what is the relationship between the human mind and brain?

Answer 1

The human mind is a subset of the brain.

The essential "brain" and its functions are in the spinal cord (the original brain) and, atop the spinal cord, the brain stem and its functions (sometimes called the "crocodile brain." The spinal cord and brain stem are all that is needed for simple animals, insects and some reptiles. Modern technology can keep a human being in a flatline, thoughtless, inhuman comatose state --but "alive" -- with everything rotted and reabsorbed except the brain stem and cord (this was the state Terri Shiavo was in when she died and an autopsy was performed).

I doubt neurosurgeons know enough to "cleanly" differentiate between those parts of the "rest" of the brain (the modern, mammalian brain) that are "human." What happened is that for some reptiles, extra jaw bones migrated to the ear to become the hammer, anvil and stirrup of mammalian ears (these are called "mammal-like reptiles.") Once this improved hearing system was in place, the brain expanded to process this auditory data.

[This paragraph is speculation by the poster]: Fact: nothing uses more energy than brain tissue -- for humans it's 20% of blood oxygen and under pressure, as much as 40% of blood oxygen. The bigger ears and bigger neurological tissue required that the brain "run faster and harder" = warm-bloodedness instead of cold-bloodedness. We can conjecture that the ability to hear better created some evolutionary pressure to increase the size of and activity of the brain.

The support that we have for this, scientifically, is that when we die, our hearing is the last sense to give out on us --as if it were the basic mammalian characteristic.

Of course, with a bigger brain and warm-bloodedness, there's a tendence to increase processing of smells, too. So the brain gets bigger to do that. And to process sight data, so particular mammals (especially carnivores and omnivores) had the eyes migrate to the front of the head and an area of brain tissue dedicated to binocular vision.

Humans piously state that they are weak and hairless and "defenseless" in the wilderness, but this is poppycock --crocodile tears. Alone on the planet, humans, though having unremarkable eyes, have enormous amounts of brain dedicated to analyzing visual information, so much so that, uniquely, we can SEE THROUGH CAMOFLAGE. This is why, when we go for a walk in the woods, all the other animals are afraid of us. Normally, they can freeze and blend in and feel safe. But they, correctly, never know they are safe from us.

With all this brain tissue "blooming" as it were outside the brain stem, it "crinkled" into folds (the more folded the brain tissue, the smarter the mammal) and another oddity came up -- we could make specific noises that other humans would assign the same meaning as we have when making them -- true language! Another uniquely human trait (aided by the fact that our voiceboxes are flexible and make many sounds --whether this was originally to make language or as a defense mechanism to protect us by developing an ability to mimic has not been determined).

The analysis of hearing data and sight data and language occurs in the outer areas of the brain, the most recent (in an evolutiounary sense) tissue at the back of the skull and in the front of the brain, the prefronal lobe. These are the ruling areas of the human mind.

So the human mind is the outermost, crinkled areas of the brain, especially the prefrontal lobe. We don't know enough about the brain to parse this exactly. Furthermore (particularly when our senses are damaged) the newly-loafing parts of the brain, instead of atrophying, are turned over to do additional work in processing information for another sense -- this is why blind people hear so well -- not that their ears have grown larger but that more brain space is available to process the data because visual data isn't coming through anymore.

So the multi-use nature of brain cells and the state of the art of brain chemistry and brain function do not lead to a perfect, clean differentiation between the human brain and the brains of other mammals. Nor do we fully understand the evolutionary explosion that grossly expanded our brains and differentiated us from chimps and bonobos in a mere five million years.

When we do, we'll probably have a more precise answer about which parts of the brain are most-human or essentially human. Our ability to see through camoflage (because of PROCESSING of the data, not eagle-eyedness) and to communicate by language are our uniquely human skills, and the brain cells dedicated to those tasks are the crown jewels (but probably not the only cells) of the "human brain."

Answer 2

Well the human mind is what distinguishes us, er... "humans", apart. It is our ability to be able to preconceive future actions, our ability to feel for others or empathy, to be able to love.. It is our individual entity, our soul. Now the human brain I believe refers to the biological make-up that controls our bodies; such as the neurotransmitters, cells, brain systems or "compartments" in which the chemical distribution varies from one person to the next. However it plays a huge role in how one acts. You know what I mean? I think you are asking the age old philosophic question of- besides our brains, whether their is or is not a separate mind, which some like to call a soul.

Answer 3

some might desire to declare that someone in a vegetative state is now no longer extremely human on the grounds that all human skills are long previous. that's semantics and as much as each and every person to come back to a determination. there is not any one unmarried answer. As for thoughts and brains, the thoughts arises from electric powered and chemical impulses interior the thoughts. If the thoughts is broken (especially aspects), the thoughts is broken.

Answer 4

mind is the conscious part of the human brain.

Answer 5

They started dating when the gorrilla was born.

Answer 6

They got married and became one.