by Al Babich
How do we decide if we are using our Mind or our Brain?
Certainly, we wouldn’t have a Mind without a
Brain.
And we know without the brain and
its functions we wouldn’t last very long.
But maybe it is the distinction between the Brain and Mind or the
synergy of the two that provides our sustainability and quality of life.
We all enter this world with a brain that is designed to
protect us.
The brain gets better at
protecting us with time and stimulation.
Have you ever notice seeing a water hose or twig on the ground and
jumped back quickly thinking it was a snake?
That’s the good ole brain in survival mode working even before we
identify the object as a water hose or twig.
Our brain is hard at work interpreting the environment
around us, which includes objects, people and conditions. The brain in its most primitive functions will
monitor whether you are threatened (will it eat you), is it food (can I eat it)
or am I attracted to it (can I mate with it).
The first two have to do with survival of the organism the last has to
do with the survival of the species.
If we only responded to the three brain imperatives above
our species wouldn’t have advanced too far.
Fortunately for us, natural selection favored individuals who were most
gregarious and able to work cooperatively.
We evolved to cooperate and our species thrived. Our cooperation may have been the major
stimulus leading to the development of many different forms of communications.
Other qualities evolved from our cooperation such as
sympathy, empathy, integrity etc.
Cooperation evolved beyond satisfying basic needs to emotional bonding
and to what we call “humanity”.
There are many who are able to articulate the above better
than I, but my treatise is the synergy between the brain and mind to facilitate
the “humanness” in us all and
simultaneously provide individuals with a good quality of life.
That’s A Big Order
The “Big Order” begins with neonatal care. Approximately between 6 and 9 months of
gestation the neural matter begins to specialize and migrate to the locations
in the brain where it will remain for life.
There are circumstances where this specialization and migration is not
totally successful. For example a mother who consumes alcohol during this
period may deliver her baby with Infant Alcohol Syndrome (IAS). The alcohol caused neural errors that impact
future development. There are other
types of addiction or even medications that can influence the migration of
neurons during the last 6 to 9 months of gestation.
After birth neurons cease to
migrate and are ready to be stimulated or be “turned on.” Much of the neural “turn on” is innate such
as breast feeding (although some infants need a little help to latch on to receive
momma’s milk). The neural stimulation
develops neural networks necessary for survival. Some of the neural stimulation has time
limits. I’m sure you have read accounts
of children being deprived of human interaction in their early years, which
means the neural networks for speech are not ”turned on” at the appropriated
time in development. If they are rescued, those over 12 will not be able to
speak in sentences.
I worked with a student who had emigrated from
Korea.
He was unable to make eye contact or initiate
or maintain a conversation.
I learned
that he was raised in an orphanage where they housed the infants in play pens
stacked on each other.
There was not
enough staff to provide human interaction or physical contact.
When his neural networks for “bonding” with
humans were primed, they were not stimulated.
We usually think the phrase “use it or lose it” is for the elderly, but
in developing human beings it is all too true for infants too.
In most settings, for our little ones who are under
neural and physical construction, as their faculties come on line they relish
environmental stimulation and activity.
Do you remember when you couldn’t wait to hear “Mommy or Daddy” come out
of their mouths and that’s when all kinds of verbalization began. That’s also when you are very careful what
words you use around them especially in a fit of anger.
I’m sure our children would walk in spite of us,
but we love to help the process along with training and practice complete with
pictures and videos. But, did you notice
the walking seems to be a brief period and then its “running” every where. That’s when your child learns his first
physics lesson. “Two solid objects can
not occupy the same space at the same time.”
Just a note, with our son, we knew the emergency room nurse by her first
name and that’s nothing to brag about. He was a runner.
What About The
Mind ?
The more the brain is fully developed the more opportunities
it provides to the mind. A substance abused
brain provides very few opportunities for the mind. The addicted brain provides a very myopic
focus whether it is drug/alcohol, gambling, pornography etc. A neural network has been established in the
reward system of the brain and has been trained for the acquisition of the
object of the addiction. In this
scenario the mind has fewer options for responding rationally to the
environment.
The mind comes in to play to choose alternatives to basic
brain satisfactions. In development, the
parents provide a guiding structure to help the child involve his or her mind
development for its own self guidance.
For instance, dad says, “John, you can only have two cookies then put
the bag a way.” John eats the two
cookies and finds them very good. He
comes back later and eats the whole bag and then spends fifteen minutes in the
bathroom over the stool rediscovering why two cookies were enough. When his friend Jimmy asks him if he wants to
eat a bag of cookies he bought, John may benefit from his previous experience
or may need to learn the lesson all over again.
Although the example above is very simple it’s a lesson we all review
even into adulthood.
The mind provides guidance sometimes contrary to our basic
instincts. We aren’t surprise when a
mother and father runs into a burning building to save their children, but what
about the incidents of total strangers doing the same? Why do couples adopt children when they have
children of their own? Altruism is one
of the more human qualities of the mind.
The well-developed mind will choose altruistic activities
over self-gratification for external rewards.
Those who spend hours serving at soup kitchens, homeless shelters,
cleaning the church, sitting with the sick while the spouse receives a respite
develop neural networks that reward us for behaving in caring ways that the
brain’s basic reward system can not relate.
I would propose that a mind directing the brain puts us in touch with
what makes us HUMAN.
There is no dichotomy between brain and mind when the
synergy between the two enhances our humanity and well being.
