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Katori Shrine

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The Katori Shrine ( 香取神宮 , Katori Jingū ) is a Shintō shrine in the city of Katori in Chiba Prefecture , Japan . It is the ichinomiya of former Shimōsa Province , and is the head shrine of the approximately 400 Katori shrines around the country (located primarily in the Kantō region ). The main festival of the shrine is held annually on April 14, with a three-day Grand Festival held every 12 years.

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135-549: The primary kami of Katori Jingū is The foundation of Katori Jingū predates the historical period. Per the Hitachi-koku Fudoki , an ancient record and per shrine tradition, it was established in 643 BC, the 18th year of the reign of Emperor Jimmu . During this period, the Ō clan ( 多氏 , Ō-shi ) migrated from Higo Province in Kyushu , conquering local emishi tribes, and forming an alliance with

270-413: A Shinto shrine follow a purification ritual before presenting themselves to the kami . This ritual begins with hand washing and swallowing and later spitting a small amount of water in front of the shrine to purify the body, heart, and mind. Once this is complete they turn their focus to gaining the kami's attention. The traditional method of doing this is to bow twice, clap twice and bow again, alerting

405-405: A midlife crisis involving an inner conflict about personal identity , often associated with anxiety, a sense of lack of accomplishments in life, and an awareness of mortality. Intellectual faculties tend to decline in later adulthood, specifically the ability to learn complex unfamiliar tasks and later also the ability to remember, while people tend to become more inward-looking and cautious. It

540-474: A nerve net , like jellyfish , and organisms with bilaterally symmetric bodies , whose nervous systems tend to be more centralized. About 540 million years ago, vertebrates evolved within the group of bilaterally organized organisms. All vertebrates, like birds and mammals , have a central nervous system including a complex brain with specialized functions while invertebrates, like clams and insects , either have no brains or tend to have simple brains. With

675-448: A bicycle or playing a musical instrument. Another distinction is between short-term memory , which holds information for brief periods, usually with the purpose of completing specific cognitive tasks, and long-term memory , which can store information indefinitely. Thinking involves the processing of information and the manipulation of concepts and ideas . It is a goal-oriented activity that often happens in response to experiences as

810-462: A bodily change causes mental discomfort or when a limb moves because of an intention . According to substance dualism , minds or souls exist as distinct substances that have mental states while material things are another type of substance. This view implies that, at least in principle, minds can exist without bodies. Property dualism is another view, saying that mind and matter are not distinct individuals but different properties that apply to

945-475: A calculator extend the mind's capacity to store and process information. The closely related view of enactivism holds that mental processes involve an interaction between organism and environment. The mind–body problem is the difficulty of providing a general explanation of the relationship between mind and body, for example, of the link between thoughts and brain processes. Despite their different characteristics, mind and body interact with each other, like when

1080-464: A complex neural network and cognitive processes emerge from their electrical and chemical interactions. The human brain is divided into regions that are associated with different functions. The main regions are the hindbrain , midbrain , and forebrain . The hindbrain and the midbrain are responsible for many biological functions associated with basic survival while higher mental functions, ranging from thoughts to motivation, are primarily localized in

1215-414: A complex physical environment through processes like behavioral flexibility, learning, and tool use. Other suggested mechanisms include the effects of a changed diet with energy-rich food and general benefits from an increased speed and efficiency of information processing. Besides the development of mind in general in the course of history, there is also the development of individual human minds . Some of

1350-406: A content that can be expressed by a declarative sentence . When a person believes that it is raining, they have the propositional attitude of belief towards the content "it is raining". Different types of propositional states are characterized by different attitudes towards their content. For instance, it is also possible to hope, fear, desire, or doubt that it is raining. A mental state or process

1485-400: A different form of malfunctioning. Anxiety disorders involve intense and persistent fear that is disproportionate to the actual threat and significantly impairs everyday life, like social phobias , which involve irrational fear of certain social situations. Anxiety disorders also include obsessive–compulsive disorder , for which the anxiety manifests in the form of intrusive thoughts that

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1620-496: A distinctive quality or virtue. These kami are celebrated regionally, and several miniature shrines ( hokora ) have been built in their honor. In many cases, people who once lived are thus revered; an example of this is Tenjin , who was Sugawara no Michizane (845–903 CE) in life. Within Shinto it is believed that the nature of life is sacred because the kami began human life. Yet people cannot perceive this divine nature, which

1755-553: A divine superior spirit within: the kami . Amatsukami and Kunitsukami are categories of kami in Japanese mythology . Amatsugami is a generic term for the gods in Takamagahara or those who descended from Tenson kōrin , while Kunitsugami is a generic term for the gods who appeared on the earth ( Ashihara no Nakatsukuni ). In Japanese mythology, the acceptance of the transfer of the land ( Ashihara no Nakatsukuni ) by

1890-482: A great variety of methods to study the mind. Experimental approaches set up a controlled situation, either in the laboratory or the field, in which they modify independent variables and measure their effects on dependent variables . This approach makes it possible to identify causal relations between the variables. For example, to determine whether people with similar interests (independent variable) are more likely to become friends (dependent variables), participants of

2025-672: A long evolutionary history starting with the development of the nervous system and the brain . While it is generally accepted today that mind is not exclusive to humans and various non-human animals have some form of mind, there is no consensus at which point exactly the mind emerged. The evolution of mind is usually explained in terms of natural selection : genetic variations responsible for new or improved mental capacities, like better perception or social dispositions, have an increased chance of being passed on to future generations if they are beneficial to survival and reproduction . Minimal forms of information processing are already found in

2160-435: A more abstract level that cannot be achieved by physics. According to functionalism , mental concepts do not describe the internal constitution of physical substances but functional roles within a system. One consequence of this view is that mind does not depend on brains but can also be realized by other systems that implement the corresponding functional roles, possibly also computers. The hard problem of consciousness

