Mind
The word 'mind', an abstract noun, refers to no observable physical entity, but to a faculty of human beings characterized by their ability to think, broadly defined, and relatedly, to their ability to experience events of reality non-consciously, consciously, and self-consciously.
In its verbal forms, too, 'mind' relates to the ability of humans to think, characterized in different senses of the verb by different aspects of the thinking process. Such verbal expressions as "mind what I tell you", "mind your own business", "minded the babysitter", "mind your manners", "he doesn't mind taking out the garbage" — typically refer to some aspect of thinking, or to a requirement for thinking, as indicated through paraphrasing the utterance in terms of thinking. "Mind what I tell you", for example, paraphrases to "Think about what I tell you, and think about the consequences of not doing so", in both expressions the precise aspect of 'thinking', or requirement for 'thinking', given by the context embedding the utterance. "Mind the icy walkway", "think about how you walk on the icy path".
The verbal forms of 'mind' predated the noun form according to Thomas Szasz (1996). Indeed, the word 'mind' derives from the Proto-Indo-European verbal base, *men-, 'to think, remember'.[1] Consistent with 'mind' as originally a verb, semanticists do not find a noun form universal among the world's languages, but do find the verb 'to think' a lexical universal. 'Think' is a semantic primitive, lacking non-circular lexicographical definition, a universal semantic primitive found in all the world's languages, whose meaning a child learns while learning to speak the language of its society, from the way its society uses the word. Semantic primitives provide a base set of words that allow all other words in the lexicon to be defined (Wierzbicka 1996).
Nominalization of verbs, typically creating an abstract entity, reifying the action/activity of the verb into a 'thing', appears as a natural tendency in humans, exemplified in such nominalizations/reifications as thinking to thought, living to life, experiencing consciously to consciousness. In the case of nominalizing minding to mind, studies of the nature and meaning of mind the noun often stray from considerations of the nature and meaning of the reality of the action of minding, or thinking, becoming abstracted into a non-physically observable, non-existent entity that is taken as performing the action.
Mind is a product of our thinking, our disposition to nominalize action. It does not underpin thinking. 'To think' cannot be defined in words that do not themselves ultimately require the word 'thinking' to define them non-circularly (Wierzbicka 1996).
The status of 'thinking' as a semantic primitive, however, does not preclude philosophical, cognitive, neuroscientific, linguistic, anthropological, and artificial intelligence investigation of its evolutionary origins, its characteristics, its mechanisms of production, its scope, its levels of complexity, and its impact on the future of mankind. Those are some of the goals of the interdisciplinary field of Cognitive science.
Notes
References
- Szasz, Thomas. (1996) The Meaning of Mind: Language, Morality, and Neuroscience. Westport, CT: Praeger. | Google Books preview. | Thomas Szasz: Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. | Citizendium article: Thomas Szasz. | Books by Thomas Szasz.
- Skeat WW. (1912) The Science of Etymology. Clarendon Press.
- Mind. A.S. ge-mynd, memory, mun-an, to think ; Goth. ga-munds, remembrance; O. Ir. men-ma, thought, mind; Lith. min-eti, to think upon, al-minlis, remembrance; Russ. mnit(e)t to think ; L. mens (gen. mcnt-is), mind, me-min-i, I remember; Gk. ..., I remember, ..., courage, wrath, ..., I wish, yearn; Skt. man, to think, man-as, mind, ma-tis, thought. Idg. root *min.
- Wierzbicka A. (1996) Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198700024. Publisher’s website’s description of book Professor Wierzbicka’s faculty webpage Excepts from Chapters 1 and 2