Difference Between Mind and Brain
Mind is related to brain. Most people do not find any difference between the two words mind and brain. Most scientists and thinkers believe that the brain and the mind are one and cannot be separated. Most of the time these two words are used interchangeably. While brain is considered to be a physical thing, mind is considered to be mental.
The brain is composed of nerve cells and blood vessels whereas the mind is not like that. While the brain has a definite shape, the mind does not have one. We can see and touch the brain whereas it is not possible to do this with the mind.
As the brain is made up of several materials, it can be studied. On the other hand, it is hard to conduct studies on the mind as it is not made up of any material.
The brain is an important organ in the human body whereas the mind is not like that. It is in the brain that all the functions and activities take place. The brain, which is the centre of the nervous system, coordinates the movements, thoughts and feelings. But these are put forth or felt through the mind. We all use the mind to think, feel and respond. The Mind refers to a person’s understanding of things and also his conscience. Mind also refers to a person’s thought process.
The brain has a definite place in the head. But with regard to mind, it is only supposed to be in the brain. The brain may be affected with diseases and can be diagnosed whereas mind does not have such complications.
Summary
- Most of the scientists and thinkers believe that brain and mind are one and cannot be separated.
- While brain is considered to be a physical thing, Â the mind is considered to be mental.
- Brain is made up of nerve cells and blood vessels whereas mind is not like that.
- While brain has a definite shape, mind does not have one.
- We can see and touch the brain whereas it is not possible with mind.
- The brain is an important organ in the human body whereas the mind is not like that.
- The brain, which is the centre of the nervous system, coordinates the movements, thoughts and feelings. The mind refers to a person’s understanding of things and also his conscience. Mind also refers to a person’s thought process.
- The Brain has a definite place in the head, but with regard to mind, it is only supposed to be in the brain.
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The mind is an illusion of the brain. The mind doesn’t really exist. What we consider as the “mind” is the brain at work. How you react to your environment, how you feel, and how you make decisions are made by your brain from experience and influence of other people. We don’t think of ourselves and our brain as one thing. We think of our brain as something mechanical and out of our control. But your brain defines who you are. You are your brain.
Brenden…what evidence do you have that what you have said is true. You have made a rather bold assertion, one that has been debated for centuries, but you have offered nothing to substantiate your assertion. Can you please supply that evidence?
my idea of mind is that it could be, some part(s) of the brain that allows us to let say picture our thinking process, create images, recall memories, feel emotions. As we know every different part of the brain is responsible for different task. The mind is a receiver and recaller of informations, that are gathered then processed in different parts of the brain.
Apart from that I believe that every decision we make in our life or even every thought that appears in our mind is conditioned on tens of different things, like our knowledge, experiences, emotions, mood or even our diet. Same way as drugs or alcohol influences our thinking (so it influence our state of mind), other substances found in food let say serotonine in chocolate which gives us feeling of happiness.
If im wrong and there is no specific part in the brain that we could call a mind then I must agree with Brenden, mind is an illusion.
if anybody would like to discuss more on above topic please email me to 108720045@umail.ucc.ie as im curious of other people opinions 🙂
Pawel
Well for me , Mind, the consiousness is different from the brain in its identity , highly interrelated or dependent on each other. Mind is a formless phenomena . it was not made up of nerve cells or elements, neither it has shape nor we can see far it contradicts with the brain.
Kant’s disproof of materialism and empiricism
Materialists argue that in essence we are no more than our bodies.
Empiricists such as Hume ruled out the possible influence of anything transcendental
in our perception of objects.
But that position was disproven by Kant, for example in his transcdendent deduction of
the role of the self in perception http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/
in which cognitive science and philosophers such as Dennett and Chalmers
seems to have overlooked the critical importance of the transcendental.
As a result, Kant gave this argument against materialism and empiricism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant
“Kant proposed a “Copernican Revolution-in-reverse”, saying that:
Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the
objects [materialism and positivism] but … let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of
metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition[transcendental idealism].”
Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000]
See my Leibniz site at
http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough
You can verify that what Brendan wrote is true by just reading the Summary. Only one of the 8 items is actually a description on what the “mind” is. They’re almost all negative attributes, except for #7. It’s a persons thoughts, or conscience. The mind is the brain in action. Do people believe other intelligent animals have minds and brains? or just us because we’re special?