2295-578: A person actively remembers the fact that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris then this state is mental because it is part of consciousness; when the person does not think about it, this belief is still a mental state because the person could bring it to consciousness by thinking about it. This view denies the existence of a "deep unconsciousness", that is, unconscious mental states that cannot in principle become conscious. Another theory says that intentionality

2430-401: A problem, developing a plan to address it, implementing the plan, and assessing whether it worked. Thinking in the form of decision-making involves considering possible courses of action to assess which one is the most beneficial. As a symbolic process, thinking is deeply intertwined with language and some theorists hold that all thought happens through the medium of language . Imagination

2565-487: A reaction to particular external stimuli. This view implies that mental phenomena are not private internal states but are accessible to empirical observation like regular physical phenomena. Functionalism agrees that mental states do not depend on the exact internal constitution of the mind and characterizes them instead in regard to their functional role. Unlike behaviorism, this role is not limited to behavioral patterns but includes other factors as well. For example, part of

2700-429: A representation of the world and the objects within it. This complex process underlying perceptual experience is shaped by many factors, including the individual's past experiences , cultural background, beliefs, knowledge, and expectations. Memory is the mechanism of storing and retrieving information. Episodic memory handles information about specific past events in one's life and makes this information available in

2835-592: A subjective experience of the world and are capable of suffering and feeling joy. Some of the difficulties of assessing animal minds are also reflected in the topic of artificial minds, that is, the question of whether computer systems implementing artificial intelligence should be considered a form of mind. This idea is consistent with some theories of the nature of mind, such as functionalism and its idea that mental concepts describe functional roles, which are implemented by biological brains but could in principle also be implemented by artificial devices. The Turing test

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2970-471: A symbolic process aimed at making sense of them, organizing their information, and deciding how to respond. Logical reasoning is a form of thinking that starts from a set of premises and aims to arrive at a conclusion supported by these premises. This is the case when deducing that "Socrates is mortal" from the premises "Socrates is a man" and "all men are mortal". Problem-solving is a closely related process that consists of several steps, such as identifying

3105-457: A system justifying Japanese Imperialism where Japanese people in the colonies were seen as Amatsukami and natives were seen as Kunitsukami , however he was later censored as his position was considered too supportive of the rights of colonized peoples. One of the first recorded rituals we know of is Niiname-sai ( 新嘗祭 ) , the ceremony in which the Emperor offers newly harvested rice to

3240-585: A therapist to change patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. Psychoanalysis aims to help patients resolve conflicts between the conscious and the unconscious mind. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on conscious mental phenomena to identify and change irrational beliefs and negative thought patterns. Behavior therapy , a related approach, relies on classical conditioning to unlearn harmful behaviors. Humanistic therapies try to help people gain insight into their self-worth and empower them to resolve their problems. Drug therapies use medication to alter

3375-583: A visit to the dentist. Another feature commonly ascribed to mental states is that they are private, meaning that others do not have this kind of direct access to a person's mental state and have to infer it from other observations, like the pain behavior of the person with the toothache. Some philosophers claim that knowledge of some or all mental states is infallible , for instance, that a person cannot be mistaken about whether they are in pain. A related view states that all mental states are either conscious or accessible to consciousness. According to this view, when

3510-471: A wide variety of states, such as perception, thinking, fantasizing, dreaming, and altered states of consciousness . In the case of phenomenal consciousness, the awareness involves a direct and qualitative experience of mental phenomena, like the auditory experience of attending a concert. Access consciousness, by contrast, refers to an awareness of information that is accessible to other mental processes but not necessarily part of current experience. For example,

3645-408: Is physicalism , also referred to as materialism , which states that everything is physical. According to eliminative physicalism , there are no mental phenomena, meaning that things like beliefs and desires do not form part of reality. Reductive physicalists defend a less radical position: they say that mental states exist but can, at least in principle, be completely described by physics without

3780-533: Is rational if it is based on good reasons or follows the norms of rationality. For example, a belief is rational if it relies on strong supporting evidence and a decision is rational if it follows careful deliberation of all the relevant factors and outcomes. Mental states are irrational if they are not based on good reasons, such as beliefs caused by faulty reasoning, superstition , or cognitive biases , and decisions that give into temptations instead of following one's best judgment. Mental states that fall outside

3915-462: Is a central aspect of the mind–body problem: it is the challenge of explaining how physical states can give rise to conscious experience. Its main difficulty lies in the subjective and qualitative nature of consciousness, which is unlike typical physical processes. The hard problem of consciousness contrasts with the "easy problems" of explaining how certain aspects of consciousness function, such as perception, memory, or learning. Another approach to

4050-450: Is a creative process of internally generating mental images. Unlike perception, it does not directly depend on the stimulation of sensory organs. Similar to dreaming , these images are often derived from previous experiences but can include novel combinations and elements. Imagination happens during daydreaming and plays a key role in art and literature but can also be used to come up with novel solutions to real-world problems. Motivation

4185-453: Is a dispositional belief. By activating the belief to consciously think about it or use it in other cognitive processes, it becomes occurrent until it is no longer actively considered or used. The great majority of a person's beliefs are dispositional most of the time. Traditionally, the mind was subdivided into mental faculties understood as capacities to perform certain functions or bring about certain processes. An influential subdivision in

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4320-474: Is a rite of passage for five-year-old boys and three- or seven-year-old girls. It is a time for these young children to personally offer thanks for the kami's protection and to pray for continued health. Many other rites of passage are practiced by Shinto believers, and there are also many other festivals. The main reason for these ceremonies is so that Shinto followers can appease the kami in order to reach magokoro . Magokoro can only be received through

