How Does the Brain
Generate the Mind?
How does the brain generate the mind? The answer is very simple: we do not know.
Since the time of Plato, philosophers and anatomists alike have debated and struggled to figure out how the human brain produces the mind (thoughts, feelings, and behaviors). Over the centuries, inquisitive and intrepid scientists pretty well figured out how all the other organs in the human body fit together and perform their respective jobs. For example, we know quite well the various components and mechanics that are at work inside a cardiac cell, and we have clear explanations as to how living heart tissue functions as a nice pump to move blood around the rest of the circulatory system. We also have a good grasp on the kidneys, bones, the pancreas, and so on. But the brain . . . ah, the brain is truly in a league all its own.
Today, despite multiple advances in the neurosciences (such as PET scans and other high-tech brain imaging modalities, an increasingly better understanding of neurons and neurotransmitters, and so on), the world’s very best scientists still are quite puzzled by, and even largely clueless about, how the three-pound lump of tissue know as the brain generates thoughts, feelings, and actions. Sure, we know that the brain consists of neurons, and that these neurons are endowed with certain electrochemical properties. We know there are certain tracts and regions of the brain that are involved with different functions. But how human consciousness springs forth is truly one of the great mysteries of the universe. Perhaps on this plane we will never be able to figure out the connections between brain tissue and mental life, or perhaps one day we will. But for now, the answers to this “mind-brain problem” remain very much hidden from our own ability to understand them.
If people tell you otherwise, they clearly do not know what they are talking about.
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