I've decided to become a Buddhist

Diuretic said:
It seems to my unscientific mind that it - my "mind" - is really just the processing done by my brain.
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The processing done by your brain can be changed. The course that you send your thoughts through can actually be altered. I'm trying to explain it in the most elementary terms of course.

An example of this is being able to change the context in which you view an experience. Our brain associates things to past experiences, so you may habitually see something as bad. But, if you look at your past experiences in a different context, you will then habitually look at the new experience in the context you have put your past experiences in. Hope that's not confusing.
 
Watermark said:
Yes, but you do that THROUGH your brain itself. It's not as if the mind is a seperate entity just floating off in invidible space somewhere.
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But yet it is as if you are overcoming the brain. Our brain thinks in patterns that are shaped by our experiences, yet we have the ability to somehow change those pathways through our own thought. If there is an actual physical part of the brain that controls the mind, it has not yet been discovered.
 
DigitalDave said:
Soc, the mind is not 'the brain'. They are two seperate things. Think of your mind as the 'conductor' of your brain. It is the entity that guides the brain. Nueroscientists have found some great discoveries in the brains of Buddhist monks, in that thought can actually alter the brain!
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Ok so where EXACTLY is the mind?
 
DigitalDave said:
But yet it is as if you are overcoming the brain. Our brain thinks in patterns that are shaped by our experiences, yet we have the ability to somehow change those pathways through our own thought. If there is an actual physical part of the brain that controls the mind, it has not yet been discovered.
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The BRAIN does all that there is no OTHER mechanism of will in the human body. The MIND is an esoteric idea. My father has a post doc in Neuropsych. There is no where in the Anatomical charts that point to the mind.
 
Socrtease said:
The BRAIN does all that there is no OTHER mechanism of will in the human body. The MIND is an esoteric idea. My father has a post doc in Neuropsych. There is no where in the Anatomical charts that point to the mind.
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Exactly my point. There is not a physical piece of our brain that has been associated to controlling our thoughts. We are still in control however despite the brain having set patterns, which is evident through meditation. Neuro studies are still a young science so I'm open to what may be found, but where is 'the mind'?
 
DigitalDave said:
Exactly my point. There is not a physical piece of our brain that has been associated to controlling our thoughts. We are still in control however despite the brain having set patterns, which is evident through meditation. Neuro studies are still a young science so I'm open to what may be found, but where is 'the mind'?
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There are SEVERAL different areas associated with thought. Every thing you do physically is a manifestation of thought. You think pick up that pencil and you do. Higher brain function is located in the different lobes of the forebrain. It is When those areas are damaged you find it more difficult to THINK. There is no MIND outside of the brain. When you have damag or deficiencies in the pre-frontal and frontal lobes, this causes impulsivity, which is a THOUGHT disorder, and violent behavior, which is a manifestation of violent thoughts. You are acting like there is some super overlord of the brain that controls thought, some "little man" in our heads that causes us to think and act the way we do IN SPITE of our brains. Again this is nonsense. There is no such thing. You ARE your brain and your brain IS you. There is no one without the other.
 
Socrtease said:
There are SEVERAL different areas associated with thought. Every thing you do physically is a manifestation of thought. You think pick up that pencil and you do. Higher brain function is located in the different lobes of the forebrain. It is When those areas are damaged you find it more difficult to THINK. There is no MIND outside of the brain. When you have damag or deficiencies in the pre-frontal and frontal lobes, this causes impulsivity, which is a THOUGHT disorder, and violent behavior, which is a manifestation of violent thoughts. You are acting like there is some super overlord of the brain that controls thought, some "little man" in our heads that causes us to think and act the way we do IN SPITE of our brains. Again this is nonsense. There is no such thing. You ARE your brain and your brain IS you. There is no one without the other.
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Acting as if there is a 'super overlord of the brain?' I thought I clearly left it open to suggestion when I stated that 'I don't know' where it is. Nevertheless, we have the ability to shape our own brains through meditative thought, which neuroscience has only backed this claim up. Whether it be a function of our brain, or some seperate entity within ourselves, we have that ability. So what in our brains actually gives us the ability to reshape our thoughts?
 