4455-513: Is a traditionally influential procedure to test artificial intelligence: a person exchanges messages with two parties, one of them a human and the other a computer. The computer passes the test if it is not possible to reliably tell which party is the human and which one is the computer. While there are computer programs today that may pass the Turing test, this alone is usually not accepted as conclusive proof of mindedness. For some aspects of mind, it

4590-497: Is acquired and information processed. The intellect is one mental capacity responsible for thought, reasoning, and understanding and is closely related to intelligence as the ability to acquire, understand, and apply knowledge. The brain is the physical organ responsible for most or all mental functions. The modern English word mind originates from the Old English word gemynd , meaning "memory". This term gave rise to

4725-427: Is an aspect of other mental processes in which mental resources like awareness are directed towards certain features of experience and away from others. This happens when a driver focuses on the traffic while ignoring billboards on the side of the road. Attention can be controlled voluntarily in the pursuit of specific goals but can also occur involuntarily when a strong stimulus captures a person's attention. Attention

4860-584: Is an internal state that propels individuals to initiate, continue, or terminate goal-directed behavior. It is responsible for the formation of intentions to perform actions and affects what goals someone pursues, how much effort they invest in the activity, and how long they engage in it. Motivation is affected by emotions, which are temporary experiences of positive or negative feelings like joy or anger. They are directed at and evaluate specific events, persons, or situations. They usually come together with certain physiological and behavioral responses. Attention

4995-412: Is aware of external and internal circumstances, and unconscious processes, which can influence an individual without intention or awareness. Traditionally, minds were often conceived as separate entities that can exist on their own but are more commonly understood as capacities of material brains in the contemporary discourse. The mind plays a central role in most aspects of human life but its exact nature

5130-421: Is commonly acknowledged today that animals have some form of mind, but it is controversial to which animals this applies and how their mind differs from the human mind. Different conceptions of the mind lead to different responses to this problem; when understood in a very wide sense as the capacity to process information, the mind is present in all forms of life, including insects, plants, and individual cells; on

5265-528: Is controversial whether computers can, in principle, implement them, such as desires, feelings, consciousness, and free will. This problem is often discussed through the contrast between weak and strong artificial intelligence. Weak or narrow artificial intelligence is limited to specific mental capacities or functions. It focuses on a particular task or a narrow set of tasks, like autonomous driving , speech recognition , or theorem proving . The goal of strong AI, also termed artificial general intelligence ,

5400-519: Is difficult to directly examine, manipulate, and measure it. Trying to circumvent this problem by investigating the brain comes with new challenges of its own, mainly because of the brain's complexity as a neural network consisting of billions of neurons, each with up to 10,000 links to other neurons. Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. It investigates conscious and unconscious mental phenomena, including perception, memory, feeling, thought, decision, intelligence , and personality . It

5535-420: Is disputed. Some characterizations focus on internal aspects, saying that the mind is private and transforms information. Others stress its relation to outward conduct, understanding mental phenomena as dispositions to engage in observable behavior. The mind–body problem is the challenge of explaining the relation between matter and mind. The dominant position today is physicalism , which says that everything

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5670-427: Is further interested in their outward manifestation in the form of observable behavioral patterns and how these patterns depend on external circumstances and are shaped by learning. Psychology is a wide discipline that includes many subfields. Cognitive psychology is interested in higher-order mental activities like thinking, problem-solving, reasoning, and concept formation. Biological psychology seeks to understand

5805-476: Is material, meaning that minds are certain aspects or features of some material objects. The evolutionary history of the mind is tied to the development of the nervous system , which led to the formation of brains. As brains became more complex, the number and capacity of mental functions increased with particular brain areas dedicated to specific mental functions. Individual human minds also develop as they learn from experience and pass through psychological stages in

5940-426: Is potentially observed and passed onto future generations. The second affirmation is to have a love of nature. Nature objects are worshipped as sacred because the kami inhabit them. Therefore, to be in contact with nature means to be in contact with the gods. The third affirmation is to maintain physical cleanliness. Followers of Shinto take baths, wash their hands, and rinse out their mouths often. The last affirmation

6075-409: Is relevant to learning, which is the ability of the mind to acquire new information and permanently modify its understanding and behavioral patterns. Individuals learn by undergoing experiences, which helps them adapt to the environment. An influential distinction is between conscious and unconscious mental processes. Consciousness is the awareness of external and internal circumstances. It encompasses

6210-563: Is sometimes unclear whether kami refers to a single or multiple entities. When a singular concept is needed, -kami ( 神 ) is used as a suffix . The reduplicated term generally used to refer to multiple kami is kamigami . While Shinto has no founder, no overarching doctrine, and no religious texts, the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters), written in 712 CE, and the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan), written in 720 CE, contain

6345-412: Is the mark of the mental. A state is intentional if it refers to or represents something. For example, if a person perceives a piano or thinks about it then the mental state is intentional because it refers to a piano. This view distinguishes between original and derivative intentionality. Mental states have original intentionality while some non-mental phenomena have derivative intentionality. For instance,

6480-483: Is the mythological figure Amaterasu -ōmikami, the sun goddess of the Shinto pantheon. Although these kami can be considered deities, they are not necessarily considered omnipotent or omniscient , and like the Greek Gods , they had flawed personalities and were quite capable of ignoble acts. In the myths of Amaterasu, for example, she could see the events of the human world, but had to use divination rituals to see

6615-440: Is the process of interpreting and organizing sensory information to become acquainted with the environment. This information is acquired through sense organs receptive to various types of physical stimuli , which correspond to different forms of perception, such as vision , hearing , touch , smell , and taste . The sensory information received this way is a form of raw data that is filtered and processed to actively construct

