Great answers. I just wanted to add this: "brain" refers to the "machine" made of neurons and glia; "mind" refers to the products of that machine including conscious thought, as well as emotions, perceptions (e.g., recognizing an object or voice) and unconscious thought (e.g., "Aha!" moments). So, "mind" requires "brain". To me an interesting question is this: how much "brain" is needed for that organism to perceive their "mind". I don't know how this could be addressed (and may be a semantic argument), but I assume that even the simplest organisms (e.g., a worm) has some kind of subjective "mind" experience.
The concept of mind is a byproduct of dualistic tendencies within western philosophies (traditionally Descartes is considered to be one of the originators of such dualism).
Thoughts can be thought of as covert or subvocal speech and, as such, they do not differ qualitatively from overt speech. Covert behavior, not limited to speech, but including for example covertly playing a musical instrument, involves activation of nonprimary areas of the motor cortex.
Language (covert or overt), in turn, does not differ in kind from nonverbal behavior and is subject to the same principles: it is sensitive to consequences (both appetitive and aversive), to antecedent stimulation and motivational variables.
Variability and recombination of simple units lead to emission of novel structures, but, again, creativity and generativity are not constrained to language. Importantly, creativity and generativity in verbal and nonverbal behavior do not imply free-will or inner causation.
Graphical explanitions of the some current views:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/what-is-consciousness/
My view is that mind is a complex and touchy subject. The mind results when many key cells of the brain work together, just as ''digestion'' results when the cells of the intestinal tract work together. Brain can be defined as an organ specialized to help individual organizations carry out major acts of living.
This issue refers to mind-matter relationship. See interesting books by Dennett, Penrose, Searle....
From a more physical and/or Physiological point of view, Brain is a machinary (hardware) Mind is one of his outputs. Mind is related to Consciousness but Consciousness is not the only output of brain. Several Unconscious function are performed by Brain related for example to heart beat, digestion, blod pressure, muscles regulation and so on. So it is not only a question of Dualism as viewd from phylosophycal point of view. Just mind is one of the several product the Brain can give. The ways it can give all of them is not so clear. The code (or codes) used by brain are far to be understood. In short, Mind is an ouptput of the brain but being not the single outpt, brain is much more than simply the Mind.
Not only from a historical point of view one may also have a look at the classical book by Alfred Binet "The mind and the brain", e.g., to understand the evolution of the mentioned terms in our times.
From a more neurobiological point of view, there are a lot of introductory books (each with a different focus) on the market, e.g.,
- Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain by Antonio Damasio
- The Long Evolution of Brains and Minds by Gerhard Roth
- Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind by Michael S. Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry and George R. Mangun
- The Mind Within the Brain: How We Make Decisions and How Those Decisions Go Wrong von A. David Redish
- Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World by Chris Frith
and - if you are also interested in art - :
- The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present by Eric Kandel
I recommend, very good general scientific book entitled brain, mind and behaviour by bloom Floyd E., Lazerson Arlyne and Holstadter Laura. This books explains in very much attractive way the brain and mind, behaviour and also interactions of these items in basic sciences (physiology and anatomy) and in advanced way for professional readers.
Great answers. I just wanted to add this: "brain" refers to the "machine" made of neurons and glia; "mind" refers to the products of that machine including conscious thought, as well as emotions, perceptions (e.g., recognizing an object or voice) and unconscious thought (e.g., "Aha!" moments). So, "mind" requires "brain". To me an interesting question is this: how much "brain" is needed for that organism to perceive their "mind". I don't know how this could be addressed (and may be a semantic argument), but I assume that even the simplest organisms (e.g., a worm) has some kind of subjective "mind" experience.
Eric, the problem addressed in this way I think make a sort of confusion between "mind" and "perception". For sure simple organisms "Perceive" environmental stimuli and their systems elaborate a sort of output as a reaction (positive or negative) to environmental stimuli. But is this a sort of "Mind"? The simplest animal I have personally studied is Hydra, a small celenterate which has only a network of few neurons. Many different responses to different stimuli have been observed in this animal. But can we say for this that they have "Mind"? In my opinion mind is something that require a much higher level elaboration than simple responses to environmental stimuli :)
Interesting questions. Here is a difference I can think of: Brain is physical, is objective. Mind is just a concept, is not well defined yet. Mind is the byproduct of the brain activities, is subjective. No brain or dead brain, no host for any brain activities, hence no mind.
