Or so they say… So one obvious question is: what, exactly, is the mind?
It’s a good question.
I’d like you to stop for a moment, and then imagine an elephant wearing pyjamas. What colour are the pyjamas?
(Interestingly, most people will say “blue and white stripes”.There is a post on “memetics” in that fact somewhere… Another time maybe!)
Perhaps even more interesting, is the fact that you can imagine an elephant wearing pyjamas, of any colour, somewhere in your experience of consciousness. That’s quite amazing, if you think about it.
Now – if I were to chop up your brain into tiny pieces (don’t worry, I’m not going to do that), at no point would I find, amongst the cells that have clumped together to form your brain, any tiny pictures of elephants. In fact I wouldn’t find any pictures of anything: your front door, your first love, your first car… I wouldn’t find audio recordings of your mother’s voice… I certainly wouldn’t find the taste of lemons, nor the smell of disinfectant.
However, these are all things – to a greater or lesser degree – that we can recreate in our experience of consciousness… This means that the mind must exist, right?
Well – we can refer to our experience of consciousness, our experience of living, and state “Cogito, ergo sum” - I think, therefore I am. However, the problem with the mind is that it has no weight, no colour, it makes no sound, it doesn’t exist in a physical locale. So although, through consciousness, we experience having a mind, it is beyond measure… Therefore does it actually exist?
And if it doesn’t exist, why do people talk about it so much?
One thing seems clear. Our experience of consciousness is connected to the functioning of our brain. As the brain functions, we experience consciousness. The functioning of the brain is a process, with a beginning point and an ending point, so therefore our experience of consciousness is also a process.
This means that our “mind” is also a process. That is an important point to consider. It means that we don’t have thoughts or memories, we engage in the activity of thinking, or recalling.
Imagine waving your arm (or, if you are adventurous, give it a wave now!) A trained anatomist would be able to work out the macro and micro-anatomical properties & processes that constitute the act you have just completed (waving your arm). (you can stop now, if you haven’t already 
)
Put energy into those processes, and the arm can’t fail to wave. However, at no point would the anatomist locate a wave. Now that you have stopped waving nobody would ask “Where is the wave stored now?”
So, with that in mind, eventually, it should be possible for a neuroanatomist to work out structure and processes of those neuronal networks – those networks that exist physically in your brain – that are active when you think of an elephant in pyjamas, just in the same way as an anatomist can work out the processes that can cause your arm to move. With that breakthrough, it should be possible to demonstrate that, on putting energy into that neuronal network, it (the brain) cannot help but engage in thinking of an elephant in pyjamas.
And when finished, at no point will the neuroanatomist ask, where is the elephant (or any other thoughts or memories) stored now?
So basically: according to science, our minds don’t exist. We don’t have stored memories, or beliefs, or ideas, we experience remembering, or believing, or thinking. Our experience of consciousness is a process, not an object, and is as a result of the functioning of our brain’s activities. It’s depressingly reductionist, but scientifically, it is sound… You can’t have one without the other.
In therapy, this doesn’t matter one bit of course. Even as a metaphor, appealing to the unconscious mind to make changes or whatever still works just fine, because we know what it is like to experience owning one!
However – if, you can’t have an experience of consciousness without the functioning of your brain, surely this means: when your brain dies, you die. It’s all down to biology…
Well, personally I am loathe to believe that we are simply animated puppets of meat, roaming the surface of the Earth with no meaning other than eating, fornicating, dying (although venture into Manchester city centre on a Saturday night, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest just that! However…)
400 years ago, microbes were immeasurable by science, and yet their existence (and effect) were speculated upon even in Roman times. Just because those microbes were beyond the measure of science, doesn’t mean they didn’t exist until they were discovered. Consciousness is not measurable by science: it has no taste, no smell, no weight, and yet we know it exists because we experience it. I feel that consciousness, or life, has a dimension that is beyond genetic histories and biological imperatives… a dimension that is currently beyond scientific measure.
A flower knows to point itself towards the sun. Oysters open and close, not in time with the tides where they originated, but with the moon. Man built The Ring of Brodgar some 4500 years ago perhaps because, in their mind, consciousness and the world in which they lived were connected in ways which modern science is only just beginning to consider.
In the immortal words of Bill Hicks:
“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.
Now, here’s Tom with the weather.”
And with that thought in mind, have a great week!
Warm regards,
Adrian
http://www.lastingchange.co.uk
PS: I think this is my favorite post made to this blog, so do feel free to leave a comment!
You’ve got me thinking.
Definitions are abundant and vague. I’m taking a little different approach. I’m looking at consciousness from the point of view of what it does for the system. Granted our version of consciousness is more complex than other lifeforms, but the basic jobs it performs are the same… navigation, feeding and mating.
