[MD] confused(I hope you don't mind)

[Ron Kulp]

 Mind
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article may require cleanup.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page, and/or replace this tag with
a more specific message. Editing help is available.
This article has been tagged since September 2006.Some information in
this article or section has not been verified and may not be reliable.
Please check for any inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as
needed.
For other uses, see Mind (disambiguation).
 Mind and Brain Portal 
Mind refers to the collective aspects of intellect and consciousness
which are manifest in some combination of thought, perception, emotion,
will and imagination.

There are many theories of what the mind is and how it works, dating
back to Plato, Aristotle and other Ancient Greek philosophers.
Pre-scientific theories, which were rooted in theology, concentrated on
the relationship between the mind and the soul, the supposed
supernatural or divine essence of the human person. Modern theories,
based on a scientific understanding of the brain, see the mind as a
phenomenon of psychology, and the term is often used more or less
synonymously 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 in nature or origin to 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.

 On Brain-Mind Phenomena
The understanding of natural phenomena and the origin and mystery of
life has been an ageless human concern. Many millennia ago, long before
written historic records and language, the human species evolved,
survived natural catastrophes, and most likely formed a minimal social
life by communicating with one another via grunts and signs. Around 3000
BC, in Western Europe, Asia and China, a social life existed within
disparate familial 'national' groups in frequent war with one another.
In the 'fertile crescent' of northwest Africa (Mesopotamia) for example,
nations were governed by despotic Pharaohs (Egypt), Kings (Babylon), and
Patriarchs who based their rule on differing mythic beliefs in gods and
religions. Between 600 and 300 BC in the Aegean islands and Greece,
progress in verbal and symbolic written language sparked the beginning
of a thoughtful dialectic search (via Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle)
for a better foundation of existing beliefs on religious, politics, and
economics related to human life as well as for rules governing natural
phenomena. It was not until 1650 AD, however, that in Great Britain
Isaac Newton a man of genius developed a unique 'scientific' ability to
learn and analyze with mathematical accuracy many natural phenomena (how
bodies move in space-time). Two centuries later Michael Faraday
experimentally explained the interconnection between electric and
magnetic phenomena and James Clerk Maxwell translated Faraday's ideas
into a mathematical theory of how electromagnetic waves are excited and
propagated in space-time. In a remarkable series of five papers in 1905
Albert Einstein then showed that space and time were related, that light
could be viewed either as an electromagnetic wave or as a system of
particles. These scientific abilities spawned technological inventions
with deep impact on the quality of human lives. But efforts to learn and
explain basic human behavior did not achieve a level of success
comparable to that in the sciences. Ideas that worked so well in solving
problems in "science areas" were not readily adaptable to the more
difficult human problems associated with long standing spiritual
beliefs. Human belief patterns stem from intimately related mind
phenomena emanating from thought, memory, and emotion processes within a
complex physical structure --the human brain. At birth our brain is
almost not there. Brain growth during childhood depends markedly on
environmental exposure to parents and schools. Thoughts are cerebral
perceptions of external and internal sensory events, from which
imaginative abstract ideas associated with memories of these events can
be created. Beliefs on the other hand derive from diverse spiritual
exposures or from experimentally verifiable thought patterns, both of
which have a profound affect on individual and collective human
behavior. Some individuals have a passion for learning how to base their
beliefs on scientific thinking while others do not abide by this
requirement. Understanding our thought processes has become a focus of
psycho-biological, neurological, and molecular-biological cognitive
studies relating mind excitations to specific physical areas within the
brain. These studies offer the hope of discovering the scientific
essence of mind phenomena and of suggesting novel methods for learning
to improve the quality of human life at all ages. Relatively simple
meditative techniques exist for controlling thought and memory patterns
which permit the learning of meaningful belief patterns.
[edit] On Psychobiology of Thought and Memory
Within the vast spectrum of life forms, the human species possesses a
unique ability to think and remember. Thinking represents a unique
interplay of thought and memory, captured by the aphorism: thought
begets memory, and memory begets thought. Thoughts are mental processes
that arise either from a complex of direct sensory perceptions or from
abstract higher-level mental associations. Direct thought perceptions
are associated with cerebral activity in the outer human neo-cortex and
in the mid-brain, whereas abstract emotional thoughts are primarily
associated with activity in the brain stem and thalamus; lower animal
species do not have a neo-cortex and hence display minor mental
capability. An omni-present mix of thought and memory patterns reflects
a pleasurable or troublesome state of mind, depending on one's ability
to learn how to control the flow of thinking. Controlling the flow of
abstract thoughts and memories is a quintessential human asset that
requires intentional mental effort. Cognitive science studies reveal
that the ability to learn stems both from specific inherited areas of
brain structure as well as from environmental experience. In our
conscious state the natural autonomic flow of mental activity is
frequently interspersed with a pestering miscellany of non-intentional
thoughts. The latter, a rather chaotic activity, often prompted by
emotional instincts, complicates volitional mind flow, engenders mental
distractions, but plays an important role in human creativity.
Instinctual moderated free-wheeling streams of consciousness utilize a
non-intentional mix of states that link the many verbal and visual
associations characteristic of creative mental states. Recent
mathematical developments in chaos theory suggest that free associative
thinking is a random nonlinear mental process from which self-organizing
activity representative of creativity emerges. One relevant aspect of
free association is that it is less exhausting for the mind to wander
freely within a forest of ever-changing thoughts than to fix on embedded
thoughts. Obsessive thought fixation and resulting mental blocks are
evident sources of psychobiologic mental fatigue. Psychological studies
of individual and collective behavior have long been subjects of
extensive efforts to document experimentally the laws that govern our
behavior. In recent years these studies have begun to explore behavior
in terms of the cerebral electro-chemical network being developed in the
cognitive sciences. Related developments in pharmacological medications,
affecting properties of the cerebral electro-chemical network, are
currently sparking effective methods for modifying human behavior. An
open psycho-biological problem revolves about measuring the physical
nature of thought and memory excitations generated by structures within
the brain. In physics the concept of a field suggests an interesting and
metaphorically related clarification of the problem of measuring mind
phenomena. Current neuronal research on the molecular structure of the
brain and its mental properties represents an important step along the
road to understand how to deal with our mental beliefs about religion
and ethics.

