The Essence and Principles of Mind
Author: Xin-Yan Zhang
E-mail: reex9@yahoo.com
Website: www.oocities.org/reex9/
Everyone understands what the
word “mind” means. Everyone recognizes that one possesses a mind. However, almost none knows what its nature is
or how it works.
Essentially there is nothing
mysterious in the mind. All its nature and its principles can be found also
from non-mind objects. Mountains of data have been
accumulated from scientific observation. However, we still need a theoretical
corn for ourselves to digest, understand and unify all the data as a whole.
This theoretical corn can not only be found but also need to be created. Presented here is my understanding of such a corn.
1.
The essence of mind
All biological behaviors are, in phenomenology, an organism’s
perception of and action on its environment and, in principles, the structure
and function of the organism’s control system (PMB system). Essentially the
mind is such a PMB system in our bodies. We will then know the essence of mind
so long as we well understand this system.
All the PMB system is composed of 3 parts called as the
input part that takes in the environment’s action on the system, the
output part that gives the system’s action on the environment, and the
core part that mediates the changes from perception to system’s action.
The energy and matter input from environment into the system may be
called as perception,
output from the system into environment as behaviour, and remaining in
system as memory. The perception and the behaviour are the same in
nature but different in their moving directions in relation to the system. A
perception always moves from environment to PMB system and a behaviour from the
system to its environment. Memory is neither input into system nor output into
environment and is always opposite to both perception and behaviour in nature.
Memory may be divided further into the hereditary memory, which is structure
formed under the influence of an organism’s internal environment, and the
acquired memory, formed under the influence of its external environment.
All the biological behaviours may be explained
with the interaction and interchange among perception, behaviours and memories
in PMB systems. There are 3 different changes that may happen to perception,
behaviours and memories in a PMB system, called life change, form
change and location change. In the life change matter may become
energy or vice versa but not in the form change and the location change. The
changes happen in the input part and the output part of a PMB system are mainly
the form changes and in the core part the life changes. And the location
changes happen in all the three parts. The activities of the mind can not be
explained only with the activities of the nerve impulses and neurotransmitters,
because the nerve impulse moving through a nerve or the neurotransmitter
through a synapse is only a location change, and the nerve impulse changing
into neurotransmitter or vice versa is only a form change.
A PMB system may be called as one with EME
system relation when its perception and behaviours more like energy but its
memories more like matter, or one with MEM system relation when vice versa. The
PMB systems that consist of mind are mainly with EME relation.
2.
The organisation of mind
A human mind is mainly a part of the
nervous system and also part of sense organs, motor organs and inner organs.
Shown as below, the mind itself is composed of 6 brains, a sense brain (SB), an organ brain (
Each of the brains is composed of hereditary parts containing
hereditary memory and acquired parts containing acquired memory. The
acquired parts contain a subpart, owned by each brain, called as SM,
FIGURE
(1) ORGANISATION OF THE HUMAN MIND
The areas between the peripheral circle and
the central circle are mind’s hereditary parts. The areas within the central circle
are mind’s acquired parts. The areas outside the peripheral circle are mind’s
parts inside the body but outside the nervous system. Area 1, 2 and 3 are IBs.
Area 4 is OM. Area 5 is SM. Area 6 is MM. Area 0 is the CM. Area 7, 8 and 9 are
the IM. The solid blue stripes are where the consciousness is produced.
3. Consciousness
Consciousness
is energy produced in mind and may be produced in waking state or sleeping. The energy of perception from sense organs
may trigger and influence the production of consciousness but may never become
the consciousness itself. Whenever consciousness appears, the mind is not
gaining or feeling it but only producing it. If consciousness may be considered
as the video pictures seen from the screen of a TV monitor and then the energy
of perception is only the signal from TV aerial. The video pictures are
essentially the energy of an electron beam produced by kinescope, the movement
of which is influenced by the TV signal but is not the signal itself.
Although the pictures on the TV screen may be watched
by someone, there is none like a soul or spirit watching the consciousness in
our minds. The energy of consciousness is produced in
the hereditary parts and then flow into the acquired parts where it interacts
with the acquired memory. Consciousness is the only gate to get into the
acquired memory and the acquired memory is the only reader of the information
in consciousness.
The energy of consciousness is not the whole
mind but only a component part of it, which alone does not sense or recognize,
does not remember or recollect, does not think or move our body, does not feel
or will, and does not drive or rule the mind.
4. The
functional activities of mind
As PMB systems, the mind is similar to our digestive
system in many functional activities, even though EME
system relation dominates in
the former and is the reverse in the latter. Every sense organ functions as
mind’s mouth and teeth and bits off a piece out of external environment
whenever it senses, and then, also as mind’s stomach and intestine, digests the
piece of external environment by its sense cells’ analyzing and ingests it into
mind’s hereditary parts in form of bioelectricity. The input of the
bioelectricity from sense organs or the energy of perception interacts with
hereditary memory there and causes the production of consciousness.
Consciousness then flows into mind’s acquired parts and interacts with the
acquired memory, which is metabolism of consciousness and memory. In this
metabolism, some energy of consciousness is consumed and synthesized into new
memory and some memory undergoes catabolism and releases energy. Some energy is
discharged as behaviour from the body through motor organs.
The
As mind’s continually taking in and
accumulating, one’s external environment is completely moved as information
into his mind, and organized as an inside relationship accordingly to its
outside relationship with the mind. In waking state, the life activities in
sense brain simulate environment’s action on mind, called internal world
(inW), the life activities in organ brain
simulate the interaction between mind and body, called internal self (inS), the life activities in motor brain simulate
the mind’s action on environment, called internal behaviour (inB), and the life activities in intermediate brains
simulate the interaction among the inW, the inS and the inB, called internal
relation (inR). Together inW, inS,
inB and inR are called as internal Whole (inWH). All the activities of inWH are both hereditary and acquired in nature, since all
the brains are composed of both hereditary and acquired memories.
