The Human Mind

The mind is typically defined as the organized totality or system of all mental processes or psychic activities of an individual.c Many philosophers hold that the brain is a detector of the mind and that the mind is an inner, subjective state of consciousness.h Philosophers have used a variety of metaphors to describe the mind, including a blank sheet, a hydraulic device with different forces operating in it, or a television switchboard.h Attempts to understand the mind go back at least to the ancient Greeks. Plato, for example, believed that the mind acquired knowledge through virtue, independently of sense experience. Descartes and Leibniz also believed the mind gained knowledge through thinking and reasoning—or, in other words, rationalism.c In contrast to rationalists, empiricists, such as Aristotle, John Locke, and David Hume, believe that the mind gains knowledge from experience.c Combining both rationalism and empiricism, Kant argued that human knowledge depends on both sense experience and innate capacities of the mind.c Scientists are unsure if other types of animals have a mind or if some man-made machines could ever possess a mind.h Historically, there have been three major schools of thought that describe the relationship of the brain and the mind: 1) dualism, which holds that the mind exists independently from the brain; 2) materialism, which argues that the mind is identical to the physical processes of the brain; and 3) idealism, which posits that only mental phenomena exist.i Scientists propose that the human mind evolved largely through the sexual choices our ancestors made, similar to the way a peacock’s tail evolved through sexual selection.h Brand names have a strong influence on the mind In one study, a group of experimenters were given unlabeled samples of both Pepsi and Coke. Not a single tester could tell the difference between the two. The test was repeated with the correct labels attached. Three out of the four testers chose Coke. In fact, the Coke label activated parts of the brain associated with the mind (memory, self-image, and culture) that the Pepsi label didn’t.i