What do you think of this view?
-Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Heather Perella
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 12:25 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] confused

Ham,

     [Ham]
> Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary's five
> definitions: "2. the state of being characterized by sensation, 
> emotion, volition, and thought."
> Incidentally, Webster's follows this definition with the word MIND (in

> caps.
> as a synonym).  So there's the answer to SA's query:
> What is MIND?"  It's
> Consciousness.

     Yes, but what is consciousness?  I see the definition above, but
what is thought?  I notice specifics have dependent relationships.
Therefore I can focus upon thought, but if I focus on thought too much
or a lot, I'll find my awareness of what thought is, split into its'
'dependent relationships'.  For me, I can't just say thought, mind, and
consciousness (and tree for that matter) have a concrete, that is final
definition.  This is usually where you thread off into another
perspective from mine.  I know what mind is, and the definition of the
particulars of mind can be experimented, argued, and discovered.  Yet,
what I'm even more so stating, as I have all along, is that eventually
mind depends on other aspects of reality so much so, that without these
other aspects of reality mind would not be here to be defined in the
first place.  Therefore, my perspective is (1) that mind can be pointed
out, we can decide upon a reasonable definition.  (2) Some aspects of
mind may still need explored upon to tighten up the definition.
 (3)  Mind will still have this dependent aspect that qualifies, to me,
as an important factor in providing what a mind is.  This last approach
to mind, number 3, is where I am taking my stances usually.  For me, I'm
assuming (1) and (2) are easily noticed, how else might we even be
generalizing mind in the first place.
 Yet, (3) is the ecosystem approach.  For example, I see a tree, and I
define that tree.  Yet, when we notice the whole ecosystem of the tree
that definition will grow in perspective, one could show how a tree is
the sun, by pointing out that the hydrogen from the sun is now in a tree
and has become an essential structure of the tree.  This perspective
could expand into without the black hole in the center of this Milky
Way, then the coherence of this galaxy would have been threatened long
ago, and so a tree depends and is put into definition by a black hole in
the center of this galaxy.  On and on.  Dictionaries would not be large
enough to incorporate such definitions, but here is again where I have
been assuming all along that this universe is composed of relationships.
I simply don't ignore these relationships.  These relationships provide
much larger meanings for particulars of reality.  Then you have what can
a mind do, what experience in the mind will I have today as the clouds
have moved into this region of hills upon the earth.  The definitions
and real happens of thought and mind are not finished just because we
have pointed out in the dictionary or have come up with words on a paper
answers to what a mind is?  This has been the hard part for you Ham.  To
have a question go totally unanswered.  I can answer what is mind, but I
would be lying to myself if I left that answer thinking I've completely
defined mind.  It will not happen.  The sun will rise tomorrow.  How
will that change my perspective?

Thanks,
SA

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing
etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/