The concept of mind (play /ˈmnd/) is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent thought. Common attributes of mind include perception, reason, imagination, memory, emotion, attention, and a capacity for communication. A rich set of unconscious processes are also included in many modern characterizations of mind.

Theories of mind and its function are numerous. Earliest recorded speculations are from the likes of Zoroaster, the Buddha, Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient Greek, Indian and, later, Islamic and medieval European philosophers. Pre-modern understandings of the mind, such as the neoplatonic "nous" saw it as an aspect of the soul, in the sense of being both divine and immortal, linking human thinking with the un-changing ordering principle of the cosmos itself.

Which attributes make up the mind is much debated. Some psychologists argue that only the "higher" intellectual functions constitute mind, particularly reason and memory. In this view the emotions—love, hate, fear, joy—are more primitive or subjective in nature and should be seen as different from the mind as such. Others argue that various rational and emotional states cannot be so separated, that they are of the same nature and origin, and should therefore be considered all part of what we call the mind.




The original meaning of Old English gemynd was the faculty of memory, not of thought in general. Hence call to mind, come to mind, keep in mind, to have mind of, etc. Old English had other words to express "mind", such as hyge "mind, spirit".



Mental faculties


Thought is a mental activity which allows human beings to make sense of things in the world, and to represent and interpret them in ways that are significant, or which accord with their needs, attachments, goals, commitments, plans, ends, desires, etc. Thinking involves the symbolic or semantic mediation of ideas or data, as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reasoning and making decisions. Words that refer to similar concepts and processes include deliberation, cognition, ideation, discourse and imagination.


Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The subject of memory is treated in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), directed by Michel Gondry.


The subject of memory has also been addressed in highly sophisticated ways in classic works of 20th century literature, notably in the novel of Marcel Proust, and in popular films, e.g. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.



Mental content


Brain and mind


Understanding the relationship between the brain and the mind — mind-body problem is one of the central issues in the history of philosophy — is a challenging problem both philosophically and scientifically.[3] There are three major philosophical schools of thought concerning the answer: dualism, materialism, and idealism. Dualism holds that the mind exists independently of the brain;[4] materialism holds that mental phenomena are identical to neuronal phenomena;[5] and idealism holds that only mental phenomena exist.[5]

The most straightforward scientific evidence that there is a strong relationship between the physical brain matter and the mind is the impact physical alterations to the brain have on the mind, such as with traumatic brain injury and psychoactive drug use.[6]


Through most of history many philosophers found it inconceivable that cognition could be implemented by a physical substance such as brain tissue (that is neurons and synapses).[7] Philosophers such as Patricia Churchland posit that the drug-mind interaction is indicative of an intimate connection between the brain and the mind, not that the two are the same entity.[8] Descartes, who thought extensively about mind-brain relationships, found it possible to explain reflexes and other simple behaviors in mechanistic terms, although he did not believe that complex thought, and language in particular, could be explained by reference to the physical brain alone.[9]

Philosophy of mind


Dualism and monism are the two major schools of thought that attempt to resolve the mind-body problem. Dualism is the position that mind and body are in some way separate from each other. It can be traced back to Plato,[11] Aristotle[12][13][14] and the Samkhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy,[15] but it was most precisely formulated by René Descartes in the 17th century.[16] Substance dualists argue that the mind is an independently existing substance, whereas Property dualists maintain that the mind is a group of independent properties that emerge from and cannot be reduced to the brain, but that it is not a distinct substance.[17]


Mind/body perspectives






Many modern philosophers of mind adopt either a reductive or non-reductive physicalist position, maintaining in their different ways that the mind is not something separate from the body.[20] These approaches have been particularly influential in the sciences, e.g. in the fields of sociobiology, computer science, evolutionary psychology and the various neurosciences.[21][22][23][24] Other philosophers, however, adopt a non-physicalist position which challenges the notion that the mind is a purely physical construct.

Reductive physicalists assert that all mental states and properties will eventually be explained by scientific accounts of physiological processes and states.[25][26][27]


Continued neuroscientific progress has helped to clarify some of these issues. However, they are far from having been resolved, and modern philosophers of mind continue to ask how (if at all) the subjective qualities and the intentionality (aboutness) of mental states and properties can be explained in naturalistic terms.[30][31]

Other perspectives

Jose M.R. Delgado writes, "Aristotelian thought has permeated most Occidental philosophical system until modern times, and the classification of man's function as vegetative, sensitive, and rational is still useful. In present popular usage, soul and mind are not clearly differentiated and some people, more or less consciously, still feel that the soul, and perhaps the mind, may enter or leave the body as independent entities." [32]

Science of mind




Evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology (EP) is an approach within psychology that examines psychological traits — such as memory, perception, or language — from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective. It seeks to explain how many human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection. Adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune system, is common in evolutionary biology. Evolutionary psychology applies the same thinking to psychology.

Evolutionary psychologists argue that much of human behavior originates as psychological adaptations that evolved to solve recurrent problems in human ancestral environments.[33]

Evolutionary history of the human mind

The evolution of human intelligence refers to a set of theories that attempt to explain how human intelligence has evolved. The question is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain, and to the emergence of human language.




Theories of the evolution of intelligence include:

  • Robin Dunbar's social brain hypothesis[34]
  • Geoffrey Miller's sexual selection hypothesis[35]
  • The ecological dominance-social competition (EDSC) [36] explained by Mark V. Flinn, David C. Geary and Carol V. Ward based mainly on work by Richard D. Alexander.
  • The idea that intelligence is connected with nutrition, and thereby with status[37] A higher IQ could be a signal that an individual comes from and lives in a physical and social environment where nutrition levels are high, and vice versa.

