The Study Of The Mind Mind — страница 2

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evolutionary terms, the mind has evolved to be effective in situations that are most likely to arise. Mechanisms have developed to respond to these situations. Logic is one of these mechanisms, but it?s not the only one, nor often, it is the most useful, adequate, or even the most important one most of the time, few of us operate according to strict principles of logic. Our minds are not logic machines, and for good reasons. Here are three questions: Who was the sixteenth president of the United States? How far is Los Angeles from San Francisco? Are the toes of a pigeon arranged differently from those of a parrot, and if so, what is the difference? Each of these questions required you to think in a different way. On Occasion, thinking consists of working with words and concepts:

the sixteenth president. At other times it requires vivid images: parrots compared to pigeons. On still other occasions, thinking may use either of these approaches you can figure out the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles by reasoning, or you can dispense with words altogether and consult an ?inner map? based on your travels. Often, thinking involves all these processes. The argument for the human brain as a computer typically takes the following form. The human brain makes all experience and thought possible; all decision functions in the brain are reducible to a binary yes/no process; the brain is nothing more than an elaborate computer with its sympathized junctions performing on-off functions. The objective of computer science is to learn how the brain?s symbols

represent the external world and how the brain?s circuitry regulates ?input and ?output.? Thinking is formed on the basis of compromise. If we insisted on examining al possible alternatives that are open to us, we could never make any decisions. Most of us most of the time settle for ?rough and ready? choices that enable us to move on. There are always limitations of time, resources, and mental energy that must e taken into account, as well as individual life experiences unique to each individual. Our decisions are always based on seems best ?under the circumstances,? this doesn?t imply that the mind is damaged. On the contrary, the point is simply that more important considerations influence the formation of thought than mere logic and even rationally. Because our use of

language we often suggest that we tend to equate rationality and mentally, it is important to emphasize this point. ?He must have been out of his mind.? As most us would say Because traditionally we have been taught to think of ourselves as acting freely most of the time, the extensive consequences of frontal lob damage are profoundly disturbing, our thinking and behavior involve a delicate balance between tow opposing factors. As a result of an influence we can turn toward those processes necessary for insight, abstraction, planning, and a sense of personal information. Disturbances are also escape measures of the brain, but only by being aware of their prior personality and comparing it with present thinking and behavior can we detect the alterations induced by frontal damage

to the most subtle aspects of thinking; judgment, and innate feeling for what?s appropriate, and the ability to take the ?long view? and look beyond one?s immediate circumstances. It is reason and communication that underline all human thought. The experience of Joseph Kovach, who was a fifteen-year-old Hungarian schoolboy when he was imprisoned in the Soviet gulag, is a powerful example of this. For four years, he lived in an isolated, frightening environment, each day an eternity. ?When I look at the months, the years, they were empty.? Kovach remembers. ?There?s nothing in terms of thinking, of planning, of remembering the past of planning for the future. It felt almost as though I was hibernating.? Thanks to our mind, we can change our perceptions of our world and ourselves.

Joseph Kovach, free, built a life of the mind and spirit, and today is Dr. Joseph Kovach of the Menninger Foundation. We can create science, music, and art. We read one another?s feeling, put ourselves in somebody else?s shoes, formulate our ideas, or respond to the genius of violinist like Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Her gifts express themselves in the delicate balance between pure thought and experienced emotion that lies at the basis of her music. ?One thing that goes to the heart of human beings is the importance of an emotional life. We take great pleasure in having our emotions moved either by the real world or by imaginary events,? says Philip Johnson Laird. Our mental apparatus, our capacity to find unities, coherence in a variation that what makes us free and that?s what