The Brain and the Mind

[Julia_Mae]

Can anyone here help me with this? It’s about the difference between the brain and mind, and how the mind and brain aren’t the same thing?
Doctors believe that OCD is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, which is often helped by taking medication. How can the mind be separate from the brain when the brain responds to medication and is the source of the OCD symptoms?

If you think of your mind as information that exists on the internet and your brain as your computer and monitor, then you see, if your computer is messed up or your monitor doesn’t work, you can’t access the information stored online. Your downloads get all messed up, your website doesn’t appear on screen.

The information is still there. Your mind - your self-aware and free soul - exist in Eternity as well as being attached to your body. Your body is how your mind is able to relate to all the other minds here on earth. Just like we all meet here through our computers.

If I go offline, I’m still here.

 

[Faith1960]

If you think of your mind as information that exists on the internet and your brain as your computer and monitor, then you see, if your computer is messed up or your monitor doesn’t work, you can’t access the information stored online. Your downloads get all messed up, your website doesn’t appear on screen.

The information is still there. Your mind - your self-aware and free soul - exist in Eternity as well as being attached to your body. Your body is how your mind is able to relate to all the other minds here on earth. Just like we all meet here through our computers.

If I go offline, I’m still here.

I’m not sure if I’m expressing myself correctly. I’m currently reading a couple books by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, a research psychiatrist in L.A. who is the leader in neuroplasticity. He shows how the brains (mind???) of someone with OCD light up on PET screens and how, through a lot of hard work, using the methods he promotes, these same brains will change and the PET scans will show those changes.
If the brain can be affected by medications, if it’s activity is visible on a PET scan, if it’s damage can cause a person to become severely disabled, unable to think, speak or walk, if it ca, in some cases, be “rewired” after a stroke allowing the patient to regain some function, then how is the mind not the brain?

 

[Julia_Mae]

If the brain can be affected by medications, if it’s activity is visible on a PET scan, if it’s damage can cause a person to become severely disabled, unable to think, speak or walk, if it ca, in some cases, be “rewired” after a stroke allowing the patient to regain some function, then how is the mind not the brain?

The same way the music isn’t in your radio. You can have trouble with the wiring and static and distorted speakers and make that worse or better and the broadcast will not be heard or will become clear. But they are still broadcasting and the music still exists.

Your emotions and some basic functions, like muscle control, are generated by your brain just as a dog’s is. Just like a radio will produce static if no channel is coming in. But your soul-self is eternal and not housed inside your skull.

 

[fide]

Can anyone here help me with this? It’s about the difference between the brain and mind, and how the mind and brain aren’t the same thing?
Doctors believe that OCD is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, which is often helped by taking medication. How can the mind be separate from the brain when the brain responds to medication and is the source of the OCD symptoms?

There ‘s an article in Homelitic and Pastoral Review that includes Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of the relationship between the brain (a material thing - of the body) and the mind (a spiritual thing - of the soul). A key thought is this: Aquinas’ understanding “requires the brain to function properly as the primary material instrument for human thinking to actually occur.” The brain is an instrument in the material world that delivers sense-data, information, to the mind where it becomes thought.
.

…the intellectual power in man cannot be the act of a material organ, because the idea, or concept, is present in the intellect in a universal, necessary, and immaterial mode, through the process of abstracting the essence from the material particularities of the phantasm. Although this is a very complex process, the theory of knowledge, taught by St. Thomas Aquinas, gives a satisfactory and reasonable account of it, specifically his presentation of the relationship between sense and intellectual knowledge.​

Maybe you’d like to research Aquinas further.

 

[Faith1960]

Does the Catholic Church recognize chemical imbalance as a cause for various mental disorders?

 

[jmcrae]

Does the Catholic Church recognize chemical imbalance as a cause for various mental disorders?

The Catholic Church doesn’t see herself as competent in the area of medicine - this is the expertise of medical professionals. Take and follow your doctor’s advice.

 

[Faith1960]

The Catholic Church doesn’t see herself as competent in the area of medicine - this is the expertise of medical professionals. Take and follow your doctor’s advice.

I do and will continue to take my doctor’s advice BUT… Does the C
C acknowledge or recognize various mental disorders are caused by chemical imbalances?

 

[jmcrae]

I do and will continue to take my doctor’s advice BUT… Does the C
C acknowledge or recognize various mental disorders are caused by chemical imbalances?

We have no official teaching about it whatsoever, either way. Most individual Catholics would accept it to be true if that’s what their doctor is telling them.

 

[GEddie]

I do and will continue to take my doctor’s advice BUT… Does the C
C acknowledge or recognize various mental disorders are caused by chemical imbalances?

The Church recognizes that mind issues can originate in the biological body. That is why it won’t do an exorcism, for example, until all medical and physical causes for abnormal phenomena have been ruled out.

It does not pronounce on specific biomedical causes (“chemical imbalances”). Diagnosing and treating the body is not Church responsibility.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Faith1960]

The Church recognizes that mind issues can originate in the biological body. That is why it won’t do an exorcism, for example, until all medical and physical causes for abnormal phenomena have been ruled out.

It does not pronounce on specific biomedical causes (“chemical imbalances”). Diagnosing and treating the body is not Church responsibility.

ICXC NIKA

What I’m trying to learn is if the CC accepts the medical community’s belief that this is a chemical imbalance? IOW, she doesnt dispute that, does she?

 

[Julia_Mae]

What I’m trying to learn is if the CC accepts the medical community’s belief that this is a chemical imbalance? IOW, she doesnt dispute that, does she?

The Church doesn’t dispute or affirm medical opinions, is what I think everyone is trying to tell you. The Church has no official position on this in any direction that anyone posting here knows of. None. Either way. No opinion.

 

[Faith1960]

The Church recognizes that mind issues can originate in the biological body. That is why it won’t do an exorcism, for example, until all medical and physical causes for abnormal phenomena have been ruled out.

It does not pronounce on specific biomedical causes (“chemical imbalances”). Diagnosing and treating the body is not Church responsibility.

ICXC NIKA

The Church doesn’t dispute or affirm medical opinions, is what I think everyone is trying to tell you. The Church has no official position on this in any direction that anyone posting here knows of. None. Either way. No opinion.

Ok.