Thursday, July 24, 2008

The truth about the mind - does the mind exist


There are many definitions about what is termed as the mind – I visited http://www.google.com.my/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:mind&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title and was amazed with what I saw.

I learnt from a selfless man who shared his wisdom freely and he taught me many things. From his teachings I came up with a concept that I termed MALT which is an acronym for open my Mind to Analytical and Logical Thinking. Since the first alphabet in MALT stands for mind, it stands to reason that I have to prove the existence of mind.

From a scientific perspective, for something to exist, it must be able to be measured according to one of the five known senses to humankind (vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch). As of 24th July 2008, there has been no known successful attempts to scientifically prove the existence of the human mind with any man-made inventions – I would love to be proven otherwise.

If we cannot prove the existence of the human mind, that means we do not know what it is, how it looks like, how large it is, what are its limits, what are its dimensions, what are its functions etc. Since we have no idea what the mind is, then why the heck do we say things like:
“Do not close your mind”, “do you mind”, “wandering mind”, or in my case “open your mind”?

I did not stumble upon the arguments myself; the arguments was beaten into my head by a group of final year university students. I was attempting to explain the MALT concept to them and to my amusement, and theirs, their explained that there is no mind to begin with. I did enjoy the sharing session for I would like to believe that I am a person who keeps an open “mind”.

As analytics and logic play a significant role in MALT, I agree with the students that for MALT to work, it is only logical to analyze what is the mind; in order words – to prove its existence. Since the existence of the mind cannot be scientifically be proven to exist, my MALT concept cannot work as MALT requires a mind in order to work.

For MALT to be credible, I take it upon myself to argue logically that the mind truly exist. This may take some time though……

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

CA,

TQ for your interest.

The existence of mind can only be understood if we believe in (the existence of) GOD, the CREATOR. That's the basic premis in discussing the subject.

Science is just a 'discovery' in enhancing the believe, but can not be USED to prove it!

Science is not for everything. There IS a GAP between us and the Creator, which can on be bridged by religous values.

visit my.COACHING.space at http://coachingspace.blogspot.com in appreciating the usage of mind thru coaching. One of the its key component is NLP... integrating words in the brain.

C.A. said...

Good evening En. Sabtu,

Thank you for sharing.

I do believe in the existence of the Creator. What intrigues me is that in the pursuit of knowledge, mankind has come up with numerous vague (vague because it cannot be verified by science) concepts such as mind, awareness, consciousness, soul and etc in their attempts to describe something that is seemingly beyond the realm of science.

I believe that there is a solution to every problem, no matter how difficult it is. Thus the reason for me to come up with the concept MALT as an attempt to maximize the human potential because time and again I keep hearing that the human potential is at best only at 5 percent. Scientists have proven that emotions are basically chemicals so emotions, as a concept, are within the realm of science. Science has continuously proved many concepts that was thought beyond the realm of science;in fact, I watched a documentary on Discovery channel on the existence of the soul and I am keen to believe that it is a matter of time before the general scientific community accepts the findings.

Since the challenge is about how to maximize the human potential, can some concepts that cannot be proven by science help mankind to maximize human potential? We have physical exercises to keep our body healthy. What are the exercises suitable for human potential?

I like your final sentence - 'integrating words in the brain' instead of the mind.