The mind is the totality of mental phenomena and capacities that enable thinking, feeling, perceiving, imagining, remembering, willing, and judging. It encompasses both conscious and unconscious processes, including awareness of internal and external experiences as well as mental functions like reasoning, emotions, motivation, and behavior
. Philosophically and scientifically, the mind is often studied in relation to the brain and nervous system, raising the mind–body problem: whether the mind is separate from or identical to physical processes in the brain. The dominant modern view, physicalism, holds that the mind arises from material brain activity, although some traditions and theories propose mind as an independent or universal property
. Key cognitive faculties of the mind include:
- Attention: focusing on relevant stimuli
- Perception: interpreting sensory information
- Memory: storing and recalling information
- Reasoning and executive functions: problem-solving, decision-making, and planning
- Consciousness: awareness of self and environment
- Emotions and motivation: affective experiences and drives
The mind is considered the seat of consciousness, personal identity, and subjective experience. While traditionally viewed as uniquely human, there is evidence and debate about minds in non-human animals and the possibility of artificial minds
. In summary, the mind is the complex set of mental faculties and processes that enable an individual to experience, understand, and interact with the world both internally and externally. It is central to cognition, emotion, and behavior, and is studied across disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy
