Making the meaning of brain and mind

Nilratan Halder | Published: May 30, 2025 23:00:38

Memories are the evidence of a persona. Sounds queer! But imagine how the aggregate of memories makes a complete human being. True, not all people possess equal capabilities of retaining or remembering past events or experiences. Recollection, however, varies not because of mental faculties but perhaps because of the brain which, as the substrate, controls the mental capacity. Even an individual do not remember all the events and experiences of life often or all the time. There are some events that can be easily recollected or make appearance on their own without any active or conscious choice for those. But the surprise of all surprises is that an incident not particularly significant or a scene, a face, a particular angle of looking by someone, some forbidden sight seen suddenly, a tree, an inanimate object or a walking trail, a boat, launch, train or plane journey of childhood long forgotten come suddenly flashing on the mind's invisible screen.
Does the mind process memories? That it does not consciously engage in such processing activity is clear. It is the brain that functions as the central nervous system. Composed of billions of neurons and blood vessels, it acts like the hardware in a computer where mind functions mostly as the software. But there is a fundamental difference between the data processor of the hardware and the brain which controls all bodily functions. When it comes to emotion, feeling, passion and intuition, a computer's hardware fail to process beyond its command area. But human brain gets stimulated by newer subjective experiences and events or affairs that mind encounters consciously or unconsciously. This encounter is subjective because not all people feel the same way and react to such events and experiences in the same way.
A child yet to know about the way of the world may immediately feel drawn to a cat, another of the same age to a dog and still another to both or none of the animals. Well, family tradition and teaching may at times be a deciding factor in such cases but with no parental or family guidance, a child can easily develop a bond with animals including birds, flowers, trees and Nature in general. Some children can possess the quite opposite traits to this and derive sadistic pleasures from inflicting cruelty to kittens and puppies. A unit of hardware has to be armed with inputs so that it can display a particular trait. In case of human being, there are instances that a rogue of a character involved in meting out brutal treatment to animals in early life or one hunting birds and animals champions conservation of fauna. There is no chance the hardware would ever remorse for such acts and have an about-turn for the past guilt to engage in preservation programmes.
The cognitive function of the brain helps one to think deeply and analyse the moral and other consequences such as the threat of extinction of particular species or, better even, the enlightenment of mind through study of the subject or rediscovery of natural affinity existent in all life forms. Machines fail to rise up to this level of ethical judgment and feeling of oneness in all forms of life. Here the brain and mind coordinate to evoke higher and deeper feelings and help make a conscious decision. Much as the computer may be trained to mimic human behaviour and response to a particular affair or incident, it will never reach the same state to rush to help an accident victim and then take him to hospital for treatment. Well, all humans do not engage in such acts of benevolence but many do. They feel for the person in pain and if their mission of surviving the victim is successful, they feel immensely happy.
As a stream of consciousness ---not excluding non-consciousness that lies dormant in its subconscious layer, the mind in close cooperation and coordination with the brain forms its subjective impressions of events and everything perceived all around. The feeling of pain, sadness, remorse, joy, satisfaction and happiness may be primarily sensory affairs but unless both the brain and the mind mutually coordinate, the sense and sensibility of such unseen experiences cannot be fully realised. This explains why some memories stay buried for ages and resurface without notice. Of course, there may be the association of thought process or even a practical incident of similar nature, which can revive a long lost memory. This can be something embarrassing, shameful, painful, shocking, most cherishing, delightful, enlightening and ennobling. Whatever those fragmentary particulars of life may be, at the end of the day, the aggregate of all those actually provides sustenance to people's existence on this planet. The diversity of such events and experiences of people go to the making of the human civilisation as it is.