Mind/ Matter

[SweetSativa]

Abstract thoughts today....

How would you define the mind?

When did the mind begin (conception/ birth/ age 3)?

How does the mind develop?

How are ideas formed?

Where does creativity come from?

What functions does the mind carry out that are different from the brain and how are they different?

[Waves]

mind = soul

soul never begins or ends

it doesnt develop, it just experiences

ideas are formed through observation of action

creativity is the application of intention to action

the mind chooses, the brain relays the choice

those are my very simple answers, i'll go more in-depth when i have a bit more time

[Mafoo]

i like to think of my mind as what i really am, what i was when things started to "be"
i think the mind is the same as the soul, like waves posted. the body im in is an extention of my mind into this physical existence

[The Rev]

The mind is your experience of the world.



The Rev

[Yaxie04]

I can see where the mind soul idea comes from, but i think that its more of a three tier system.
The way that i've experienced and discovered it physical control comes first : the development of the brain.
After that a greater, deeper understanding grows, from experiences, and facilitates the mind. The mind is like the brain of transcendent intelligence (intelligence meaning the ability to use and attain new skills). With me at least, the mind developed in questioning and discovery.... and i had be doing that from a very early age... I think that as long as we can think logically and critically, to develop ideas, the mind can also develop.
--- yet in some people the mind is linked too heavily with the brain and physical existence. They limit their ability to know existentially because they do not tap the vaster expanse of the soul's knowledge - as well as that of the even greater collective unconscious. ---
I believe that the soul the energy of every one of our multiple possible existences gathered into one.

These questions are an essay outline

[reverie]

Great thread SweetSativa!

Imo

Mind is the observer of experience.

These two phenomenons share a relationship with one another. They are understood existence.

They cultivate and nurture each other. As experience builds on experience, the mind builds on itself. As the mind progresses in it's observation, experience shapes itself accordingly (even if its just perceptive to the mind). The relationship becomes more complex with the enrichment of memory. Memory is another relationship built of the repetition of these phenomenons interpreted as: Time. Linear habits develop from these dynamics relations that create very characterized "personalities"....W here individuality is really just a more flattering label for "copy and paste". Input, output: we are what we are made of.

Matter.


over mind.

[Silverleaf]

there are plenty of examples of physical damage to the mind causing downright bizarre cases like split-brains, phantom limbs, all that kind of stuff that verk's about (see this). and, you know, like when stuff happens to your head like, idk, nature or genetics or whatever you want to call it, brain damage or trauma of any sort, you might see some problems like dying or [open DSM IV and insert disorder here] or any other sort of thing. or how about that mindmapping business they do with MRIs and all that, where they see how your brain lights up when influenced by certain stimuli? hell, that opens up the question of what's it like for another person to think, and how is that influenced by the physical framework we've got to work with -- tangent, whatever, what i'm saying is that I think the odds are pretty clearly in the favor of the mind BEING the brain. i think i would go so far as to say that the brain, the physical matter in your head, gives rise to the mind, but i don't know if i want to go so far as to say that the mind is a completely different thing, substance, material, whathaveyou, than the brain.

i don't want to go anywhere near the functions of the brain, that stuff is far too dangerous, but yeah. if you rly wanted to know.

[420smokeman]

The soul is the place where we feel pleasure.

The mind is the place where we calculate how to receive the pleasure

If you take the time to analyze your desires, you'll discover that they are aimed at transient things - things which will eventually die away. Perhaps a moment enters here and there where you contemplate the eternal, but this moment is always followed by drives for transient things. there is no eternal soul until we attain one in this lifetime, through working on our desire until we really want an eternal soul. Then, this desire expands our mind: it starts calculating how to fulfill this desire with eternal life. When the desire is finally filled - not from the calculation in one's mind, but from beyond this calculation (you can say, from the mind existing above one's mind). When this "Great Mind" sees that the person has done everything in his power to achieve eternal life, and that this person has a complete desire ONLY to achieve this... then this "Great Mind" decides that the person is now worthy of having hisdesire for eternal life fulfilled.

