For thousands of years, the human mind has been shrouded in mystery.

Elusive in
nature, the subject has prompted an intensive study of several puzzling questions about
what the mind is, what it's made of, how it works, and how it differs from our brains. With
the latest advancements in both our understanding of the brain and the technology we
use to look inside it, scientists have vastly improved their understanding of the human
mind. Now, more so than at any other point in human history, we can better explain and
describe; how the human mind has evolved, both on the scale of our entire species from
the dawn of humanity to the present, and on the individual level from birth to adulthood;
the ways our genes and environments work together to mold the people we become;
the sources, symptoms, and potential treatment methods for debilitating mental
disorders such as depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism; why
our intensely social species has the dynamic capability to both ostracize and empathize
with the humanity of our fellow individuals; and much more.
Despite its mysterious nature, the human mind and its complexities lie at the heart of
who we are as human beings. It shapes our everyday lives and defines our individual
personalities. And grasping both the mind's scientific origins and its biological workings
is essential to any well-rounded understanding of possible answers to questions that
have fascinated and perplexed humanity throughout history.
Darwin considered an understanding of the evolution of the human mind and brain to be
of major importance to the evolutionary sciences. This ground-breaking book sets out a
comprehensive, integrated theory of why and how the human mind has developed to
function as it does. Geary proposes that human motivational, affective, behavioral, and
cognitive systems have evolved to process social and ecological information (e.g., facial
expressions) that covaried with survival or reproductive options during human evolution.
Further, he argues that the ultimate focus of all of these systems is to support our
attempts to gain access to and control of resources—more specifically, the social (e.g.,
mates), biological (e.g., food), and physical (e.g., territory) resources that supported
successful survival and reproduction over time. In this view, Darwin's conceptualization
of natural selection as a "struggle for existence" becomes, for us, a struggle with other
human beings for control of the available resources.
This struggle provides a means of integrating modular brain and cognitive systems such
as language with those brain and cognitive systems that support general intelligence.
To support his arguments, Geary draws upon an impressive array of recent findings in
cognitive science and neuroscience, as well as primatology, anthropology, and
sociology.
The origin of the meaning of the mind offers a long and rich history. Unlike many other
words and phrases there is no clear evolution given for its use. Its meaning was more
dependent on the context of its usage rather than any single meaning.
If spoken of by a philosopher the mind may well mean one’s personality, identity, and
their memories. For the religious the mind houses the spirit, an awareness of God, or to
the scientist the mind is the generator of ideas and thoughts. The mind has carried with
it many diverse labels. In its infancy references to the mind truly were metaphoric.
It was not until the 14th and 15th centuries that the generalization of mind to include all
mental faculties, thought, volition, feeling, and memory gradually developed.In the late
19th and early 20th century brought psychology to the forefront as a respected science.
Due in no small part to the work of Freud and others, the popular focus on the human
mind, its role in the behavioral sciences, and the mind/body question solidified. Today,
the concept of the mind and its functions is almost always discussed from a scientific
point of view.
Freud’s Conscious Mind
Since consciousness is best understood as having an awareness of something, being
able to call it to mind, it would seem simple enough to qualify only those events we can
recall as the activities of the human mind.
There are two challenges to this view. First, there is the estimate that only about 10% of
the minds work is made up of conscious thought and secondly, this view does not
explain those random events created within the mind.
The two functions that the capabilities of the conscious mind can address are:
Its ability to direct your focus. Its ability to imagine that which is not real
Freud’s Subconscious Mind
Your subconscious is the storage point for any recent memories needed for quick recall,
such as what your telephone number is or the name of a person you just met. It also
holds current information that you use every day, such as your current recurring
thoughts, behavior patterns, habits, and feelings.
Freud’s Unconscious Mind
The unconscious mind is where all of our memories and past experiences reside. These
are those memories that have been repressed through trauma and those that have
simply been consciously forgotten and no longer important to us (automatic thoughts).
It’s from these memories and experiences that our beliefs, habits, and behaviors are
formed. A review of the earlier illustration shows the unconscious, sitting a layer deeper
in the mind under the subconscious. Although the subconscious and unconscious has
direct links to each other and deal with similar things, the unconscious mind is really the
cellar, the underground library if you like, of all your memories, habits, and behaviors. It
is the storehouse of all your deep seated emotions that have been programmed since
birth.
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory teaches that it is here, in the unconscious mind that
necessary change can occur through the use of psychoanalysis.
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