DigitalDave said:
What's an illusion, the ability to shape our brains or the mind itself?
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This is called neural networking I believe, and it is an obsrvable phenomenon.

Socrtease said:
There are SEVERAL different areas associated with thought. Every thing you do physically is a manifestation of thought. You think pick up that pencil and you do. Higher brain function is located in the different lobes of the forebrain. It is When those areas are damaged you find it more difficult to THINK. There is no MIND outside of the brain. When you have damag or deficiencies in the pre-frontal and frontal lobes, this causes impulsivity, which is a THOUGHT disorder, and violent behavior, which is a manifestation of violent thoughts. You are acting like there is some super overlord of the brain that controls thought, some "little man" in our heads that causes us to think and act the way we do IN SPITE of our brains. Again this is nonsense. There is no such thing. You ARE your brain and your brain IS you. There is no one without the other.
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Most cognitive functioning, memory and conscious thought come from the cerebral cortex in the front of the brain, right behind the forehead. The "mind" is an abstract term for one's experiences, history, memories, personality, habits, predispositions....., thus, not the organ the brain itself. People tend to identify with their minds, ie their preconceived notions, histories..... But that does not say that people ARE their minds.

This touches upon what Dave is saying. Our brains are our source of cognition, and the vehicle for our consciousness, but the brain is not the mind, and the mind can change the brain. To assume that one's mind is everything they are to me is desructive.
 
Beefy said:
This is called neural networking I believe, and it is an obsrvable phenomenon.



Most cognitive functioning, memory and conscious thought come from the cerebral cortex in the front of the brain, right behind the forehead. The "mind" is an abstract term for one's experiences, history, memories, personality, habits, predispositions....., thus, not the organ the brain itself. People tend to identify with their minds, ie their preconceived notions, histories..... But that does not say that people ARE their minds.

This touches upon what Dave is saying. Our brains are our source of cognition, and the vehicle for our consciousness, but the brain is not the mind, and the mind can change the brain. To assume that one's mind is everything they are to me is desructive.
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This is so contrary to what neuroscience tells us. My experiences, history personality habits perdispositions are ALL IN MY BRAIN. A neuroscientist can stimulate your brain with an eletrode placed in the brain and not just make you remember it, they can make you re-live it. You will smell the smells of that memory, you will feel the temperature. All my experiences, history personality habits perdispositions are OF my brain. I would suggest that you read the holographic brain. It talks alot about peoples memories etc when they have partial or full hemispherectomies. Some memories remain but they fade and become fuzzy. If the MIND was the storage facility of the experiences, history personality habits perdispositions then there should be no fade. There is no nebulus MIND. YOu will find no discussion of it as separate from the brain in neuroscience texts.
 
Socrtease said:
This is so contrary to what neuroscience tells us. My experiences, history personality habits perdispositions are ALL IN MY BRAIN. A neuroscientist can stimulate your brain with an eletrode placed in the brain and not just make you remember it, they can make you re-live it. You will smell the smells of that memory, you will feel the temperature. All my experiences, history personality habits perdispositions are OF my brain. I would suggest that you read the holographic brain. It talks alot about peoples memories etc when they have partial or full hemispherectomies. Some memories remain but they fade and become fuzzy. If the MIND was the storage facility of the experiences, history personality habits perdispositions then there should be no fade. There is no nebulus MIND. YOu will find no discussion of it as separate from the brain in neuroscience texts.
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I have no disagreement with you here. I'm well aware that the fecets of the mind are a function of the brain itself. I think you are misunderstanding me.

The TERM "mind" itself is what is describing the individual, the personality, the memories and the predispositions. It is abstract, there is no one section of the brain that anyone can point to and say "this is your mind".

Mind is something that people identify with. It is something that people automatically assume they are. "I am my mind", is different than "I am my brain". Perhaps its philosophically splitting hairs to you, but it really isn't to me.