It seems to me that mind is merely a word humans invented to ascribe to the decision making power of the brain.
If you believe in God or the word of God , then the mind is not just invented by humans. I know this post is old but it touched a sore spot with me. Soul, Spirit, Mind are they all made up by humans.?
Robbin,
I believe that God is the super natural power that most of us believe in, however, have we ever studied God, spirit or even soul in science? do you think those who have ever and/or try to research about them ever comes up with an answer? I think this is a science topic that we want to find the truth about. So we would first want to understand Mind and brain in the usual perspective.
What challenges and defeats the Mind
My Idea is, The Brain is The Hardware and The Mind is The Operating System. Thanks
Yeah I also said this to my teacher but she said and I am wrong
Hai Pawel…:-)
i just read u r answer. In my openion… We can not see the air but we can feel the air. Like the same… We can not see the mind but we can feel the presence of mind because of thoughts. We have two brains right. Small brain and big brain. During sleeping we r taking breath with the working of our small brain. We will get thoughts in the night time also… So our mind some whats related to small brain also. Ok anyhow our brain is doing lot of things like controling the body, store the memory…etc. In brain at some part, the item is called creating ideas or thoughts or dreams, making as think… Thats nothing but mind. So mind is a small part in brain. If that part is damaged then we can not think properly. Ok. Its all just my openion with my knowledge. U can oppose or support.. Thats ur wish.
U can share ur openion through mail vasu.marripudi@gmail.com
Thank u.
well vasu, what you are saying is your opinion, i can not say you are right or you are wrong, what is needed is proof, what can you give to support your opinion.
Kant’s disproof of materialism and empiricism
Materialists argue that in essence we are no more than our bodies.
Empiricists such as Hume ruled out the possible influence of anything transcendental in our perception of objects.
But that position was disproven by Kant, for example in his transcendental deduction of the role of the self in perception
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/
in which cognitive science and philosophers such as Dennett and Chalmers
seems to have overlooked the critical importance of the transcendental.
As a result, Kant gave this argument against materialism and empiricism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant
“Kant proposed a “Copernican Revolution-in-reverse”, saying that:
Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the
objects [materialism and positivism] but … let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of
metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition[transcendental idealism].”
Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000]
See my Leibniz site at
http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough
well, brain and mind are different things, but the brain cant functions without mind, there wont be mind without brain, these two are different but work together as both depend on each other. what i am saying is based on the answers of several people, which when i combine them they produce this outcome. no scientist can differentiate brain and mind that will please everyone as the two are working together.
We think of our minds as what makes us, us. However, physical interactions with our brains can dramatically affect our minds. From physical damage, resulting in a wide range of mind-altering complications, to substance abuse, such as high doses of LSD which result in mind-altered states of consciousness. If these entirely physical/material interactions can somehow interact with our immaterial minds, that would raise some questions such as how does something material interact with something immaterial, and vice versa, if our minds are what interacts with our brains and bodies to make us unique.
Another option to believe is that we are entirely physical, that there is no immaterial/supernatural things. This implies that our mind and consciousness are illusory by-products of the brain’s natural processes. This would answer why chemicals or brain damage can affect our ‘minds’, but would also have dramatic implications such as; given enough technological advancement, we should one day be able to fully experience and come to understand someone else’s mentality, their conscious thoughts etc. from nothing but their physical brain/body.
This also raises questions of our own free will, whether we are just a bunch of chemical reactions or something more.
So far, I haven’t been fully persuaded either way.