6750-470: Is the totality of psychological phenomena and capacities, encompassing consciousness , thought , perception , feeling , mood , motivation , behavior , memory , and learning . The term is sometimes used in a more narrow sense to refer only to higher or more abstract cognitive functions associated with reasoning and awareness . Minds were traditionally conceived as immaterial substances or independent entities and contrasted with matter and body . In

6885-528: Is to create a complete artificial person that has all the mental capacities of humans, including consciousness, emotion, and reason. It is controversial whether strong AI is possible; influential arguments against it include John Searle 's Chinese Room Argument and Hubert Dreyfus 's critique based on Heideggerian philosophy. Mental health is a state of mind characterized by internal equilibrium and well-being in which mental capacities function as they should. Some theorists emphasize positive features such as

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7020-497: Is to practice matsuri , which is the worship and honor given to the kami and ancestral spirits. Shinto followers also believe that the kami are the ones who can either grant blessings or curses to a person. Shinto believers desire to appease the evil kami to "stay on their good side", and also to please the good kami . In addition to practicing the four affirmations daily, Shinto believers also wear omamori to aid them in remaining pure and protected. Mamori are charms that keep

7155-587: The Engi-shiki ( 延喜式 , literally, Procedures of the Engi Era ) was promulgated in fifty volumes. This, the first formal codification of Shinto rites and norito (liturgies and prayers) to survive, became the basis for all subsequent Shinto liturgical practice and efforts. It listed all of the 2,861 Shinto shrines existing at the time, and the 3,131 official-recognized and enshrined kami . The number of kami has grown and far exceeded this figure through

7290-867: The Middle English words mind(e) , münd(e) , and mend(e) , resulting in a slow expansion of meaning to cover all mental capacities. The original meaning is preserved in expressions like call to mind and keep in mind . Cognates include the Old High German gimunt , the Gothic gamunds , the ancient Greek μένος , the Latin mens , and the Sanskrit manas . The mind encompasses many phenomena, including perception , memory , thought , imagination , motivation , emotion , attention , learning , and consciousness . Perception

7425-679: The Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, beings and the qualities that these beings express, and/or the spirits of venerated dead people. Many kami are considered the ancient ancestors of entire clans (some ancestors became kami upon their death if they were able to embody the values and virtues of kami in life). Traditionally, great leaders like the Emperor could be or became kami . In Shinto, kami are not separate from nature, but are of nature, possessing positive and negative, and good and evil characteristics. They are manifestations of musubi ( 結び ) ,

7560-472: The history of philosophy was between the faculties of intellect and will . The intellect encompasses mental phenomena aimed at understanding the world and determining what to believe or what is true; the will is concerned with practical matters and what is good, reflected in phenomena like desire, decision-making, and action. The exact number and nature of the mental faculties are disputed and more fine-grained subdivisions have been proposed, such as dividing

7695-568: The ichinomiya of the province. During the Kamakura and Muromachi periods , Katori Jingū was revered as a shrine for the military class and received many donations from Minamoto no Yoritomo and Ashikaga Takauji . It also earned income from its control of fishing rights in the Katori Sea and highway barriers in both Hitachi Province and Shimōsa. Under the Edo period Tokugawa shogunate ,

7830-483: The kami themselves, is forever changing in definition and scope. As the needs of the people have shifted, so too have the domains and roles of the various kami . Some examples of this are related to health, such as the kami of smallpox whose role was expanded to include all contagious diseases, or the kami of boils and growths who has also come to preside over cancers and cancer treatments . In ancient animistic Japanese belief, kami were understood as simply

7965-541: The kami to secure their blessing for a bountiful harvest. A yearly festival, Niiname-sai, is also performed when a new Emperor comes to power , in which case it is called Daijō-sai ( 大嘗祭 ) . In the ceremony, the Emperor offers crops from the new harvest to the kami , including rice, fish, fruits, soup, and stew. The Emperor first feasts with the deities, then the guests. The feast could go on for some time; for example, Emperor Shōwa 's feast spanned two days. Visitors to

8100-456: The kami to their presence and desire to commune with them. During the last bow, the supplicant offers words of gratitude and praise to the kami ; if they are offering a prayer for aid they will also state their name and address. After the prayer and/or worship they repeat the two bows, two claps and a final bow in conclusion. Shinto practitioners also worship at home. This is done at a kamidana (household shrine), on which an ofuda with

8235-437: The kami . Ceremonies and festivals are long and complex because they need to be perfect to satisfy the kami . If the kami are not pleased with these ceremonies, they will not grant a Shinto believer magokoro . Mind The mind is that which thinks , feels , perceives , imagines , remembers , and wills . The totality of mental phenomena, it includes both conscious processes, through which an individual

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8370-515: The sun , mountains , rivers , trees , and rocks ; some animals ; and ancestral spirits . Included within the designation of ancestral spirits are spirits of the ancestors of the Imperial House of Japan , but also ancestors of noble families as well as the spirits of the ancestors of all people, which when they died were believed to be the guardians of their descendants. There are other spirits designated as kami as well. For example,

8505-427: The visual and the auditory areas . A central function of the hippocampus is the formation and retrieval of long-term memories. It belongs to the limbic system , which plays a key role in the regulation of emotions through the amygdala . The motor cortex is responsible for planning, executing, and controlling voluntary movements. Broca's area is a separate region dedicated to speech production . The activity of

8640-457: The "mark of the mental", that is, the criteria that distinguish mental from non-mental phenomena. Epistemic criteria say that the unique feature of mental states is how people know about them. For example, if a person has a toothache, they have direct or non-inferential knowledge that they are in pain. But they do not have this kind of knowledge of the physical causes of the pain and may have to consult external evidence through visual inspection or

8775-402: The "wilderness". Social and political strife have played a key role in the development of new sorts of kami , specifically the goryō-shin (the sacred spirit kami ). Goryō are the vengeful spirits of the dead whose lives were cut short, but they were calmed by the devotion of Shinto followers and are now believed to punish those who do not honor the kami . The pantheon of kami , like

