r2i forum

Not sure, if I am opening the pandora box :emwink: ...........

I would like to discuss - what exactly is mind ?

-- Is it a container for thoughts ?
-- Is it a breeding ground for imagination ?
-- Is it reception centre of all the sensory inputs ?
-- What stuff is it made of ? (Is it matter, waves ?)
-- How different is it from dreams ? (also, what stuff dreams are made of)
-- Can mind exist without the body and vice versa ?
-- Lastly, a thought just came to me that mind is a continuous process - formation and deformation of impressions of the context one interacts with ? How true can it be ?

Please share your thoughts.

Admins - If this is discussed earlier feel free to delete/redirect.

The mind is a computer ....coz basically it processes, stores, and retrieves data.

Intelligence is the operating system.

Imagination, dreams, thoughts are different applications you could run.

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n04/editori4_i.htm

Scientists are generally reluctant to combine experimental work with philosophy and usually reject consideration of possible theological implications of their studies. However, a few studies in this field have begun to appear. Saver & Rabin (2) found that clues to the neural substrates of religious experience, near-death experiences and the intake of hallucinogens may be deduced from limbic epilepsy (the limbic system is described as the emotional system of the brain). Ramachandran (3) reported that patients with temporal seizures (the temporal lobe is involved with many complex functions including emotion and memory) sometimes experience God and religious ectasy during seizures and are intensely religious. Assal & Bindschaedier (4) reported a case of religious delusion in a 39-year-old woman who had suffered a head injury with right temporal concussion 13 years before.

Few neuroscientists, such as the Nobel Prize recipient Sir John Eccles, asserted that the mind is distinct from the body, but most of them now believe that all aspects of mind, which are often equated with consciousness, are likely to be explained in a more materialistic way as the behavior of neuronal cells. In the opinion of the famous neurophysiologist Jos?aria Delgado (5) "it is preferable to consider the mind as a functional entity devoid of metaphysical or religious implications per se and related only to the existence of a brain and to the reception of sensory inputs".

If the brain has explained the mind, how to explain mental events as being caused by the activity of large sets of neural cells? Neuroscientists, timidly, have begun to combat the idea that this question is either purely philosophical or elusive to study experimentally and have been approaching the problem scientifically. They have begun to gain some understanding of possible brain mechanisms that may underlie the most complex process in human behavior and experience, such as the phenomena of consciousness, attention and thought.

In conclusion, more and more we are realizing what so many influential philosophers and theologians of past centuries could not understand: that the brain is complex enough to account for the mysteries of learning, memory, emotion, creativity, consciousness, mystical-religious experience and madness. If we agree to think about the mind as it were a set of mental functions rather than a spirit, soul or immaterial substance, it will becomes easier to get on with the necessary empirical studies and thus substantial progress could be made not only in the search for the nature of man as a cognitive individual, but also in the alleviation of mental ills and in a better understanding of cultural and religious beliefs, which, along so many centuries have brought great pleasures - and afflictions - to Humankind.

Mind is nothing more than processes of the brain. Once you cutoff Oxygen to brain, the brain cells die, the brain dies and mind is no more.

A robot can sense your presence, hear you, respond and process certain things, once electricity is cut the robot "mind" is dead.

Does an ant have a mind?

How about a dog?

How about an Orang Utan, a dolphin?

As we get up the evolutionary chain, the brain processes get more sophisticated and the one that leaves us in awe is the human brain and we call its processes "mind".

Now, don't mind what I said.:)

Mind is the leading mental health charity in England and Wales. They work to create a better life for everyone with experience of mental distress.

http://www.mind.org.uk/ :D :D :D

Mind is crazy....we are here since mind control's us......

Something I came across in this forum yesterday.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/184