Mind

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So what is the mind? Is it just the brain and a bunch of firing neurons? If that was the case, there wouldn't be a need for me to create a mind page. The mind is much more than a physical organ of the body. Certainly, without a brain there would be no mind, but you can theoretically one could have a brain with no mind.

For example, my father died of complications of Alzheimer's Disease. His disease had progressed to the point where his brain no longer told the body that food or water was needed (brain function). His mind no longer recognized anything or anybody (mind function). He could no longer communicate at all nor could he recognize anything or anybody (brain plus mind function).

On a lighter note, when you laugh at a joke, your brain processes sounds but the mind takes the sounds and makes sense of them then recognizes that the joke is supposed to be funny. As a result, you laugh if your mind thinks the joke is funny.

I'm a KISS (keep it simple stupid) kinda person, so I hope this KISS explanation helps. There are many worthwhile sites that fully explain how the brain-mind works that are much more complicated than this one is.

All faith traditions recognize that an untrained mind is full of chaos, contradictions, and violence. The brain processes information based upon synapse firings which are chemical. The mind takes the chemical processes and makes sense out of them based upon memory and evaluation of the situation.

A small child doesn't get sarcasm because there is nothing in the mind to relate the verbal sounds that are the hallmark of sarcasm. The child hears a literal remark not the nuanced sarcasm in the tone.

© 2010 by Cosmic Breezes