8910-704: The Chronicles, and many of them have not survived. The Chronicles of Japan cites certain passages (e.g., "Ichi Sho Saying" and "Aru Hon Yun" in most volumes of the Nihon Shoki), but the original recorded documents have been lost in later generations. Tsu is a case particle in Old Japanese , meaning "god of heaven" or "god of the country" in modern Japanese. Sometimes written "Amatsugami" or "Kunitsugami. Amatsugami are also called Tenjin, and Kunitsukami are called Chigi ( 地祇 ) . Some people believe that

9045-695: The Kunitsugami to the Amatsu deities led by Ninigi is described as Kuni Yuzuri . It is thought that the deity worshipped by the people of the region ( Emishi , Hayato , etc.) who were pacified by the Yamato Kingship became the Kunitsugami, and the deity worshipped by the imperial family and powerful clans of the Yamato Kingship became the Amatsukami. Many of the original traditions of the Kunitsugami were altered when they were incorporated into

9180-419: The abilities of a person to realize their potential, express and modulate emotions, cope with adverse life situations, and fulfill their social role. Negative definitions, by contrast, see mental health as the absence of mental illness in the form of mental disorders . Mental disorders are abnormal patterns of thought, emotion, or behavior that deviate not only from how a mental capacity works on average but from

9315-553: The affairs of humans. The ancient animistic spirituality of Japan was the beginning of modern Shinto, which became a formal spiritual institution later, in an effort to preserve the traditional beliefs from the encroachment of imported religious ideas. As a result, the nature of what can be called kami is very general and encompasses many different concepts and phenomena. Some of the objects or phenomena designated as kami are qualities of growth, fertility, and production; natural phenomena like wind and thunder ; natural objects like

9450-573: The arts of maintaining the connection between the kami and the people. In addition to these festivals, ceremonies marking rites of passage are also performed within the shrines. Two such ceremonies are the birth of a child and the Shichi-Go-San. When a child is born they are brought to a shrine so that they can be initiated as a new believer and the kami can bless them and their future life. The Shichi-Go-San (the Seven-Five-Three)

9585-429: The brain chemistry involved in the disorder through substances like antidepressants , antipsychotics , mood stabilizers , and anxiolytics . Various fields of inquiry study the mind, including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and cognitive science. They differ from each other in the aspects of mind they investigate and the methods they employ in the process. The study of the mind poses various problems since it

9720-436: The cognitive level, maladaptive beliefs and patterns of thought can be responsible. Environmental factors involve cultural influences and social events that may trigger the onset of a disorder. There are various approaches to treating mental disorders, and the most suitable treatment usually depends on the type of disorder, its cause, and the individual's overall condition. Psychotherapeutic methods use personal interaction with

9855-484: The concept of mental modules is normally used to provide a more limited explanation restricted to certain low-level cognitive processes without trying to explain how they are integrated into higher-level processes such as conscious reasoning. Many low-level cognitive processes responsible for visual perception have this automatic and unconscious nature. In the case of visual illusions like the Müller-Lyer illusion ,

9990-483: The consumption of psychoactive drugs , like caffeine, antidepressants , alcohol, and psychedelics , temporarily affects brain chemistry with diverse effects on the mind, ranging from increased attention to mood changes, impaired cognitive functions, and hallucinations . Long-term changes to the brain in the form of neurodegenerative diseases and brain injuries can lead to permanent alterations in mental functions. Alzheimer's disease in its first stage deteriorates

10125-438: The contemporary discourse, they are more commonly seen as features of other entities and are often understood as capacities of material brains. The precise definition of mind is disputed and while it is generally accepted that some non-human animals also have mind, there is no agreement on where exactly the boundary lies. Despite these disputes, there is wide agreement that mind plays a central role in most aspects of human life as

10260-431: The development of mind before birth, such as nutrition, maternal stress, and exposure to harmful substances like alcohol during pregnancy. Early childhood is marked by rapid developments as infants learn voluntary control over their bodies and interact with their environment on a basic level. Typically after about one year, this covers abilities like walking, recognizing familiar faces, and producing individual words. On

10395-419: The different areas is additionally influenced by neurotransmitters , which are signaling molecules that enhance or inhibit different types of neural communication. For example, dopamine influences motivation and pleasure while serotonin affects mood and appetite. The close interrelation of brain processes and the mind is seen by the effect that physical changes of the brain have on the mind. For instance,

10530-408: The divine forces of nature. Worshippers in ancient Japan revered kami of nature which exhibited a particular beauty and power such as ghosts , the ocean, the sun, waterfalls , mountains, boulders, animals, trees, grasses, rice paddies, thunder , echoes , foxes and fox spirits , and Asian dragons . They strongly believed the spirits or resident kami deserved respect. In 927 CE,

10665-460: The domain of rational evaluation are arational rather than irrational. There is controversy regarding which mental phenomena lie outside this domain; suggested examples include sensory impressions, feelings, desires, and involuntary responses. Another contrast is between dispositional and occurrent mental states. A dispositional state is a power that is not exercised. If a person believes that cats have whiskers but does not think about this fact, it

10800-489: The earliest forms of life 4 to 3.5 billion years ago, like the abilities of bacteria and eukaryotic unicellular organisms to sense the environment, store this information, and react to it. Nerve cells emerged with the development of multicellular organisms more than 600 million years ago as a way to process and transmit information. About 600 to 550 million years ago, an evolutionary bifurcation happened into radially symmetric organisms with ring-shaped nervous systems or

