Mind and Brain

Is it possible that the mind can be more than the brain?

It seems evident on the face that the conscious activity of the mind and brain are the same. Damage to various areas of the brain effects function, as is widely noted. It seems pretty obvious. Yet, science struggles mightily when it tries to track down our conscious thoughts in the brain. Several brain scanning devices are employed, such as PET, MRI, MEG and such. They observe the electrical activity of the brain. But this is quite rudimentary. It’s something akin to tracing the journey of electrical currents in a computer and then trying to guess what the functions going to perform. Computers do have various functional areas, such as central processing unit (CPU), arithmetic and storage. The brain also shows a largely bewildering maze of functional areas. Damage to these areas like the Wernicke, a language comprehension area, can inhibit an individual from understanding what’s being said to them and speaking coherently.  This strongly hints that mind is brain.

But the brain does something a computer NEVER does, rewire itself. Plasticity of the brain occurs when the individual re-trains or enhances the neurons of the brain. Learning to read does this very thing. The wiring for reading is not innate in the brain. With considerable training, the student first mouthing out the words, the center for speech processing and language comprehension link up with the visual word form area of the brain. The question that doesn’t seem to be asked is who is prompting the rewiring? Well, the initial answer is the student but if all is brain, what portion or area of the brain activates the process of re-wiring? The response from neuro-scientists is that the process is DOMAIN GENERAL, but that’s really the same as what’s been called the Mind.

But it’s hard to overlook how critical the correct biological functioning of the brain plays on our minds. Stating the obvious without a pumping heart that delivers oxygen and blood to the brain, we don’t have consciousness. So can we rest here as most scientists and deny any mind beyond the functioning of the brain?

First I refer again to the above example of the mind prompting rewiring. Then the mind can have profound effects on our bodily functions, like blood pressure. Many diseases are related to stress, like heart disease, aches, pains, headaches, among others.  I’ve lost blood pressure 15 minutes after being placed on an IV, telling myself all the while that there’s nothing to get upset about, as my blood pressure drops to 90/60 (I’m usually 125/80) and getting faint. Indian fakirs historically have been reported having all manner of control over breathing and heart beat (being buried for extended periods of time). It’s not certain how reliable these stories are but they have been repeated for centuries. Spouses have died immediately after they’re widowed.

In previous writings I continued to assert the immateriality of the foundations of the material world, as represented by Quantum Physics. This view has been echoed by Idealist philosophers and theologians for millennia. It’s reasonable that the mind employing the brain is functioning on a Quantum immaterial level as well. The reasonable concession can be made that there are emergent Quantum processing during brain operations, but these cease after death.

However, existence beyond the functioning brain has been very well documented. People have flat lined for extended periods of time only to report their surroundings later. People with near death experiences report that what they encountered was MORE REAL than the reality they return to. Serious studies over decades have confirmed out of body experiences and near death experiences with third party corroboration. The scientific community rejects these narratives, since they don’t fit a Physicalist or Materialists view. There is powerful narrative to support them.

How can the mind produce material changes in the brain?  Well, there are two views here. One, the Materialist view is that the brain is doing something to itself, designated as Domain General Affects. There is no mind or independent mind.  And the second is that the mind is operating at a Quantum Level and fundamentally all matter is a phenomenon of Quantum physics, so there’s really no difference between mind and brain. The second appears the more compelling.

Descartes proposed a third approach in the 17^th century, a Mind Body split. He famously argued, “Cogito Ergo Sum!”…I think therefore I am. Descartes could only be sure about one thing; he had thoughts. I must agree we can be quite sure about thinking. For that matter Quantum Physics is mitigated through all manner of technological apparatus, after which we must accept the word of the Physicist. We can be assured that what they describe is likely to be accurate; nonetheless, we can’t be nearly as sure as our own thoughts.

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This begs the discussion of what to make of the thinking of a delusional individual. They are assured their thinking is correct. Yet, others can’t corroborate their observations. If one takes a Solipsist view, then they’d be right in there characterization of reality. But events don’t revolve around us. Things don’t turn out our way all the time. People leave us and pass on. And we can’t change reality to our desire. I’ve been reading some Occult literature and it’s their claim we’re mired in ignorance and there are master individuals operating on higher planes that command reality. They could fully explain it to us but we wouldn’t understand.

 I suppose there’s a chance we’re under a mass delusion. Actually many thinkers and religions adhere to this view; the observable universe is Maya, an illusion.  Plato has his Allegory of the Cave. The illusion is in thinking the observable universe is substantial reality not transitory. That’s dissimilar to not processing reality normally.  

And evolutionary biologists enjoy degrading the capabilities of the brain in its ability to ascertain reality accurately; it’s a brain designed to successfully adapt to the Serengeti Plain not necessarily discover reality. We see patterns that aren’t there, so we’re prone to conspiratorial thinking. We even alter our memories, it seems. So according to some scientists our judgments are erroneous and subject to imperfection, while our memories may not be reliable. There’s only science to allow us to arrive a true rendering of reality or so it’d seem. So it would be held that only information obtained by scientific inquiry is valid.

If the argument is carried out further, one could begin to question the “feeble” mind’s assessment regarding scientific truth as well. It might permit evidence that’s predictive but is it actually truth. Kuhn’s Structures of Scientific Revolution argues with each new revelation in science, world views can change making the previous assessments outdated like Ptolemaic universe to Copernican and Newtonian Mechanics to Quantum Physics. Hypotheses may be predictive and conform to experimental rigor but not be the actual truth. 

This thinking fails additionally in part because we’ve seen the destructive technologies scientists are content to devise like atomic bombs and hydrogen weapons and ICBM’s that allow them to cross the planet. The real catastrophe is humankind’s own venality, which goes far beyond any mental limitations we are subject to.

In summary the mind is more than the brain. Even for those not accepting the existence of mind after brain function ceases, something besides electrical impulses coursing through synapses occurs in brain activity. Retraining of the brain during learning to read and the placebo effect both show there’s something global within the brain that’s occurring.