Serendip's Brain and Behavior Forum

Agree there is a potential here for confusion.  But there's another possible way to look at, different from calling the brain "physiological" and the "Mind" something else.  After all,  Dickinson actually writes about "brain," not "Mind."  Maybe the "Mind" is "physiological" too?  ie a part of the brain?  Yes, something that can't be understood/emcompassed by the "rational mind" but, if the brain includes that (what we know as "our self") and there is "room besides," then maybe the rest, beyond the "rational mind" is also in the physiological brain?  As per the image  to the right?  There is (yellow and white circles) the part of the brain that does things we're aware of, including the "rational mind," but its actually a small part of a much larger brain (the light grey region) that we're not aware of, isn't "rational" in the sense we usually use that word, but is our only conduit to the bigger world of which we are a part (the darker grey "outside").  Maybe "God or Buddha" is the "rational mind's" name for what is outside but we cannot know "rationally," because of the physiology of the brain?  For more exploration of this possibility see "Reality: Construction, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction" and Evolving Inquiry: The Unconscious as Bridging the Intellectual/Spiritual and the Academic/Personal and The Taoist Story Teller: Do We Still Need Truth, Reality, and/or God?

A very interesting question, not "silly" at all.  Curious to hear about other peoples' experiences along these lines.  When one is sleeping, and not dreaming, one isn't thinking anything ... at least I don't seem to be.  And in "dissociative fugue" states, one may act apparently without thinking.  Some meditative disciplines aspire to getting to state of mindfulness that doesn't involve "thinking" in the sense we usually use that term. Kalina Christoff's lab has been doing some interesting recent brain imaging work on "mind wandering."   

Point well taken.  That exhibit needs some further updating, beyond ...

"free will" is not the ability to choose how one will see the arrows, but rather the ability to withhold action while waiting for intrinsic variability to generate some alternative bases for action.

people have "free will" precisely to the extent that they can "see" any given thing in a variety of different ways, and the ability/inclination to sometimes withhold action while allowing themselves first to experience those different ways of seeing things. The latter corresponds, I suppose, to what is sometimes called "self-discipline", and the former to some combination of experience and creativity.

Its not the choice that is "free."  What increases one's freedom is the ability to see things in alternate ways, including ones that surprise not only others but oneself as well (cf Hofstadter's Road Sign).  

Hello World, I just had LITERALLY what people call Seizure and let me tell ya, ooh men I is more than scary, it is a life and death experience, it made me wake up to new horizons and to appreciate more the day to day stuff, I did come in here as I was reading about yin and yang and saw this interesting stuff about blind spots.