Thread: Simple thoughts in relation to the mind

It seems as though the mind is, on a psychological level, governed by basic laws. For instance repulsion and attraction; in essence a human can only be in motion and move towards or away from an object. There are factors which either attract or repel an individual. We on a conscious and subconscious level can either be attracted to a thought or repelled from a thought.

Another is that due to the nature of organisms; humans ultimately do things for themselves.

So I can conclude that because a human can either be attracted or repelled and an organism's primary function is that of itself that the mind structures it self in accordance to those guidelines.

So the human mind is structured based on positive reactions to their environment and negative reactions to their environment that are dictated by the need for organisms to sustain themselves.

Sounds logical. And I think the reaction to an impuls (whether to be attracted or repulsed) has much to do with past experiences and associations. The same impuls can attract one person and repulse another, and the amount of reaction also differs.

But it seems that there's more than experience at play. For example I've seen an experiment that tested the sense of 'cleanness' of objects in children (is it clean: attraction; is it dirty: repulsion). The researchers made a tasty icecream (right smell, right taste) in the shape of a pile of eh poo (crap :P ). Children below a certain age were attracted to it, wanting to taste it and see what it's like. But above that age all children suddenly were repulsed by the same object, as they now found it 'dirty' (because it looks like something dirty). Even children who understood that it was really just normal icecream refused to eat it, unconsciously they rejected it. It seems that such repulsion only develops after a certain age, so it must have some basis in brain development.