What is Mind?

    This week in philosophy we discussed the question: “What is mind?” The question is very difficult to answer. Many believe they have the answer, and that it is quite simple; but when they actually try to articulate it, it becomes clear that we really don’t know what mind is. By and large the most common answer to “what is mind” is: the mind is our soul, it is an intangible “being” that controls our actions, and allows us to answer the “why” questions. The issue raised against the idea that the mind is something separate from the brain is this: Where is the mind located? How can a thing that has no defined location, shape, or size persist without something giving it representation? And, most importantly, how does it interact with our brain to cause movement. If we claim that mind is separate from matter. We are committed to the idea that the mind somehow motivates the brain to do certain things. (ie. The mind some how controls the neurons in the brain, to send signals to the arm, to pick up a cup.) Yet this does not appear possible. All motor functions of the body, and motivations for why we do things are explainable on a neurochemical level. Even if we purport that the mind exists, we are still left with finding out how nothing interacts with something; how this nothingness of no defined shape, location, or extension can somehow spur into action, neurons within the brain. Many who argue for the existence of God resist the idea that nothing can cause something, I too follow the same line of logic in my reasoning here. It makes no sense that their should be a mind (a nothing) causing something to happen in the brain, when the explanation can be the brain itself.

    So then, where am I? Where do I, Jackson Pacific, reside? What makes me what and who I am? If mind is actually just matter, and all I am is a collection of brain states, then how come I can experience things differently than other beings. How come I can look a painting and see something with true, deep meaning to me; while another person passes by that painting like it was nothing. Why can a certain song make me cry, and another person laugh? The best answer we have seems to come from the idea of “tabula rusa,” or “we are all born as ‘blank slates’ on which experience compounds, knowledge is sought, and ideas are built.” Following this logic, when you have a “subjective” experience such as enjoying jazz music, what is really happening is your brain is releasing dopamine, serotonin, and a slightly higher than average amount of adrenaline, giving you a good feeling, making you feel like you were born to love jazz music. How you got to that point is a question of great debate. Many neurologists purport that, for example, you had a naturally exciting experience, such as an interaction with your mother to the tune of jazz. The brain then contributed in small amount the release of that dopamine to the playing of the jazz music, and as that experience gets further away, the accuracy of the reason of the happy state diminishes, and your brain contributes more and more happiness to the playing of jazz music.

    One of the great defenders of the mind/body dualism was Rene Descartes. Descartes believed that there actually is two kinds of “things,” mind and matter. He defined mind in the classic way we all think of it, as an invisible, intangible thing that controls our body, and persists through time even when the body “runs out.” (The term mind, by his definition, is interchangeable with soul). He attempts to show that we can have a mind, a mind that isn’t just collections and interactions of matter, by showing that we can all think of experiencing our lives “out of body.” He invited the reader to imagine that one day they woke up without a body. So I tried it, and yes, he is right; it is possible to imagine yourself going through your day without a body. He then invites the reader to imagine going through his day without a mind; same body, but no mind. This is obviously an impossibility. He then states that since we can imagine our minds without our bodies, but not our bodies without our minds, that minds must a) be more important, and b) Exist! I have one major problem with Descartes argument. When he tells us to imagine our lives without our bodies, what we are imagining is our minds without our bodies, moving around and INTERACTING WITH OTHER MATTER. This is key. Imagine with me for a moment, your mind outside of your body, walking around and interacting with other minds outside of their bodies. It can’t be done. What would that even look like? Let’s say it could be done, even so, we would need a setting, a material setting, a tangible place.  It seems to me common sense, that a thing that has no definite location, mass, and doesn't occupy any space cannot interact with a thing that does. If one concedes that nothing can cause movement of something, then the “universe from nothing” arguments have new base, and vice versa.

So the ultimate question is: Is it possible for an intangible thing with no size, shape, location, extension, mass etc… to control our brains, and then leave our brains once they die, to head to an intangible location?