_Does mind have its own “mind”?
Have you ever reflected upon how you think in the way or the ways you think? For instance, have you ever thought about how and through what procedures you solved a tough math problem? I think the answers to these and some other similar questions would provide us with deeper insights into how the mind does what it does. The ability of the mind to do what it does appears to rest upon some baser characteristics of it including being the boss of its own, limited capacity, and the need to rely on categorization.
First, I suggest that mind has its own “mind”. To put it in a different way, mind has its own control mechanism to observe and assess whether what it does is in line with the general characteristics of a particular task. More interestingly, this capability would be timeless in the sense that a person can think about what she or he thought, what she or he is thinking and what she or he will think. Needless to say, the same person would come to the conclusion that what she or he thought, is thinking or will think would be right or wrong on the basis of some personal, social and ethical criteria. For instance, due to this self-reflection process or ability, it is possible for you to decide whether you got what is asked in a specific course assignment or not; whether what you are thinking is not at odds with some social norms even though you do not put them to practice and the like. Further, I think mind needs some criteria to critique its actions or the actions it makes our bodies perform. The source of these criteria might be our common experiences or expectations (e.g., how to behave in a court room), our reasoning capacity and our evolution history.
Moreover, it seems that mind is limited in the sense of the amount of information it can process and hold. Do the questions like “where was the market you told me a few minutes ago?”, “Could you please repeat the number once more?” sound familiar? Even though, I think this limitation can also be based on the characteristics of the information in question; mind seems to have a limited capacity. If it were not limited, I guess, we would just have a very large long-term memory where we can store everything with no problems faced. In addition, since it is limited it should find some ways of exceeding the borders or this limitation: organization of what to do (e.g., structure of an essay: introduction, development and conclusion); creating reminders (e.g., taking notes down in a lecture or making a list of what to buy before going to a market). It should be noticed that the need to organize things no matter how complex they are appear to be closely related to the mind’s ability to control itself: In order to assess how the organization of something works, it needs to keep its eye on itself.
Finally, it seems to be reasonable to argue that mind needs to categorize things, which refers to its categorization ability. This is not surprising: if it is limited and needs to organize things in order to function properly, it is normal that it has categorization ability. Based on this ability, it categorizes information into groups. To illustrate, think about organization of a library: The books are grouped on the basis of certain aspects including type and field of inquiry and the like. So, this makes it easier for us to find a particular book when we go to a library. Further, assume that we have no “word” categorization in language, and imagine what kind of an experience it would be to try to read this paper with no word boundaries.
In conclusion, even though the aspects of sensory input (e.g., complexity) seems to impact how mind does what it does, its characteristics like self-assessment ability, a limited capacity, and categorization ability play a role in how the mind acts on the stage. In addition, all these aspects appear to be interrelated: if mind is limited, it is reasonable that it longs to gauge what it does, to organize and categorize its tasks into meaningful units in order to perform both effectively and efficiently.