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Understanding the concepts 'mind' and 'brain'

Are the brain and mind the same? Or do these terms refer to different dimensions involved in being human?
Home to your mind and personality, your brain houses your precious memories and future hopes. It coordinates the task of consciousness that gives you: purpose, passion, motion and emotion.
The brain controls involuntary activities such as: heartbeat, respiration, and digestion. The brain also controls: conscious activities, such as thought, reasoning, and abstraction.


Your brain and spinal cord make up your central nervous system. Together, they control your body, but it's the brain which is boss. It's made of more than 10 billion nerve cells and over 50 billion other cells. It monitors and systematizes unconscious bodily processes like breathing and heart rate, and coordinates most voluntary movement. It's the site of consciousness, thought and creativity. Cognitive scientists often say that the mind is the software of the brain
A distinction among components of the mind, for example, the mechanisms of thought must be distinguished from the mechanist but the core of our understanding of the mind lies with mental competence, not behavioral performance. If the mind is the software of the brain, then we must take sincerely the idea that the functional analysis of human intelligence will bottom out in primitive processors in the brain. The mind is profoundly un-biological.

There are many theories of what the mind is and how it works, dating back to Plato. 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 is often used more or less synonymously with consciousness. In popular usage, the mind is frequently synonymous with thought: it is that private conversation with ourselves that we carry on "inside our heads". One of the key characteristics of the mind is that it is a private area. No-one else can read our thoughts or "know our mind." They can only know what we communicate.



Some tend to argue that the quality which we collectively call the mind are closely related to the functions of the brain and can have no autonomous existence beyond the brain nor can they survive its death. In this view the mind is a subjective manifestation of consciousness: the human brain's ability to be aware of its own existence. The concept of the mind is therefore a means by which the conscious brain understands its own operations.

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Understanding the concepts 'mind' and 'brain'

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Understanding the concepts 'mind' and 'brain'

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