10935-502: The earliest record of Japanese creation myths. The Kojiki also includes descriptions of various kami . In the ancient traditions there were five defining characteristics of kami : Kami are an ever-changing concept, but their presence in Japanese life has remained constant. The kami's earliest roles were as earth-based spirits, assisting the early hunter-gatherer groups in their daily lives. They were worshipped as gods of

11070-464: The earth (mountains) and sea. As the cultivation of rice became increasingly important and predominant in Japan, the kami's identity shifted to more sustaining roles that were directly involved in the growth of crops; roles such as rain, earth, and rice. This relationship between early Japanese people and the kami was manifested in rituals and ceremonies meant to entreat the kami to grow and protect

11205-445: The emotional and social levels, they develop attachments with their primary caretakers and express emotions ranging from joy to anger, fear, and surprise. An influential theory by Jean Piaget divides the cognitive development of children into four stages. The sensorimotor stage from birth until two years is concerned with sensory impressions and motor activities while learning that objects remain in existence even when not observed. In

11340-406: The environment. According to this view, mental states and their contents are at least partially determined by external circumstances. For example, some forms of content externalism hold that it can depend on external circumstances whether a belief refers to one object or another. The extended mind thesis states that external circumstances not only affect the mind but are part of it, like a diary or

11475-420: The evil kami from striking a human with sickness or causing disaster to befall them. The kami are both worshipped and respected within the religion of Shinto. The goal of life to Shinto believers is to obtain magokoro , a pure sincere heart, which can only be granted by the kami . As a result, Shinto followers are taught that humankind should venerate both the living and the nonliving, because both possess

11610-423: The evolution of vertebrates, their brains tended to grow and the specialization of the different brain areas tended to increase. These developments are closely related to changes in limb structures, sense organs, and living conditions with a close correspondence between the size of a brain area and the importance of its function to the organism. An important step in the evolution of mammals about 200 million years ago

11745-472: The evolutionary processes responsible for human intelligence have been proposed. The social intelligence hypothesis says that the evolution of the human mind was triggered by the increased importance of social life and its emphasis on mental abilities associated with empathy , knowledge transfer , and meta-cognition . According to the ecological intelligence hypothesis, the main value of the increased mental capacities comes from their advantages in dealing with

11880-480: The following generations as there are over 2,446,000 individual kami enshrined in Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine alone. Kami are the central objects of worship for the Shinto belief. The best English translation of kami is 'spirits', but this is an over-simplification of a complex concept - kami can be elements of the landscape or forces of nature. Kami are believed to have influence over the forces of nature and over

12015-404: The forebrain. The primary operation of many of the main mental phenomena is located in specific areas of the forebrain. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functions , such as planning, decision-making, problem-solving, and working memory. The role of the sensory cortex is to process and interpret sensory information, with different subareas dedicated to different senses, like

12150-423: The functional role of pain is given by its relation to bodily injury and its tendency to cause behavioral patterns like moaning and other mental states, like a desire to stop the pain. Computationalism , a similar theory prominent in cognitive science, defines minds in terms of cognitions and computations as information processors. Theories under the umbrella of externalism emphasize the mind's dependency on

12285-406: The future. There are considered to be three main variations of kami : Amatsukami ( 天津神 , the heavenly deities) , Kunitsukami ( 国津神 , the gods of the earthly realm) , and ya-o-yorozu no kami ( 八百万の神 , countless kami) . (" 八百万 " literally means eight million, but idiomatically it expresses "uncountably many" and "all-around"—like many East Asian cultures, the Japanese often use

12420-418: The gods of heaven and earth" and conveys a sense of reverence and commitment. The origins of the term can be traced back to ancient Chinese classical texts, where the expression " 天地 " (Tenchi) and " 神明 " (Shinmei) were often used together to refer to the gods of heaven and earth, or to the gods and the universe as a whole. However, there are also instances where the expression was used to refer specifically to

12555-407: The gods of heaven and earth. In Japan, the term 天地神明 has been in use for centuries and is often associated with the image of the numerous gods and deities that have been worshipped in Japanese folklore and mythology. Susanoo-no-Mikoto , who was cast out of Takamagahara, and his descendants, such as Ōkuninushi , are considered to be Kunitsugami. Ogasawara Shozo  [ ja ] proposed

12690-520: The guardian spirits of the land, occupations, and skills; spirits of Japanese heroes, men of outstanding deeds or virtues, and those who have contributed to civilization, culture, and human welfare; those who have died for the state or the community; and the pitiable dead. Not only spirits superior to man can be considered kami ; spirits that are considered pitiable or weak have also been considered kami in Shinto. The concept of kami has been changed and refined since ancient times, although anything that

12825-543: The harvest. These rituals also became a symbol of power and strength for the early Emperors. There is a strong tradition of myth-histories in the Shinto faith; one such myth details the appearance of the first emperor, grandson of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu . In this myth, when Amaterasu sent her grandson to earth to rule, she gave him five rice grains, which had been grown in the fields of heaven ( Takamagahara ). This rice made it possible for him to transform

12960-643: The hippocampus, reducing the ability to form new memories and recall existing ones. An often-cited case of the effects of brain injury is Phineas Gage , whose prefrontal cortex was severely damaged during a work accident when an iron rod pierced through his skull and brain. Gage survived the accident but his personality and social attitude changed significantly as he became more impulsive, irritable, and anti-social while showing little regard for social conventions and an impaired ability to plan and make rational decisions. Not all these changes were permanent and Gage managed to recover and adapt in some areas. The mind has

13095-482: The increased human mental capacities as a matter of degree rather than kind. Central considerations for this position are the shared evolutionary origin, organic similarities on the level of brain and nervous system, and observable behavior, ranging from problem-solving skills, animal communication , and reactions to and expressions of pain and pleasure. Of particular importance are the questions of consciousness and sentience , that is, to what extent non-human animals have

