Where is the human mind located?

Where is the human mind located? Where do thoughts, desires, dreams and disappointments live? Many of us have asked ourselves this same question more than once. However, every neurosurgeon knows that in that organ, which weighs between 1,300 and 1,500 grams, which is the brain, there is no specific and concrete place that houses said entity.

However, does this mean that because we cannot see or touch what we call mind does not exist? Absolutely. Talking about this dimension is easier than referring to the human soul. After all, this last concept enters more into the area of ​​the philosophical and spiritual, while thoughts, personality and wills are integrated into academic spheres such as neuroscience, psychiatry or psychology that have been researching for decades. the topic.

Thus, something that we can now advance is that scientists agree that The mind is not an entity that is delimited by the human brain. What’s more, it transcends the body, hence, we already use concepts such as the “extended mind.” It is a concept in which we understand that everything that helps us think (like the mobile phone, for example) can also be part of thinking and, therefore, of the mind.

Where is the human mind located? Three areas where it can live according to experts

If it is difficult to explain where the human mind is located, it is even more difficult to define what it is. We could refer to it as the seat of human consciousness, the thinking-feeling “I”; However, resorting to this idea would be falling short. Because the mind goes much further, because with the cognitive revolution and computational theory things began to become much more sophisticated when it came to understanding this decisive area of ​​each of us.

The mind perceives, reasons, gets excited, guards memories, learning, sensations… The mind creates culture, transforms realities, connects emotionally with other peopletells us when we are hungry, motivates us and interacts with the environment to obtain information… Few processes are so complex and encompass so many brain regions, so many areas of the body and also the scenarios where we operate.

Thus, both cognitive science and neurobiology or even philosophy itself have been trying to answer not only this question for a long time, but also where the human mind is located. These would be the answers we have so far.

The mind is a virtual entity

Neuropsychiatrist Ennapadam S. Krishnamoorthy (2009) uses a computer-based analogy to explain the functioning of the mind. It would be a virtual entity that is the product of the processes executed by neurons, thus the different brain areas.

For example, we know that consciousness, intelligence or perception would be located in those more advanced areas such as the cerebral cortex or deep gray matter. So is this where the mind resides? The answer is no, because, in reality, if we have reached this level of rationality or ability to communicate and create languages, It is due to the evolution of the entire central nervous system.

If we ask ourselves where the human mind is located, According to this theory it would be like the light that activates when you turn on a computer. It is the result of sophisticated machinery.

The mind is also outside of you

We were talking at the beginning about the concept of the extended mind. This idea was defended by Andy Clark, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at the University of Edinburgh. According to himmuch of who we are and what each one is capable of transcends the barriers of the skull and the very borders of the skin.

According to Dr. Clark, The mind extends to the world and becomes entangled with everything that surrounds it and helps it.: from a pencil and paper so we don’t forget our shopping list when going to the supermarket, to our mobile phone to navigate a city with GPS.

People interact with the environment, we transform it, we create books, culture and sophisticated devices that help us learn, relate, discover… All of this makes up that extended mind that goes beyond synapses and brain regions.

Where is the human mind located? Think of it as music that you create every moment

When a violinist plays his instrument, we listen fascinated to that piece of music that he performs before his audience. Music, however, is not inside the violin or on the strings of the instrument.; The sound, however, expands and travels throughout the room. The same thing happens with thoughts, consciousness, dreams and desires, they start from the brain but transcend it.

Likewise, there is another interesting factor and it is ourselves: the creators. Each mind is unique, as is that of a child who discovers the world, like the nurse who cares for her patients and the astronomer who looks at Saturn with his telescope. Thus, in case we wonder where the human mind is located, it is worth remembering that it is impossible to reduce it to a physical object, it transcends any limit because we are creating it at every moment.

As the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio points out in his book And the brain created man, The mind emerges from the activity not only of the brain, but also of the body, of our activities, of what we do at every moment… The mind exists as long as we exist and it is in everything we do, in everything we feel, that we touch; It is impossible to reduce it, therefore, to a specific and delimited space.

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