are the mind and brain really seperate entities?

I have been reading about this subject for the last week now and a few websites would have you believe there is something beyond this earthly life, there are also websites that claim to have proof for this including laboratory conditioned experiments, anyone know any more than me, feel free to comment.

This is a technical and not a psychic comment. I think the brain is the interactive controller of the mind. This is not to say that the mind, exclusive of the brain will not act on it's own. They are both biological in nature.

I think the mind and the brain are separate. If you break down reality, we are all just atoms with space between them. Kind of like an ulta-microscopic galaxy or universe. How can this type of setup think and feel? That is why I believe in a soul. Th emind is part of our soul and the brain does stuff like....translate this thought into pushing keys and clicking the "Post Reply" button.

There is an old philosophical dualism here between the brain and the mind, and a "mind experiment," I think, is the best way to approach this.

Suppose we set you up in a chair with a camera video taping your skull. You see the images the camera picks up on a TV in front of you. Now suppose we open up your skull in such a way that your brain is showing, but you are still conscious.

Now, when you view your brain, are "You" (your mind) viewing your brain, or is your brain viewing your brain?

If we think about this, I think the answer is a bit intuitive. The brain in and of itself can not view things, so therefore, it must be "us" (our minds) doing the viewing.


As a reply to Slank:

Slank, if something is biological in nature, then it is also physical in nature. That is, it will have the properties that physics claims physicals things have in the universe. Physics claims that only matter and energy are in the universe. Herein exists a problem: The mind doesn't have matter or energy. All the matter and energy that we observe having to do with mental processes are actually observed in the brain (and not necessarily a mind). This would imply Brain = Mind in a scientific setting. However, can this be the case? The thought experiment I posted above seems to say no.

I believe that the brain belongs to the physical body while the mind is the soul, if the body or the brains dies that does not mean that the mind that is the soul will die, to me the soul is eternal while the body is not.

So yes in my beliefs they are two separate things.

thanks for your opinions, I think there must be something going on somewhere, all we can do is hope.

Paul, have you seen this page before? It's very interesting.

thanks very much for the link, I wish there was a more conclusive answer though!
thanks again.

There is one coin; the brain on one side, the mind on the other. The brain is the physical side; controlling logic (math, science, etc). The mind is the intangible side; controlling emotion (fear, anger, etc). Emotion affects logic, logic affects emotion - a codependency.

[edit on 7/26/04 by xenophanes85]

I saw a program on this the other day, It was shown on a show about OBEs, and it was basicallty saying that, the conscience was either created via these really small thing in the cells (sorry I cant remember the name of them) or the conscience was something that comes from an outside source, and basically the brain is just a receiver.