13230-500: The individual changes vary from person to person as a form of learning from experience, like forming specific memories or acquiring particular behavioral patterns. Others are more universal developments as psychological stages that all or most humans go through as they pass through early childhood , adolescence , adulthood , and old age . These developments cover various areas, including intellectual, sensorimotor, linguistic, emotional, social, and moral developments. Some factors affect

13365-450: The individual. Psychoanalytic theory studies symptoms caused by this process and therapeutic methods to avoid them by making the repressed thoughts accessible to conscious awareness. Mental states are often divided into sensory and propositional states. Sensory states are experiences of sensory qualities, often referred to as qualia , like colors, sounds, smells, pains, itches, and hunger. Propositional states involve an attitude towards

13500-492: The information stored in a memory may be accessible when drawing conclusions or guiding actions even when the person is not explicitly thinking about it. Unconscious or nonconscious mental processes operate without the individual's awareness but can still influence mental phenomena on the level of thought, feeling, and action. Some theorists distinguish between preconscious, subconscious, and unconscious states depending on their accessibility to conscious awareness. When applied to

13635-469: The intellect into the faculties of understanding and judgment or adding sensibility as an additional faculty responsible for sensory impressions. In contrast to the traditional view, more recent approaches analyze the mind in terms of mental modules rather than faculties. A mental module is an inborn system of the brain that automatically performs a particular function within a specific domain without conscious awareness or effort. In contrast to faculties,

13770-408: The interconnecting energy of the universe, and are considered exemplary of what humanity should strive towards. Kami are believed to be "hidden" from this world, and inhabit a complementary existence that mirrors our own: shinkai ( 神界 , "the world of the kami") . To be in harmony with the awe-inspiring aspects of nature is to be conscious of kannagara no michi ( 随神の道 or 惟神の道 , "the way of

13905-497: The kami created, on their own; therefore, magokoro ( 真心 ) , or purification, is necessary in order to see the divine nature. This purification can only be granted by the kami . In order to please the kami and earn magokoro , Shinto followers are taught to uphold the four affirmations of Shinto. The first affirmation is to hold fast to tradition and the family. Family is seen as the main mechanism by which traditions are preserved. For instance, in marriage or birth, tradition

14040-548: The kami") . Kami is the Japanese word for a deity, divinity, or spirit. It has been used to describe mind , God, Supreme Being, one of the Shinto deities, an effigy , a principle , and anything that is worshipped. Although deity is the common interpretation of kami , some Shinto scholars argue that such a translation can cause a misunderstanding of the term. Some etymological suggestions are: Because Japanese does not normally distinguish grammatical number in nouns (most do not have singular and plural forms), it

14175-413: The mind include psychology , neuroscience , cognitive science , and philosophy . They tend to focus on different aspects of the mind and employ different methods of investigation, ranging from empirical observation and neuroimaging to conceptual analysis and thought experiments . The mind is relevant to many other fields, including epistemology , anthropology , religion, and education. The mind

14310-403: The minds of non-human animals are fundamentally different from human minds and often point to higher mental faculties, like thinking, reasoning, and decision-making based on beliefs and desires. This outlook is reflected in the traditionally influential position of defining humans as " rational animals " as opposed to all other animals. Continuity views, by contrast, emphasize similarities and see

14445-553: The motives of others without rational basis. Psychotic disorders are among the most severe mental illnesses and involve a distorted relation to reality in the form of hallucinations and delusions , as seen in schizophrenia . Other disorders include dissociative disorders and eating disorders . The biopsychosocial model identifies three types of causes of mental disorders: biological, cognitive, and environmental factors. Biological factors include bodily causes, in particular neurological influences and genetic predispositions. On

14580-408: The name of their protector or ancestral kami is positioned. Their protector kami is determined by their or their ancestors' relationship to the kami . Ascetic practices, shrine rituals and ceremonies, and Japanese festivals are the most public ways that Shinto devotees celebrate and offer adoration for the kami . Kami are celebrated during their distinct festivals that usually take place at

14715-531: The names "Tenjin Chigi ( 天神地祇 ) " and "Jingi ( 神祇 ) " are derived from the Chinese classics. The different theory that the concept is completely different and different from the Japanese one has been presented. Another similar concept is Tenchi Shinmei ( 天地神明 ) . 天地神明 (Tenchi-Shinmei) is a Japanese four-character idiom that refers to the gods of heaven and earth. It is used in expressions such as "I swear by

14850-663: The nearby Nakatomi clan, the progenitors of the Fujiwara clan at what is now Kashima Jingū . As the Hitachi-koku Fudoki dates from the early 7th century, the shrine must certainly have been founded earlier than this. The shrine appears in all of the Rikkokushi official national histories, which cover events to 887. The shrine was regarded as a tutelary shrine of the Fujiwara clan, and a bunrei of Futsunushi

14985-432: The need for special sciences like psychology. For example, behaviorists aim to analyze mental concepts in terms of observable behavior without resorting to internal mental states. Type identity theory also belongs to reductive physicalism and says that mental states are the same as brain states. While non-reductive physicalists agree that everything is physical, they say that mental concepts describe physical reality on

15120-405: The norm of how it should work while usually causing some form of distress . The content of those norms is controversial and there are differences from culture to culture; for example, homosexuality was historically considered a mental disorder by medical professionals, a view which only changed in the second half of 20th century. There is a great variety of mental disorders, each associated with

15255-426: The number 8, representing the cardinal and ordinal directions, to symbolize ubiquity.) These classifications of kami are not considered strictly divided, due to the fluid and shifting nature of kami , but are instead held as guidelines for grouping them. The ancestors of a particular family can also be worshipped as kami . In this sense, these kami are worshipped not because of their godly powers, but because of