Mental health




Animal intelligence


Artificial intelligence




Religious perspectives




Buddhism posits that there is actually no distinct thing as a human being, who merely consists of five aggregates, or skandhas. According to Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti, mind is defined as "that which is clarity and cognizes"—where 'clarity' refers to the formless nature of the mind and 'cognizes' to the function of mind, namely that every mind must cognize an object.[39] The Indian philosopher-sage Sri Aurobindo attempted to unite the Eastern and Western psychological traditions with his integral psychology, as have many philosophers and New religious movements.


Other perspectives


Parapsychology is the scientific study of certain types of paranormal phenomena, or of phenomena which appear to be paranormal.,[40] for instance precognition, telekinesis and telepathy. The term is based on the Greek para (beside/beyond), psyche (soul/mind), and logos (account/explanation) and was coined by psychologist Max Dessoir in or before 1889.[41] J. B. Rhine later popularized "parapsychology" as a replacement for the earlier term "psychical research", during a shift in methodologies which brought experimental methods to the study of psychic phenomena.[41] Parapsychology is controversial, with many scientists believing that psychic abilities have not been demonstrated to exist.[42][43][44][45][46] The status of parapsychology as a science has also been disputed,[47] with many scientists regarding the discipline as pseudoscience.[48][49][50]


Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, which was originated by Richard Dawkins and Douglas Hofstadter in the 1980s. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour (etc.) which is "hosted" in one or more individual minds, and which can reproduce itself from mind to mind. Thus what would otherwise be regarded as one individual influencing another to adopt a belief is seen memetically as a meme reproducing itself. As with genetics, particularly under Dawkins's interpretation, a meme's success may be due its contribution to the effectiveness of its host (i.e., a the meme is a useful, beneficial idea), or may be "selfish", in which case it could be considered a "virus of the mind".

See also

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  1. ^ OED; etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b A.R. Lacey, A Dictionary of Philosophy, 1996
  6. ^ Boake and Diller, 2005
  7. ^ Neurophilosophy, Ch. 6
  8. ^ Neurophilosophy, Ch. 8
  9. ^ Descartes, Description of the human body
  10. ^ Kim, J. (1995). Honderich, Ted. ed. Problems in the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  11. ^ Plato (1995). E.A. Duke, W.F. Hicken, W.S.M. Nicoll, D.B. Robinson, J.C.G. Strachan. ed. Phaedo. Clarendon Press. 
  12. ^ Robinson, H. (1983): ‘Aristotelian dualism’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1, 123–44.
  15. ^ Sri Swami Sivananda. "Sankhya:Hindu philosophy: The Sankhya". http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Sankhya/id/23117. 
  18. ^ Hubert Dreyfus, "Critique of Descartes I" (recorded lecture), University of California at Berkeley, Sept. 18, 2007.
  25. ^ Churchland, Patricia (1986). Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain.. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-03116-7. 
  26. ^ Churchland, Paul (1981). "Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes". Journal of Philosophy (Journal of Philosophy, Inc.) 78 (2): 67–90. doi:10.2307/2025900. JSTOR 2025900. 
  32. ^ James M.R. Delgado (1969). Physical control of the mind; towards a psycho civilized society. Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, Toronto citebook. p. 25. 
  33. ^ Confer, Easton, Fleischman, Goetz, Lewis, Perilloux & Buss, 2010; Buss, 2005; Durrant & Ellis, 2003; Pinker, 2002; Tooby & Cosmides, 2005
  34. ^ The Social Brain Hypothesis
  35. ^ Miller. The Mating Mind. ISBN 0805857494. 
  36. ^ "Flinn, M. V., Geary, D. C., & Ward, C. V. (2005). Ecological dominance, social competition, and coalitionary arms races: Why humans evolved extraordinary intelligence". http://web.missouri.edu/~gearyd/Flinnetal2005.pdf. Retrieved 2007-05-05. 
  37. ^ "'Enhanced nutrition of offspring as a crucial factor for the evolution of intelligence on land'". http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0306987704000416. 
  38. ^ What is Artificial Intelligence? by John McCarthy Stanford University
  43. ^ Wheeler, J. A. (1979). "Point of View: Drive the Pseudos Out...". Skeptical Inquirer 3: 12–13. 
  44. ^ Kurtz, P. (1978). "Is Parapsychology a Science?". Skeptical Inquirer 3: 14–32. 
  45. ^ Druckman, D. and Swets, J. A. eds. (1988). Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories and Techniques. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.. p. 22. ISBN 0-309-07465-7. 
  46. ^ Reuters (5 September 2003). "Telepathy gets academic in Sweden". CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/09/05/offbeat.telepathy.reut/index.html. Retrieved 9 March 2009. "Despite decades of experimental research ... there is still no proof that gifts such as telepathy and the ability to see the future exist, mainstream scientists say." 
  49. ^ Bunge, Mario (1991). "A skeptic's beliefs and disbeliefs". New Ideas in Psychology 9 (2): 131–149. doi:10.1016/0732-118X(91)90017-G. 
  50. ^ Blitz, David (1991). "The line of demarcation between science and nonscience: The case of psychoanalysis and parapsychology". New Ideas in Psychology 9 (2): 163–170. doi:10.1016/0732-118X(91)90020-M. 

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  • mind — I. noun Etymology: Middle English, from Old English gemynd; akin to Old High German gimunt memory, Latin ment , mens mind, monēre to remind, warn, Greek menos spirit, mnasthai, mimnēskesthai to remember Date: before 12th century 1. recollection,… …   New Collegiate Dictionary

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