The Mind Brain Interaction (a possible model of interaction based on Mind <> Brain)

If one accepts dualism, then the brain is an organ that has evolved to interact with the mind, with the mind being a separate independent entity from the brain.  The “mind” is our awareness, our thought processes/reasoning/cognition, desire, emotions as well as much of our memory.  This interaction is a two way interaction (more than what some might describe as a “filter” or “receiver”).  The brain is an organ that is finely tuned to what I describe as interfering with the mind.  In this way it can also partly be considered one of our sensory organs. 

In the mainstream, dualism has been rejected in favor or other explanations of mind/brain interaction.  It's generally believed that the mind arises from the physical workings of the brain.  There's good reason to believe this as the correlations between mental states and physical activity in the brain are tight.  Of course correlation is not causation, and so it's fair to say that other theories should be investigated.  However given such correlations exist, brain functions must play an important role in whatever theory is considered. What role does the brain play?  Does the brain have any role in defining who we are? how we are aware, how we think, remember?  Can the mind exist when the brain is offline?  The rest of this blog post explores some possible ways that the brain interacts with the mind from a dualists perspective, while addressing some mind/brain correlations that seem, at first, to support the brain only model.  

The Brain, an organ that has evolved to interact with the mind

The brain is highly integrated with our organs, largely our sensory organs, but also our motor functions.  This mind-body interaction allows us to interact with the world around us - by allowing us to sense our surroundings, and to allow us to control our bodies within it (running, throwing a ball, etc).  This is what makes our brain an interface to the world in which we live.  If we look at the mind - body interaction via our sensory organs, this would be bottom-up mind/brain interaction (the body initiates the interaction, and the mind is effected by it).  If we look at motor actions based on our thoughts (mind wishes to throw a ball, and arm throws it), than that would be top-down mind/brain interaction (the mind initiates the interaction, and the body is effected by it).  The brain mediates these interactions as the interface between the two.

Additionally, the brain has evolved specific regions that elicit experiences to aid in our survival.  For example, as part of the limbic system, the amygdala helps to evoke fear or pleasure (such as the fight or flight experience).  Other parts of the brain are associated with the human sex drive (such as the hypothalamus).  These regions do not directly generate the experiences of pleasure or fear, etc.  Rather they interact (in a finely tuned way) with the mind to elicit these experiences.  When someone becomes aware that a tiger is about to pounce on him, the mind process this information (outside the body), certain areas of the brain then become activated as the brain senses a highly specific quality of this mental experience, and then the brain fires the related neurons associated with the amygdala, which in turn elicits an emotional resoponse in the mind, as well as cause specific bodily responses to the threat (adrenaline, increased heart rate, etc). The amygdala is able to directly effect the mind, it does not itself cause the mental experience. Its physical properties somehow interact with the mind in a very specific way. 

The brain also has autonomous functions such as breathing, heart rate and pressure, and other reflexes.  These might be controlled by more primitive regions of the brain but are not so relevant here.  Note both breathing and heart rate can change based on emotional state, especially fear, and perhaps there is an evolutionary reason for this mind-brain interaction.  Increasing the bodies capacity to take in oxygen and pump blood to the muscles could aid in fight or flight.

Finally, the brain is plastic and allows for the development of neural networks when certain activity is repeated (for example repetition through practice, such as when learning to drive a car or playing a piano).  Since these networks are all brain based, they don’t rise to our conscious awareness.  They are better known as our "subconscious mind.”  

An example might help clarify some of the above.  When first learning to play a piano, the player must be consciously aware of the notes he needs to play.  There is memory, and desire involved (desire to play the correct note).  Both memory and desire are properties of the mind.  Through repetition (practice) neural networks develop.  These networks are essentially driving the automated behavior of what was learned through practice.  For example, when first learning to play a song, knowing which key on the piano must be pressed and which key is mapped to the correct note requires focus and a desire to get it right.  However through practice/repetition, an automated process of selecting the correct key is developed via a neural network in parallel in the brain, and since a neural network is all brain based it is unconscious.  At the point when the need arises to play the correct note, if this neural network is fully developed (through much practice) it will be activated before the conscious desire to play the note occurs.  At this point, playing the correct note has become a fully subconscious process.  There will no longer be a conscious desire (and therefore the needed focus) to play the right note as the neural network has performed the task already.  I say “already”, because the neural network activation is fast. The network is all brain based as is the motor functions that control the muscles in the hands/fingers used to play the note.  These low level networks would be far more efficient in performing the task than having to consciously think about it.  As a side, this might be what is called muscle memory, which is a kind of memory that is all brain based.

NOTE: the unconscious mind (that which we don’t directly experience but act as the undercurrents of some of our experiences- for example the underlying cause of phobias and neurosis - doesn't clearly fit with the above model as of yet. 

Needless to say all the above is speculaion.  It seems to me that with the mind-brain model above, there is still a-lot of brain-based processing involved.  Networks that control our motor functions, senses, primitive functions like breathing, etc, specialized areas like the amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, etc., not to mention all the networks developed through our subconscious development are immense and must take up much of the brains real-estate whether you believe Mind = Brain or not.  However if Mind = Brain is there really room for anything more?   

In Conclusion:

The mind is a separate "entity" from the brain in some unknown form. It has the ability to reason in and by itself.  However, it cannot employ these reasoning abilities unless it develops a more complex form of itself, with experiences, memories, etc. We can refer to this entity as the "Mind Entity" which is another way of referring to the mind, but we treat it hear as an entity that exists in and by itself, not dependent on the brain.  So how the does the Mind Entity develop to the point of being able to reason by itself?  Think of a neonate - a blank slate- having a simple Mind Entity.  It requires its interaction via the brain and sensory system, to develop a more complex version of itself as a person goes on through life.

The brain itself is a highly complex organism, tuned to the above forementioned Mind Entity as the neurons in the brain have certain properties that give it the ability to tune in and interact with it.  For example, qualia, such as the feeling of love has a specific signature within the Mind Entity, and the brain's neuronal patters can sense this in some way.  When the thought of love is felt by the Mind Entity, certain neurons react to it (they sense it).  The neuronal representation of some sort of qualia serves no purpose to the body unless it elicits some physical reaction within parts of the brain, including but not limited to motor neurons, but it also plays a part in developing the subconscious as my piano example above illustrates.  If all this is true, we can basically state that the brain is, to a large part, one of our sensory organs.  Its senses the mind.  The brain is an "interface" with the mind - it senses the mind, and interacts with it. 

As mentioned above, this helps give us another way to look at the neural correlates of consciousness.  The Mind Entity/Brain interaction is analogous to the beating of an ear drum in reaction to sound, or changes in the pupil in reaction to changing light level.  Those are reactions of the sensory organs by some external entity - being sound, light, or in the brains case the Mind Entity.  It also helps make sense of the interesting accounts of Near Death Experiences, where consciousness, thinking, and memory continue despite a non-functioning brain.