1. broadly, all intellectual and psychological phenomena of an organism, encompassing motivational, affective, behavioral, perceptual, and cognitive systems; that is, the organized totality of an organism’s mental and psychic processes and the structural and functional cognitive components on which they depend. The term, however, is also used more narrowly to denote only cognitive activities and functions, such as perceiving, attending, thinking, problem solving, language, learning, and memory. The nature of the relationship between the mind and the body, including the brain and its mechanisms or activities, has been, and continues to be, the subject of much debate. See mind–body problem; philosophy of mind.

2. the substantive content of such mental and psychic processes.

3. consciousness or awareness, particularly as specific to an individual.

4. a set of emergent properties automatically derived from a brain that has achieved sufficient biological sophistication. In this sense, the mind is considered more the province of humans and of human consciousness than of organisms in general.

5. human consciousness regarded as an immaterial entity distinct from the brain. See Cartesian dualism; ghost in the machine.

6. the brain itself and its activities. In this view, the mind essentially is both the anatomical organ and what it does.

7. intention or volition.

8. opinion or point of view.

9. the characteristic mode of thinking of a group, such as the criminal mind or the military mind.