able to "bounce back," or recover from difficult situations, are all signs of mental health.

Psychotherapy is an interpersonal, relational intervention used by trained psychotherapists to aid clients in problems of living. This usually includes increasing individual sense of well-being and reducing subjective discomforting experience. Psychotherapists employ a range of techniques based on experiential relationship building, dialogue, communication and behavior change and that are designed to improve the mental health of a client or patient, or to improve group relationships (such as in a family). Most forms of psychotherapy use only spoken conversation, though some also use various other forms of communication such as the written word, art, drama, narrative story, or therapeutic touch. Psychotherapy occurs within a structured encounter between a trained therapist and client(s). Purposeful, theoretically based psychotherapy began in the 19th century with psychoanalysis; since then, scores of other approaches have been developed and continue to be created.

Developmental history of the human mind

The nature and origins of hominid intelligence is of natural interest to humans as the most successful and intelligent hominid species. As nearly a century of archaeological research has shown, the hominids evolved from earlier primates in eastern Africa. Like some non-primate tree-dwelling mammals, such as opossums, they evolved an opposable thumb, which enabled them to grasp and manipulate objects, such as fruit. They also possessed front-facing binocular vision.

Around 10 million years ago, the earth's climate entered a cooler and drier phase, which led eventually to the ice ages. This forced tree-dwelling animals to adapt to their new environment or die out. Some primates adapted to this challenge by adopting bipedalism: walking on their hind legs. This gave their eyes greater elevation and the ability to see approaching danger further off. At some point the bipedal primates developed the ability to pick up sticks, bones and stones and use them as weapons, or as tools for tasks such as killing smaller animals or cutting up carcases. In other words, these primates developed the use of technology, an adaptation no other animals have attained. Bipedal tool-using primates became hominids, of which the earliest species, such as Sahelanthropus tchadensis, are dated to about 7 million years ago.

From about 5 million years ago, the hominid brain began to develop rapidly, because an evolutionary loop had been established between the hominid hand and brain. The use of tools conferred a crucial evolutionary advantage on those hominids which had this skill. The use of tools required a larger and more sophisticated brain to co-ordinate the fine hand movements required for this task. By 2 million years ago Homo habilis had appeared in east Africa: the first hominid to make tools rather than merely use them. These hominids developed language, and the range of activities we call culture, including art and religion.

About 200,000 years ago Europe and the Near East were colonised by hominids known to us as Neanderthal man. They decorated their tools for aesthetic pleasure and buried their dead in way which suggest spiritual beliefs. Despite these modern characteristics, the Neanderthals were no match for the more numerous homo sapiens when he entered the region about 40,000 years ago, and by 25,000 years ago they were extinct. Between 120,000 to 165,000 years ago Homo sapiens had reached his modern physical form in Africa, and was already the unchallenged master of the physical environment, able to hunt and kill any other terrestrial animal and (almost) immune to predators.

Animal intelligence

Animal cognition, or cognitive ethology, is the title given to a modern approach to the mental capacities of animals. It has developed out of comparative psychology, but has also been strongly influenced by the approach of ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology. Much of what used to be considered under the title of animal intelligence is now thought of under this heading. Animal language acquisition, attempting to discern or understand the degree to which animal cognistics can be revealed by linguistics-related study, has been controversial among cognitive linguists.

Artificial intelligence

The term Artificial Intelligence (AI) was first used by John McCarthy who considers it to mean "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines". It can also refer to intelligence as exhibited by an artificial (man-made, non-natural, manufactured) entity. The terms strong and weak AI can be used to narrow the definition for classifying such systems. AI is studied in overlapping fields of computer science, psychology, neuroscience and engineering, dealing with intelligent behavior, learning and adaptation and usually developed using customized machines or computers.

Research in AI is concerned with producing machines to automate tasks requiring intelligent behavior. Examples include control, planning and scheduling, the ability to answer diagnostic and consumer questions, handwriting, natural language, speech and facial recognition. As such, the study of AI has also become an engineering discipline, focused on providing solutions to real life problems, knowledge mining, software applications, strategy games like computer chess and other video games. One of the biggest difficulties with AI is that of comprehension. Many devices have been created that can do amazing things, but critics of AI claim that no actual comprehension by the AI machine has taken place.

The debate about the nature of the mind is relevant to the development of artificial intelligence. If the mind is indeed a thing separate from or higher than the functioning of the brain, then hypothetically it would be much more difficult to recreate within a machine, if it were possible at all. If, on the other hand, the mind is no more than the aggregated functions of the brain, then it will be possible to create a machine with a recognisable mind (though possibly only with computers much different from today's), by simple virtue of the fact that that such a machine already exists in the form of the human brain.

Religious perspectives

Various religious traditions have contributed unique perspectives on the nature of mind. In many traditions, especially mystical traditions, overcoming the ego is considered a worthy spiritual goal.

