All in the Mind?

I’ve recently started reading Steven Pinker’s book, The Blank Slate. He begins by tracing the history of the philosophical and psychological arguements for human nature being a product of nature vs. nurture. While we now consider the debate to be fairly moot, Pinker argues that it is the history of the debate that has shaped our current social system. Interesting idea.

However, I got to thinking when he brought up the issue of the Ghost in the Machine. It’s the concept that we are in essence a duality of Mind and Body. Each existing separately; the mind as the ghost and the body as the machine. To believe in the ghost, it seems to me that one would have to lump the brain in with the body, everything physical should make-up the machine. The Mind then is an independent factor that exists separately from, yet in conjunction with the corporeal existence.

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I have a difficult time agreeing that Mind is separate from the brain. Mind is our consciousness, autonoetic awareness, which can be owtwardly discerned as personality. There is simply too much neuro-psychological evidence suggesting that the Mind is an extension of the brain for me to believe otherwise. Damage to the brain or chemical imbalances within the brain can render a person fundamentally changed, and completely unaware of the change. If mind were completely independent of the brain would those people not be on some level aware of any deficits in their personality?

Thinking of the mind as an extension of processes within the brain leads eventually to the question of whether or not Mind persists after death. In my view, the Mind as it is would not continue to exist. I guess if I were to discuss this idea with those who believe in the Mind or soul, they would think that I have a fairly bleak outlook on life. Au contraire, I think it is awe inspring to think that everything that I think, feel, experience, know is a product of incredibly complex interactions within my brain rather than from the depths of a recycled soul.

I don’t profess to have any idea what occurs after death, or even which processes in the brain culminate in the creation of Mind. That would be presumptuous in the least. Anyway, these are my thoughts on the issue of Mind vs. Brain, extracted from years of studying the brain. Any alternative ideas, not solely derived from religious belief are appreciated. I don’t really go for the, “But, there just has to be an afterlife,” arguement. I ask you, why does there have to be anything?

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