Simplified point of view - brain is a structure and a mind is a result of brain's function
Another approach is to consider the medical fields which primarily address disease of the "mind," i.e. psychiatry, vs. disease of the "brain," i.e. neurology and neurosurgery. From this perspective, one might argue that the mind refers brain-related behavior and phenomena that lack sufficient neurobiological understanding to be directly attributed to brain matter. As neuroscience progresses, the idea of "mind" may simply become an archaic method of referring to brain function in a pre-neurobiological era.
Marianne: nicely put, and Ernest, very interesting prediction, one which I expect will come to be. As for the point about "how much brain is needed to experience mind", ultimately this will probably remain a philosophical question rather than one open to scientific investigation - that is, it may be impossible for us to experience or quantify another's internal neural experience and so determine if it meets a human criterion of "mind". Nonethelss, I will offer my opinion that any amount of "brain" produces some internal experience (i.e., mind) - a dog or snake or worm of hydra may not have as complex an experience as a human, but may still experience something. Put another way, I cannot imagine how/where one would draw a line in terms of neurobiological coomplexity above which there definitely is "mind", and below which there is no mind. Or, can anyone think of an objective experiment in which such a thing could be quantified?
Here is an alternative answer. We are each one of us born with certain neurobiological capacities to act in the world, brought about by the evolution of humankind. The mind emerges when the infant encounters the community she is born into and begin to develop historical-cultural specific abilities for going around in the world, such as a specific language. Thus, the mind is inherently individual but can only develop socially. However, a functioning brain is requisite for this to happen.
Lars: I like your succinct statement. The only question I have is "is language necessary for 'mind'"? I am thinking about the experience of Jill Bolte Taylor and her experience described in her book "My Stroke of Insight" in which, post-stroke, she(apparently) temporarily had no verbal language, yet had "perceptions" even "internal thoughts". In any case, an important aspect of such discussions is, as Voltaire suggested, "first, define your terms" - i.e., what do you define as "brain" and as "mind".
Eric: If “mind” is manifested in the brain but necessitates influences from the social/communal to develop, then language is obviously a vital factor in the full realization of the mind. However, it is not necessary. An interesting discussion in line with this is Merker (2007). Concerning ex-ante definitions of terms, I - somewhat reluctantly - have to disagree with Voltaire. In my experience, such an approach never seems to arrive at closure, rather the opposite. For example, the eminent linguist Roy Harris identifies 27 different meanings of “mind” in his excellent little book “Mindboggling”. I prefer to present my view as clearly as possibly from which readers then can see where they disagree and where they don’t. In this way, we can close in on the term without necessary defining it.
Merker, B. (2007). Consciousness without a cerebral cortex: A challenge for neuroscience and medicine. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(1), 63–134. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X07000891
@ Vito Di Maio, and others
I must agree with Wolpert that complex movement is the only reason why we have brains. He jokingly talks about Sea Squirts which 'digest' their own brain as soon as the animal becomes sedentary. See
https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_wolpert_the_real_reason_for_brains#t-98530
The neural systems of simple organisms are reactive in the sense that they cannot simulate (activate neurons without producing overt movement) sensations of the environment and and their own moving bodies. Humans and other complex animals can experience the effects of their own actions before they take place by simulating their past experiences. This ability of the brain to "experience" (read simulate) the future is known as the mind.
Dear All.
Primarily, the brain should be considered to be a fractally organised excitable medium that is structured in real time by the body and the sense.
The fractal structure of the brain is may also to be considered a material scaffold that embodies structurally information relating to past experiences.
The fractal scaffold of the brain facilitates the emergence of a catalytic coherent wave function - a matter wave (perhaps a Bose Einstein Condensate) that releases the energy stored in the structure of the excitable medium.
The mind (or consciousness) correlates directly with the condensate wave function.
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