To identify with one's "mind" is to become subservient to it. To identify with one's brain is to identify with a bodily organ, and become subservient to it as well. I'm suggesting that while there is most certainly a function of the brain, it would take an idiot to disagree with that, that one's person, one's individuality is not simply tied to that organ, and that there are ways of controlling it, reorganizing it, and making it a manifestation of your mind, your being, your individuality, rather than the other way around.

I really don't know if I'm articulating my position well here, but there it is.
 
Beefy said:
I have no disagreement with you here. I'm well aware that the fecets of the mind are a function of the brain itself. I think you are misunderstanding me.

The TERM "mind" itself is what is describing the individual, the personality, the memories and the predispositions. It is abstract, there is no one section of the brain that anyone can point to and say "this is your mind".

Mind is something that people identify with. It is something that people automatically assume they are. "I am my mind", is different than "I am my brain". Perhaps its philosophically splitting hairs to you, but it really isn't to me.

To identify with one's "mind" is to become subservient to it. To identify with one's brain is to identify with a bodily organ, and become subservient to it as well. I'm suggesting that while there is most certainly a function of the brain, it would take an idiot to disagree with that, that one's person, one's individuality is not simply tied to that organ, and that there are ways of controlling it, reorganizing it, and making it a manifestation of your mind, your being, your individuality, rather than the other way around.

I really don't know if I'm articulating my position well here, but there it is.
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Much Clearer now, though I still disagree with you. I am not subservient to my brain, I AM my brain. It contains, IMHO, my entire essence. It is completely different than my heart my liver or my leg. It contains every experience that makes me who I am. My self awareness is in my brain. Though I do not buy into all of Descartes, I do believe that my self awareness is what makes me an individual. Cogito Ergo Sum.
 
Damocles said:
The mind is the concerted action taken to direct the functioning of the brain. What you choose to think.
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What I choose to think is just a brain function itself. If my brain was damaged I couldn't choose to think. When I was an infant, with an immature brain i couldn't choose to think because I wasn't capable of doing so. Experience and brain development have led me to the point where my brain can produce a highly developed mind function.
 
DigitalDave said:
The processing done by your brain can be changed. The course that you send your thoughts through can actually be altered. I'm trying to explain it in the most elementary terms of course.

An example of this is being able to change the context in which you view an experience. Our brain associates things to past experiences, so you may habitually see something as bad. But, if you look at your past experiences in a different context, you will then habitually look at the new experience in the context you have put your past experiences in. Hope that's not confusing.
Click to expand...

Nope, it's quite clear - thanks.
 
DigitalDave said:
But yet it is as if you are overcoming the brain. Our brain thinks in patterns that are shaped by our experiences, yet we have the ability to somehow change those pathways through our own thought. If there is an actual physical part of the brain that controls the mind, it has not yet been discovered.
Click to expand...

The brain is the organ, the mind is the function of the organ, well of the functions. There are the others of course - the senses. I haven't done this for a while but is localised brain functioning stll the go? I mean Broca's area and all the rest of it.
 
Diuretic said:
What I choose to think is just a brain function itself. If my brain was damaged I couldn't choose to think. When I was an infant, with an immature brain i couldn't choose to think because I wasn't capable of doing so. Experience and brain development have led me to the point where my brain can produce a highly developed mind function.
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This may be what you choose to believe.

Let's use a crude analogy.

You have a nail and a hammer. The nail is like the brain, the hammer the mind. Without one neither can function, but that doesn't make the hammer the nail in any way. If the nail is damaged, the hammer can still drive it, but no longer in the path it would have gone if it was straight.

This is much like brain damage and the resulting changes in personality and thought...
 
Diuretic said:
What I choose to think is just a brain function itself. If my brain was damaged I couldn't choose to think. When I was an infant, with an immature brain i couldn't choose to think because I wasn't capable of doing so. Experience and brain development have led me to the point where my brain can produce a highly developed mind function.
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Damn look at you! and it only took you 3 and a half lines to get across what I have been trying say all day.
 
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