Anyway in my own opinion though i might be wrong becos i am still researching I think the mind is the processor while the brain is the primary memory and secondary memory for storage as we have it in a computer. According to philosophy our mind at birth is a plain sheet (tabularazer) that a lot of things is written on as one grows. Therefore it is our mind that learns. Also the animals don’t have mind, there4 they don’t learn. Education made us to know that an animal just given birth to is 99% developed and they live their lives on instinct. Animal depends on instinct. Now as human beings we depend on learning through the use of our mind. Research made us to know that human beings are made up of spirit, soul and body and that the mind is in the soul with emotion and will. Mind(intellect), emotion, will are all in the soul. Therefore the mind is separate from the brain. The mind receives info, processes it and stores it in the brain. It also recalls info from the brain. Thought is a fruit of the mind conceived by the mind connecting to the brain to search for information, information gathered is processed and we have thought at the end of the day. The mind is our consciousness because it the mind that learns. When we read or study books we get or recieve the info of the book through the mind consciousness into the brain. We are the told the brain has three memory parts: the outer memory which is volatile like RAM, the inner memory which is like ROM and the Disc which is like the Hard disk. Our name is inside our disc becos of our frequent consciousness of it. That is the reason while you don’t think that is do mind processing before you remember your name. Unlike the inner memory, you think that is, the mind has to recall info from the brain through searching of the files in your inner memory before one can bring out what is there. As of the outer memory, the mind require deep thinking to recall info from this memory and it is such a memory that after two or three days when the info you have put there is not used by the mind for consciousness or thinking it will evaporate. Conclusively, I believe the mind together with our brain in operation is our intelligence and intelligence issue is address or accessed or tested by considering the rate at which one gets information, the capacity at which the info is retained and how superb or excellent the info is utilized. IQ = Get + Hold + Used. Thanks
The brain is like a computer which has been programmed to carry out certain tasks, such as thinking, responding to stimuli,receiving processing storing and presenting information.Whilst the mind is responsible for your emotions, perceptions, behaviour and habit and these factors are what really determine who you really are and not your brain.The brain is just a processes so I would strongly have to disagree with Brenden.
not a useful info…time waste
I am on the brain side of this and came up with an analogy to explain why: the brain is the computer and the mind is the operating system
The brain gathers the information the mind decides which point of view you think is right. The mind is the decision maker.
mind(no physical existance) generates thoughts as per impressions and decide by intellect(wisdom) that perticular thoughts proceed or not if proceed than sent to brain(physical existance).mind ,intellect and imprressions is a part of the soul and soul takes a energy from supreme soul
The brain I think is physical sensor organ with capacity to connect to the mind. The brain is the hardware whilst the mind is software…… the mind can engineer the brain by push it capacities by the brain is just ths brain. Their is more to the connection of a human mind that the brain, for instance a mind in isloation of space, time and humans will totally dark, the moment their is light the mind start to absorb and experience life which is a intangible essence such as light itself…. so it means the minds is a universal connection all that exist………… and so on…. db
Mind is responsible for your Feelings and Brain is responsible for your Thoughts.
Eg) If you touch something hot, Your MIND feels the heat (via touch sense) and let your brain know to take your hand out of it. (Control by FEELINGS)
From your past experiences, your BRAIN knows/thinks (here it doesn’t use any feeling) and decides not to touch the hot substance. (Control by THOUGHTS)
Any comments ?
Brain is a noun. Mind is a verb – just like life which is a verb!
I am Feeling great to be among the truth searchers ..
Coming to the topic, according to my research and knowledge. What I found is The Brain is the physical object which Is having the potentiality to control body parts actually it is a power house and mind is the name of the understanding and behaving, emotional activities which are captured by brain.. And as we see this world and acquire information then follow this world rules,methods, traditions,cultures etc..
I came to conclusion that “”Mind is the Software which was extracted from this world and loaded in the Brain”
for the experience I had, the outcome of the brain is the mind. therefore, the brain controls the body through the mind. it is the brain that help the mind to work. brain is the engine of the mind.
Brain is the key, and the different organs within creates the perceptions, feelings and thoughts
If mind is a separate thing, then it should be immune to any changes within brain, may that be due to any reasons, drugs etc
However since physical and chemical changes occur within brain due to external physical stimulus … makes us perceive things different ..agreed brendon
your mom
We yet to so many things my friend had
an car accident he is just became veg not able to cummunicat or able to respond I was closely observed him no Sign of intelligence l had studied many
Things on psychic powers this case clearly give an indication mind may be software program of brain unless data’s are it is not useable computer the hypinotic states are interpreted as psychic what I feel if mind is separate we might able to communicate with him
With telepathy needs some school of thouhts
Think like your friend is just sleeping.
When we talk to sleeping people, they can’t hear or response anything, they have to wake up so consciousness come their mind then they can hear us.
Well, brain and mind are two different things walk together,brain can be viewed as computer hardware while mind can viewed as computer software.where these are two different things that are depending each other
Nice