Mental Processes
What is the mind or a mental process? Is it just the brain or something more? How and why it emerged as a phenomenon in Nature? And how does it arise from the brain processes? What is the nature and extent of the involvement of genes in the making and functioning of the mind? What is the relationship between genes, body, brain and mind? Can we explain the functioning and problems of the contemporary man’s mind in terms of its genetic and neuronal sources? These questions have been explored at length in both Philosophical and Scientific Literature and we find a plethora of ideas and theories in relation to each question. The accumulated and continuously growing assets and resources of knowledge about the brain and the mind have enabled contemporary man to delve into an area which had been shrouded for a long time by ignorance and its products like half-baked ideas, imagination, dogmatic assumptions, idealistic paradigms.
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Today we can acquire a far more mature understanding of the origins, evolution and the mechanics of the formation and functioning of individual mental functions, their interconnections with other mental processes, and then brain and body, and their interactive functioning as a many layered mental complex and personality. And this understanding and knowledge can be used for another purpose apart from mere curiosity or its application to manage certain mental disorders. It can be used in aid of moving on to the next stage of our evolution. This knowledge can inform us of the current stage and state of our minds and the problem with its core design, coming from genes, which has now exhausted itself. It is not only constraining the present functioning of our minds but is also inhibiting their further evolution, as a necessary and logical part of Nature’s own macro evolution. So we, as individuals and as a species, have to make a new design and corresponding structure of our minds. This means we have to make the transition from the existing gene-based mental system to an integrated (which will include the gene-based mental processes) intellect based mental system, which is a new design, with new processes, capabilities and a new hierarchy and architecture.