Mind and Brain

The brain and the mind

For most chordates, the brain is a neural system of nodes firing as they will. The brain is comprised of several systems, sensory, regulatory, and otherwise, each competing for system resources. These systems create the brain state.   The mind controls, or attempts to control this system.  This is a duality, a form much discussed for millennia. Here we attempt a functional approach, with the brain and the mind each maintaining independent, though highly dependent roles one upon the other.  Of the mind and brain, we ask

• ·         How does it do it?
• ·         Why does it do it?

It comes to The Task.  The task is the fundamental extraordinary function of the every single organism.  Extraordinary because the simplest organisms exists and respond to stimuli in a programmed manner.  They exist and survive or not on the basis of the programs within it.  Aside from such, all existence is centered on tasks.  This is their fundamental duty, whether for food, procreation, protection, or general survival.   For the human, the task forms the workings of the mind-brain relationship. The functioning mind is instrumental in

• ·         Focusing on a task.
• ·         Controlling the task.
• ·         Concluding a task.

The task is something to be achieved.  It can arise in many forms, most particularly here as a problem to be solved. When the mind has no problems to solve, or only routine problems to solve, the brain is left to its own devices, seeking some utilitarian function notably a positivist state.

The mind controls the coefficients of the brain, adjusting them to tasks at hand. 

Intelligence is a matter of how the mind controls the workings of the brain. We could posit the brain is similar in all people, but it is the mind and its nature to control the brain that distinguishes the one from the other.

The workings of the brain are very likely nonlinear by nature.  They constitute an essentially unstable system, brought into focus by the mind. If the mind's nature is not to or unable to control, the brain proceeds to nonlinear instabilities.  This results in lunacy, etc. Many psycho-biologic drugs help the mind gain control of the brain, possibly by diminishing the brain’s functionality itself. Or the drug impacts, contrary to what may believe, the brain, allowing the mind to regain control. 

The brain is functional, the mind is task oriented. It allows multi-tasking.  The mind uses the brain to contain and execute tasks. The mind also uses the brain in its functionality.  It is not a separate entity. It is not strictly independent brain. It is integrated with the brain. The mind listens to what the brain is doing, keeping it on task and modifying the task as need.  This a type of duality, with consciousness emerging as an illusion from the mind-brain communication. For the primitive organism, such as the man in the wilderness, there is little time or inclination to achieve other that essential tasks. Both the brain and the mind are fully focused upon the basic necessities.   Abstract thought is the consequence of the mind's meanderings when it is not needed to act or instruct the brain on the various survival actions.  In fact, the evolution of the mind toward control over generalizes itself, resulting in abilities seemingly not having to do with survival.  For example, visualization of the the hunt for game is an ability that contains visualizations of alternate “hunt-type” activities. It is an evolved capacity seemingly unique, but advanced because of its adaptability to new situations.  

In a constant environment, with constant conditions and constant threats, there would likely have been such an evolution.  The mind possibly evolved because of variations in external conditions and the requirements they demanded.  Without the task, there is no consciousness needed, implied, or extant. Without the duality between the brain and mind, there can be no internal communication, and thus no consciousness.  Without communication between entities there can be no society.    

In the animal world, the mind is most powerful, allowing only focus on certain tasks,, maintaining a steady though dull state of being. Without adventure and innovation, the goal of the mind is toward the survival of the organism, and the tasks are those of survival, namely life, eating, and procreation. In lower animals, the brain functions with only these influences from the mind.  Indeed, we may say the mind in many cases does not really exist except as a survival control. 

The hunt.  The task becomes part of the hunt for the goal, whether food or ideas or solutions. Indeed, many of our tasks are cast in the form of "hunt" words.  "I am hunting." "I am seeking." "I need to know." "I am looking for... These are all forms of the hunt.  There is no ghost in the brain, ala Ryle, but there is the task at hand.  There is the strength of the task as well.  If the strength is absent, the hunt does not occur.  When the strength is absent, the hunt is unneeded. When the strength is strong, the hunt is pursued without limit.

The task is a primitive of the human.  It involves the brain and the mind.  It is similar to sex and other desires of the body. The mind conveys tasks to the brain. It also applies to other species. In some, there is little mind or control.  It may be possible to suggest that the mind is the seat of consciousness, as it controls the functions of the brain. 

We hear of this genius or another with the ability to subjugate the emotional part of the brain in favor of the analytic part. We hear also of many that can subdue other parts of the brain in favor of another.  This is the mind working, of the mind's ability to control the workings of the brain. Coming in all permutations of possibility, we see the mind exerting (or not) its control upon the brain.  Basically, the mind sends messages to the brain with the brain complying or not, with the mind having influence diminished by various factors. 

The brain functions; the mind controls. The mind controls the brain by changing its natural parameters.  Thus, if we view the brain as a dynamical system with various parameters and a motor for using them, the mind affects the brain, not as a control system, but as a parameter-dynamic-control system. That is the mind controls the parameters of the system and not the state variables. 

Sometimes the brain is functioning with mixed or multiple messages from the mind.  The result being mixed in response.  The god question is of at least two varieties, emotional and analytical, the mind turning in control messages of all sorts, particularly when there is no clear task at hand. 

Education. The teacher attempts to help the student's mind by assisting in its control of the brain. In the modern methods, this is achieved by engaging the student.  This is achieved by engaging the mind to control the brain. Tasks must be clearly set. Tasks mush be interesting and entrancing to the mind. They must be posed as tasks. Almost all pedagogies seek to engage the mind to control the brain. 

All of the above is not entirely original as to scope.  It was the great American psychologist, William James, who proposed the mind is that entity within the person that impresses control or influence upon the brain. Please note, there are no specific experiential components in this story.  Clearly, there are more questions than answers coming from the above discussion.  Nonetheless, the nature of the mind and of consciousness is a problem that has haunted us for centuries. Now, if your reading has reached this point, you may think there may be a mathematical model in all this.  And there is, to be reported in another venue.  The tasks provide a forcing function to the mind-brain system.

The brain works on its own and also at the behest of the mind.  Without significant tasks at hand the mind would not be required.  Without tasks the mind would cease its activity except as an elemental controller.  Without tasks, the human would be reduced to a simpler organism.  All of the utopian worlds exhibit a race with few tasks – a seemingly primitive goal of such worlds.  In a utopian world, the mind being unneeded to solve problems might cause the reduction of the human to a more primitive form, with a much diminished consciousness.