Until one reaches this stage, of attaining the soul in one's lifetime in this world, such a person will continue reincarnating in this world, dressing after dressing, until the stage when this desire starts evolving and causing inner discomfort.

[Lord X]

Creativity is nothing more than a physical manifestation of our deepest desire.

[SweetSativa]

I recently heard this analogy: The mind is like a computer program. The computer program is not a solid thing... it is, rather an idea... a concept that causes the computer to perform various functions.

Well, this was in a psych class... we were discussing how science did not want to consider the mind because it is not a solid, measurable 'thing'. It's funny how we have no problem acknowledging a computer program but more of a problem with acknowledging the mind. Another reason I think they don't want to go down that road is because of that fuzzy little boundary between the mind and the soul.... and science and religion/ spirituality/ philosophy. I personally believe that the mind began before conception... but that's just me. Why is it that in cultures that believe in reincarnation, people remember past lives? Did you know that if a kitten (from birth) is raised in an environment with only vertical lines, he will not acknowledge horizontal ones. For a while, he seems not to see them and to run right into them until he's acclimated... wild stuff! (please do not try this at home...lol) Then when we get into memory and some of the studies done there... it begins to look as if there is a property to memory in which it is 'created' as it happens (bad terminology.... I'll have to find some links)... It makes one question his entire existance, really. Well, it makes me think twice anyway.

[Trypz*]

I would define the mind as a matterless entity born from the mechanics of the brain. Your brain sends nerve signals and controls the rest of the body, but the mind is the later born self-thinking that comes from culminated perception.
Just as a CD player is a bland earthly mechanism, and it produces music
The relationship between brain and mind exists much the same way

The mind begins when experience from perception begins to take shape. From when you are born you begin to see, feel, taste, and hear. What is learned from this is the beginning of the mind.

The mind developes as more is percieved. What used to be unfamiliar and strange sounds take shape and the mind begins to recognize familiar objects. This stage is where an infant might start learning to talk and walk through seeing others doing those things.

Ideas are the mind searching for a solution of sorts. It draws on all experiences that have happened thus far and creates something new.

Creativity is a word expressing the diverse ideas that multiple minds can create. Everyone percieves different things in and from the beginning, therefore it is only logical that their ideas form differently and are therefore inherently unsimilar.

[SweetSativa]

mind = soul

soul never begins or ends

I like that idea... that's the way I see it.

it doesnt develop, it just experiences

ideas are formed through observation of action

creativity is the application of intention to action

I have a harder time with this one. Creativity is a difficult concept for me to put to words. They used to believe that if a writer wrote something awesome, he didn't get to take the credit for it because it was his muse (I think there was another word... I'll have to search) and if what he wrote was not so good, he also didn't get the blame... blame it on his invisible friend. Well, this may be a little 'far out' but when you paint or draw or sing or write... don't you ever feel as if you've brushed up against this 'thing'? When I toked... felt it much more strongly. And you know.... singing.... I would sing even if there was never anyone else in the world to hear, no device, noone to share it with. It's like it's sharing the self with God I don't know... I think inspiration and creativity are deeper than behavioral patterns, intentions, rewards, etc. It seems that way to me.

the mind chooses, the brain relays the choice

I could buy that

those are my very simple answers, i'll go more in-depth when i have a bit more time

[SweetSativa]

Creativity is nothing more than a physical manifestation of our deepest desire.

I love that!

[Ego Tripping]

mind = soul

soul never begins or ends

it doesnt develop, it just experiences

ideas are formed through observation of action

creativity is the application of intention to action

the mind chooses, the brain relays the choice

those are my very simple answers, i'll go more in-depth when i have a bit more time

Anything else I say would just be saying this differently.

What trips me out is the state of being in where the brain isn't needed to relay the choice...