The mind is the seat of thinking, believing, remembering, hoping, desiring, willing, analyzing, evaluating, etc. The mind is considered by dualists to be an immaterial substance, capable of existence as a conscious, perceiving entity independent of any physical body.
Metaphysical materialists, on the other hand, consider the mind to be either the brain or an entity separate from but brought into being by the workings of the brain. The latter doctrine is known as epiphenomenalism. For the materialist 'mind' is a catch-all term for a number of processes or activities which can be reduced to cerebral, neurological and physiological processes.
Behaviorists consider 'mind' to be a catch-all term for a set of behaviors.
There is probably no more fascinating topic in philosophy or neurology than mind or consciousness. Yet, despite the fact that the human mind has made it possible to gain all the understanding of the world and ourselves which we now possess, it is little understood itself. There is no agreed upon model for any of the major mental functions. For example, memory is something we all have to some degree or another. Yet, we do not fully understand the nature of memory, and several models of memory are equally plausible. Models of mind or consciousness continue to occupy the minds of some of our best philosophers.
See the entries for astral projection, dualism, memory and souls.
further reading
Churchland, Patricia Smith. Neurophilosophy - Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986).
Dennett, Daniel Clement. Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (Montgomery, Vt.: Bradford Books, 1978).
Dennett, Daniel Clement. Consciousness explained illustrated by Paul Weiner (Boston : Little, Brown and Co., 1991).
Dennett, Daniel Clement. Kinds of minds : toward an understanding of consciousness (New York, N.Y. : Basic Books, 1996).
Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind (New York: Barnes
Dennett, Daniel Clement. Elbow room : the varieties of free will worth wanting (Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1984). and Noble: 1949).
Hofstadter, Douglas R. and Daniel C. DennettThe mind's I : fantasies and reflections on self and soul (New York : Basic Books, 1981).
Sacks, Oliver W. Awakenings; A leg to stand on; The man who mistook his wife for a hat, and other clinical tales (New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1990).