Check it out:
http://lifeos.wordpress.com/
cheers,
jim
By: insomniac on June 20, 2008
at 5:30 pm
Yet another thought provoking post
Isn’t the elephant image the logo for Silent Night beds??
I’m amazed at how people will so easily dismiss Astrology, the influence of the planets, the moon, the sun etc on life in general, yet some of the same people believe unquestioningly that there’s a dude in the sky who conjured up the world and all life in a week. Surely it’s more rational to believe that life – nature, environment, planets are interlinked and impact on each other than to believe ‘life’ is a series of separate entities and existences merely co-existing? Anyway, enough navel gazing.
I think it was Derren Brown who said recently humans will always try and create meaning and connections between events, and feel the need to have control and belief in our ability to impact on outcomes.
Memory and its non-existence is quite radical at first! Whilst not tangible though, memory is evidenced all over the place; in books, buildings, roads, art… Give it a hundred years, I’m sure there’ll be a USB port in skulls ready to transfer memories onto laptops.
PS. Bill Hicks is alive and well, he visits me occasionally whilst sleeping, begging me to marry him…
By: Janine on June 22, 2008
at 12:44 pm
wow. Heavy stuff man!
I studied and wrote about the auditory memory many moons ago, which is the ear related mind ability to remember tonality – (yawn) – for example, we can all, in our minds sing any number of songs; happy birthday, the opening refrain of Beethoven’s 5th or the theme tune to James Bond. We have a veritable ipod up there, which sometimes stores things we don’t want and haunts us with them. Music does some interesting things to our bodies at the request of our minds, but that is digressing.
There is all sorts of science attached to how the mind creates these things. But rarely any discussion of why.
I have no faith. Scratch that, I have faith in engineering and science. But nothing on an intangible level. But I’m also not willing to entertain that the end is the end – as Janine mentioned the need for all humans to attach meaning to measure impact.
The nihilist in me believes that we are built with the capacity to have memories and feelings like this to make our meat puppet existence more tolerable. A mere function of inflight entertainment.
The artist in me believes that the function of the mind IS the existence, and the place where all great things are born and dreamt.
I prefer to keep the nihilist at bay, but she creeps out. Usually on a sunday night when I’m navel gazing.
By: Emma on June 23, 2008
at 1:12 pm
Science is objective and consciousness is entirely subjective, maybe science is not an effective tool for explaining what our experience of consciousness is, after all the word conciousness just means ‘awareness’ and has nothing to do with the process of thinking so it cannot be reasoned out by thinking. Science can only give (as you pointed out) a reductionist and rather limited explanation .
Perhaps (and this is entirely magical thinking now!) when asked to recall a pink elephant the brain has to plug in to a universal matrix of information to download it!
But how come when I think of an elephant it is always the elephant that was on my wallpaper as a child?
By: Elaine on June 25, 2008
at 3:01 pm
Thanks for the comments. Insomniac – that was an interesting link you posted.
Emma & Elaine – interesting. Perhaps the brain exists as a kind of radio receiver of consciousness, rather than a generator of it. Our brains can do lots of clever stuff, and our experience of our mind is dependent on this receiving apparatus, but our mind could be a granular reflection of some kind of universal consciousness, rather than our own property…
It’s an interesting idea.
Janine – as usual a good contribution however I refuse to believe that Goatboy would beg anyone to marry him
Thanks for comments,
Adrian
By: lastingchange on June 28, 2008
at 10:13 am
Thanks for letting me know this post.I’ve been thinking thing called “mind” too.
Concsiousness or mind,whatever we call,I just orgnized as Thoughts(mathematical one like sentences and visions like your example with elephant),and Emotions(includes basic like or dislike stuffs).
And,I believe that the Container,which means body is just for one space-time,but Invisible Energy still continues to study forever……
We recognize which one works as oneself and not.
Even though all things are combinations of many materials(particles in the end),there are vital ones and invital ones. The differences are, the CONNECTION.
All natural exsistances have this connection,but for instance human’s creations don’t.
What I want to say is,just like the electric signal in our brain,or electromagnetism or light in Universe,the Connection itself makes something vital and creates oneself.
I think,our memories,I mean the electric signal, most of them just disperse when Container breakes and the Connection stops,however,certain qunatity(?)remains.
And continues to study more,returning to our essence again.
Anyway,we are inside of one big exsistance which we don’t recognize at all,(only 4 % we know!just like our usage of brain)and I always see trace that we are kind of mirror of this Universe.
We can finally get perfect answer with belief,and the science is inside of this one big thing,so,whatever science saids,they are all belief too….
Oops,too long!
By: Maya on September 18, 2008
at 2:18 am
Very interesting post. I It’s similar to the way I view life and the philosophy I follow. Spirit, mind and body. Where you are the spirit and use your mind (computer/storage facility) to operate your body in the environment.
By: Michael on December 11, 2008
at 3:46 pm