Judaism sees the human mind as one of the great wonders of Yahweh's creation. Christianity has tended to see the mind as distinct from the soul (Greek nous) and sometimes further distinguished from the spirit. Western esoteric traditions sometimes refer to a mental body that exists on a plane other than the physical.

Hinduism's various philosophical schools have debated whether the human soul (Sanskrit atman) is distinct from, or identical to, Brahman, the divine reality. Buddhism attempted to break with such metaphysical speculation, and posited that there is actually no distinct thing as a human being, who merely consists of five aggregates, or skandas. The Indian philosopher-sage Sri Aurobindo attempted to unite the Eastern and Western psychological traditions with his integral psychology, as have many philosophers and New religious movements.

Taoism sees the human being as contiguous with natural forces, and the mind as not separate from the body. Confucianism sees the mind, like the body, as inherently perfectible.

New age and alternative perspectives

According to the Parapsychological Association, parapsychology is the scientific study of certain types of paranormal phenomena, or of phenomena which appear to be paranormal. The term is based on the Greek para (beside/beyond), psyche (soul/mind), and logos (account/explanation) and was coined by psychologist Max Dessoir in or before 1889. Its first appearance was in an article by Dessoir in the June 1889 issue of the German publication Sphinx. J. B. Rhine later popularized "parapsychology" as a replacement for the earlier term "psychical research," during a shift in methodologies which brought experimental methods to the study of psychic phenomena. In contemporary research, the term 'parapsychology' refers to the study of psi, a general blanket term used by academic parapsychologists to denote anomalous processes or outcomes.

The scientific reality of parapsychological phenomena and the validity of scientific parapsychological research is a matter of frequent dispute and criticism. The field is regarded by critics as a pseudoscience. Parapsychologists, in turn, say that parapsychological research is scientifically rigorous. Despite criticisms, a number of academic institutions now conduct research on the topic, employing laboratory methodologies and statistical techniques, such as meta-analysis.^{[citation needed]} The Parapsychological Association is the leading association for parapsychologists and has been a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1969.

See also

Wikibooks Consciousness studies has more about this subject:

• State of mind or Mental state
• Subjective character of experience
• Theory of mind

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Chalmers, David. (1997). The Conscious Mind, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195117891
• Churchland, Patricia (1986). Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-03116-7.
• Churchland, Paul (1981). "Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes." Journal of Philosophy: 67-90.
• Dawkins, R. (1976) The Selfish Gene Oxford:Oxford University Press.
• Dennett, Daniel (1998). The intentional stance. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-54053-3.
• Donald Davidson (1980). Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-924627-0.
• Hart, W.D. (1996) "Dualism," in Samuel Guttenplan (org) A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell, Oxford, 265-7.
• Kim, J., (1995). "Mind-Body Problem," in Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Ted Honderich (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• LeDoux, J. (2002) The Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are, New York:Viking Penguin. ISBN 8870787958
• 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..
• Pinel, J. (1990). Psychobiology, Prentice Hall, Inc. ISBN 8815071741
• Putnam, Hilary (1967). "Psychological Predicates," in W. H. Capitan and D. D. Merrill, eds., Art, Mind and Religion Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
• Radin, D. I. (1997). The conscious universe: the scientific truth of psychic phenomena. New York, N.Y.: HarperEdge. ISBN 0-06-251502-0
• Robinson, H. (1983): ‘Aristotelian dualism’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1, 123-44.
• Russell, S. and Norvig, P. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0131038052
• Searle, John (2001). Intentionality. A Paper on the Philosophy of Mind. Frankfurt a. M.: Nachdr. Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-28556-4.
• Smart, J.J.C. (1956). "Sensations and Brain Processes." Philosophical Review.

External links

• "The Mind is What the Brain Does" - National Geographic article. Retrieved August 12, 2007.
• C.D. Broad, The Mind and Its Place in Nature, 1925. Retrieved August 12, 2007.
• Abhidhamma: Buddhist Perspective of the Mind and the Mental Functions. Retrieved August 12, 2007.
• Thymos - Piero Scaruffi's Studies on Consciousness, Cognition and Life. Retrieved August 12, 2007.
• Buddhist View of the Mind. Retrieved August 12, 2007.
• Current Scientific Research on the Mind and Brain From ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 12, 2007.
• Queries on Mental Health - answered by Psychiatrists, Hypnotherapists & Psychologists. Retrieved August 12, 2007.

General Philosophy Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved August 19, 2007.
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved August 19, 2007.
• Philosophy Sources on Internet EpistemeLinks. Retrieved August 19, 2007.
• Guide to Philosophy on the Internet. Retrieved August 19, 2007.
• Paideia Project Online. Retrieved August 19, 2007.
• Project Gutenberg. Retrieved August 19, 2007.

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Mind  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Mind"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.