What is the Mind?
In NLP, we know that "mind" is an artificial construct. The mind is just an idea, a name, a label, a nominalization we give to that part of our selves that is self-aware, and infinitely reflexive, constantly seeking to frame what it perceives, and give it meaning relative to our self awareness.
We all have a mind, and in NLP we know that a mind is something that can be changed, even sometimes lost. Nobody has ever seen a mind. You cannot put a mind in a wheelbarrow. The evidence for the mind's existence at all is based on indirect or subjective evidence. We assume it exists as an a priori category.
In NLP, we look at the mind as the structure of subjective experience, and to plumb the depths of that structure and experience itself, we need some models that can be tested:
We can begin by exploring and charting our minds as individuals:
- Conscious Mind
- Unconscious Mind
- How we Learn
Then we can explore our collective human mind in several fruitful ways:
- Neurological Levels
- The Hero's Journey
- Spiral Dynamics
- Social Intelligence
Throughout this exploration, remember that we are just presenting models, or abstract ways of looking at our subjective mind, in order to provide some understanding or predictive value. But as always, remember that these models are not reality, only various faceted reflections of reality as we experience it.