Those inW, inS, inB
and inR act and interact with each other autonomously
according to the relations that they simulate. Consciousness joins their
activities and behaviour leaves their activities, making the activities not
only initiated, directed, adjusted and constrained by their own activities but
also by mind’s environment.
The inWH is not only
passively influenced by the mind’s inputting and outputting of energy but also
plays a positive role in them. Its positively information searching for input
is called as attention and in output
will. The attention is a behaviour and the will
a consciousness.
The inWH does not
only follow real-time changes of environment in passive or positive ways but
also goes beyond the spatial or temporal limitation of the input from sense
organs or output to motor organs. The activities of the inWH
may go into the past of the input and output’s time point and produce
explanation of their causation and may go into their future and produce
anticipation of their results.
The central memory
is an area of multi-direction, more like life than any other areas of memory.
The organisation of the central memory and the energy in it is called the
thought. The thought exists as a whole. There is only one thought in one
mind.
The behaviour or
consciousness produced by the O brain is called the language of the O brain
(the O language), and that by the M brain is called the language of
the M brain (the M language). The language of the brains output from
the hereditary part of the O brain or the M brain can be either consciousness
or behaviour but can never be both of them at the same time.
The thought is never
the consciousness or the behaviour. The O language and the M language are
descriptions and translations of the thought but not the thought itself.
Usually the languages of the brains can only describe and translate once a
fraction of the entire thought. In communication with other persons, the O
language may be used alone to express one's thought, but the M language is
usually used together with the O language.
The input of the
consciousness selectively increases the energy in the indirect environment of
the mind and further increases the activities of the spring lives in the mind.
The output of the behaviour selectively decreases the energy in the mind and
further increases the activities of the autumn lives in the mind. Therefore,
the output can influence the mind as well as the input.
Thought is different
in its form from the languages that express it. Though the human mind has much
more ways to express its thought, no thought may be expressed thoroughly and
exactly. When it can not be expressed with proper forms, ways and
opportunities, the thought will interact with the O brain and the M brain,
which may lead to the reorganisation of their indirect environments. Such
reorganisation of mind may produce either some creation or certain
psychological illness.
Thinking is the
circulation in which the energy product output from the hereditary part of the
O brain or the M brain is input back to the acquired parts and reprocessed by
the mind. The whole process of the feedback and reprocessing is called the
ruminant process. The ruminant process is an important way of communication
among the three brains. Not only the consciousness but also the behaviour is
the way through which the ruminant process may be carried out, the former is
called the internal ruminant process and the latter the external
ruminant process.
At the centre of our
living, feeling, thinking, judging and behaving, there are something called as
SELF. However, this self is only a consciousness created by the O brain, and
is, therefore, only a part of a human self, not the whole of it. The
eleventh conjecture says: a complete human self is composed of 3 parts,
called as the body, the mind and the soul.
An individual human
self is composed of many different PMB systems, some of which have some of
their parts in the non-mind part of the body and rest of their parts in the
mind and produce plant behaviours, called as plant system; some of which
have all their parts in the mind and produce animal behaviours, called as animal
system; and some of which have some of their parts in the mind and rest of
their parts in the body's environment and produce human behaviours, called as human
system. The human self exists neither entirely in an individual mind, nor
entirely in an individual human body.
The parts of an
individual human self in the body's environment are called the unified parts,
the parts in the body's non-mind part are called the scattered parts,
and the parts in the mind the related parts. The difference is that the
scattered parts of an individual human self can not be the parts of other human
selves at the same time but the unified parts can. Many human selves in the
same environment can share same unified parts. The unified parts unify many
human selves as a whole.
A human self does not
always have all the three component parts during its whole existence. At the
very beginning when a human being is still one fertilised egg, none of the
parts of the human self exists. During the human body's development, the
scattered parts of the human self begin to form first, then the related parts,
the latest the unified parts. A human self with three component parts exists
only during part time of its whole existence. After this period, the scattered
parts begin to disappear first, then the related parts. The unified parts of a
human self may exist much long than the other two sorts of parts. Its
disappearance is not caused only by the disappearance of the body. Therefore,
we may say that a human self does not exist completely as the human body exists
and does not die completely as the body dies.
Since The unified
parts of a human self may enable a living human body to appears as a human
being, may exist outside a human body and still be a part of its mind, may
exist even the body no longer exists, and may become a part of other human
self, it may, therefore, be called as the soul of the human self.
Still, the unified
parts of the human selves are not immortal but exist also as a course. The
whole of the unified parts of the human selves will become more and more like
matter if its indirect environment changes towards the direction of the U.
Autumn, or become more and more like energy if its indirect environment changes
against the direction.
No matter whatever
human beings have created and will create, we are still a part of the U. Autumn
and we do only what the U. Autumn has to do. Therefore, the meaning of the
human existence, the moral criterions for human behaviours, the orientation of
scientific, economic and social developments may never be found within
ourselves but can be found from our relation with the year cycle, especially
with the U. Autumn. This is the twelfth conjecture and the end of this
article.
References:
1.
Bertrand Russell: A history of western philosophy, George Allen and Unwin Ltd.,
2.
Stephen W. Hawking: A brief history of time, Bantam,
3.
John Boslough: Beyond the black hole, Colins,
4. The
encyclopaedia Britannica, 14. ed., Encycl. Britannica, Chicago, 1971.
