What is the mind? Don't study brain cells to understand it

International Journal on World Peace, June, 2008 by Tom Kando

Do, similarly, different areas of the brain perform different mental functions? True, it is said that the cerebral cortex is responsible for linguistic function, the right brain for intuitive capabilities, the left brain for analytic skills, etc.

However, no scientist will ever be able to observe "language" by examining the cerebral cortex under a microscope. The cerebral cortex does not "contain" language. It enables language. It no more "contains" language than the eye "contains" sight or the objects which it sees, or our legs "contain" walking. Organs and cerebral areas enable certain actions. They do not "contain" them.

There is nothing mysterious or difficult about this conception of the mind. It is based on the distinction between structure and function--a distinction as old as Darwin's breakthrough in biology.

Yet most psychologists and most of the public--because of the contemporary hegemony of positivism (see below)--are unable to accept it. Most psychologists and most of the public believe the absurdity that different parts of our brain contain different "thoughts."

The popularity of the computer analogy proves this. Most people see the brain as a very complicated computer. But this is wrong. Think about it for just a moment: Why is a computer able to produce documents, words, sounds, pictures, etc? Because it contains these on its drives.

True, sometimes even a computer "creates" something new, i.e. something which is not just the retrieval of a pre-existing file. This happens for example when the computer solves a mathematical problem. But this, too, is based on pre-existing information, namely the mathematical rules which have been pre-programmed into the computer.

So, anything produced by a computer is retrieved from pre-existing files, or it results from the combination of pre-existing material, or from the application of pre-programmed rules. And all of these exist, in physical form, even when the files are closed and inactive. They even exist--on the computer's drives--when the computer is shut down!

And this is where the analogy between the mind and the computer totally breaks down: After all, isn't a shut-down computer the equivalent of a dead person? Isn't it clear why a computer can be re-activated, and its files re-opened, whereas a human cannot, and his thoughts cannot be brought back after death?

The reason for this is that computers never produce anything new, whereas just about everything the human brain produces is new, and it is called thought. Unlike the computer's output, the brain's output consists of the realization of potential, and it is not the expression of pre-existing material, such as a file which has just been opened, or a mathematical operation which has just been performed on the basis of pre-programmed rules.

This is why computers can be said to be "brains," but they cannot be said to have thoughts, or a mind. Humans, on the other hand, have both. The human mind is an emergent activity. A human thought is new every time it occurs.