Are The Mind And Brain Related?

Following Gilbert Ryle’s ghost-busting The Concept of Mind, it became chic to argue that there is no Wizard of Oz, and the brain and mind are one and the same. In Mapping the Mind, Rita Carter documents research that demonstrates how and where the brain stores memories, accommodates language, captures sensory information and creates the avenues that channel understanding. Her thesis is that the mind is merely a complex biological system housed by the brain, and that free will is an illusion.


Understandably Carter’s well-researched and well-argued hypothesis is discomforting to those who hold that the brain is merely the organ that generates the music we recognize as the mind. Contrary to Carter, they argue that as the music is not the organ, the mind is not the brain. But there is much evidence to suggest that the mind as a separate and distinct thing is a myth, and little or no evidence to show otherwise.

Gerald Edelman (Bright Air Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind, 1994) proposes two types of consciousness, one building on the other. The first is what he calls Primary Consciousness, which is animal consciousness. It “emerged during evolution as a new component of neuroanatomy.” Creatures with Primary Consciousness (such as chimpanzees, most mammals and Neanderthal man) are always in the present. They are aware of things, have mental images in the present but have no sense of being a person, with a past or a future. Homo sapiens evolved with a higher-order or Tertiary Consciousness. This allows for “the recognition by a thinking subject of his or her own acts or affections.” Homo sapiens evolved a well-developed language that became the means for memory, providing a sense of the past and the ability to symbolically model the future. Language use promoted the development of a sense of self through interactions with other language users. So the mind we experience is our conscious language activity; thinking, speaking, writing, imagining, and how this informs our sensations and what we hear, see, touch, taste and smell. All of these exist as a direct result of brain activity.


Central to the issue of the mind/brain relationship is an explanation of consciousness that satisfies the demands of science and promotes the opportunity for further research. While there is good reason to believe that consciousness is created by electrochemical activity within the brain, we still don’t know how the functions of the brain produce consciousness.

Launt Thompson
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