15390-408: The other side of the spectrum are views that deny the existence of mentality in most or all non-human animals based on the idea that they lack key mental capacities, like abstract rationality and symbolic language. The status of animal minds is highly relevant to the field of ethics since it affects the treatment of animals, including the topic of animal rights . Discontinuity views state that

15525-558: The overall state of a person rather than specific processes, the term unconscious implies that the person lacks any awareness of their environment and themselves, like during a coma . The unconscious mind plays a central role in psychoanalysis as the part of the mind that contains thoughts, memories, and desires not accessible to conscious introspection. According to Sigmund Freud , the psychological mechanism of repression keeps disturbing phenomena, like unacceptable sexual and aggressive impulses, from entering consciousness to protect

15660-582: The person tries to alleviate by following compulsive rituals . Mood disorders cause intensive moods or mood swings that are inconsistent with the external circumstances and can last for extensive periods. For instance, people affected by bipolar disorder experience extreme mood swings between manic states of euphoria and depressive states of hopelessness. Personality disorders are characterized by enduring patterns of maladaptive behavior that significantly impair regular life, like paranoid personality disorder , which leads people to be deeply suspicious of

15795-518: The preoperational stage until seven years, children learn to interpret and use symbols in an intuitive manner. They start employing logical reasoning to physical objects in the concrete operational stage until eleven years and extend this capacity in the following formal operational stage to abstract ideas as well as probabilities and possibilities. Other important processes shaping the mind in this period are socialization and enculturation , at first through primary caretakers and later through peers and

15930-435: The present. When a person remembers what they had for dinner yesterday, they employ episodic memory. Semantic memory handles general knowledge about the world that is not tied to any specific episodes. When a person recalls that the capital of Japan is Tokyo, they usually access this general information without recalling the specific instance when they learned it. Procedural memory is memory of how to do things, such as riding

16065-525: The priests to learn them. The priesthood was traditionally hereditary. Some shrines have drawn their priests from the same families for over a hundred generations. It is not uncommon for the clergy to be female priestesses. The priests ( kannushi ) may be assisted by miko , young unmarried women acting as shrine maidens. Neither priests nor priestesses live as ascetics; in fact, it is common for them to be married, and they are not traditionally expected to meditate. Rather, they are considered specialists in

16200-456: The process of aging. Some people are affected by mental disorders , for which certain mental capacities do not function as they should. It is widely accepted that non-human animals have some form of mind, but it is controversial to which animals this applies. The topic of artificial minds poses similar challenges, with theorists discussing the possibility and consequences of creating them using computers. The main fields of inquiry studying

16335-456: The relation between mind and matter uses empirical observation to study how the brain works and which brain areas and processes are associated with specific mental phenomena. The brain is the central organ of the nervous system and is present in all vertebrates and the majority of invertebrates . The human brain is of particular complexity and consists of about 86 billion neurons , which communicate with one another via synapses . They form

16470-513: The same individual. Monist views, by contrast, state that reality is made up of only one kind. According to idealists , everything is mental. They understand material things as mental constructs, for example, as ideas or perceptions. According to neutral monists , the world is at its most fundamental level neither physical nor mental but neutral. They see physical and mental concepts as convenient but superficial ways to describe reality. The monist view most influential in contemporary philosophy

16605-418: The same time seeking closeness and conformity with friends and peers. Further developments in this period include improvements to the reasoning ability and the formation of a principled moral viewpoint. The mind also changes during adulthood but in a less rapid and pronounced manner. Reasoning and problem-solving skills improve during early and middle adulthood. Some people experience the mid-life transition as

16740-460: The same. Some religions understand the soul as an independent entity that constitutes the immaterial essence of human beings, is of divine origin, survives bodily death, and is immortal . The word spirit has various additional meanings not directly associated with mind, such as a vital principle animating living beings or a supernatural being inhabiting objects or places. Cognition encompasses certain types of mental processes in which knowledge

16875-406: The schooling system. Psychological changes during adolescence are provoked both by physiological changes and being confronted with a different social situation and new expectations from others. An important factor in this period is change to the self-concept , which can take the form of an identity crisis . This process often involves developing individuality and independence from parents while at

17010-469: The seat of consciousness, emotions, thoughts, and sense of personal identity. Various fields of inquiry study the mind; the main ones include psychology , cognitive science , neuroscience , and philosophy . The words psyche and mentality are usually used as synonyms of mind . They are often employed in overlapping ways with the terms soul , spirit , cognition , intellect , intelligence , and brain but their meanings are not exactly

17145-596: The shrine was rebuilt in 1607, and again in 1700. Many of the structures in the present shrine date from this 1700 rebuilding. During the Meiji period era of State Shinto , the shrine was rated as a Imperial shrine, 1st rank ( 官幣大社 , Kanpei Taisha ) under the Modern system of ranked Shinto Shrines Kami Kami ( Japanese : 神 , [kaꜜmi] ) are the deities , divinities , spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena that are venerated in

17280-517: The shrines dedicated to their worship. Many festivals involve believers, who are usually intoxicated, parading, sometimes running, toward the shrine while carrying mikoshi (portable shrines) as the community gathers for the festival ceremony. Yamamoto Guji, the high priest at the Tsubaki Grand Shrine , explains that this practice honors the kami because "it is in the festival, the matsuri, the greatest celebration of life can be seen in

17415-586: The underlying mechanisms on the physiological level and how they depend on genetic transmission and the environment. Developmental psychology studies the development of the mind from childhood to old age while social psychology examines the influence of social contexts on mind and behavior. Personality psychology investigates personality, exploring how characteristic patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior develop and vary among individuals. Further subfields include comparative , clinical , educational , occupational , and neuropsychology . Psychologists use

17550-434: The underlying processes continue their operation and the illusion persists even after a person has become aware of the illusion, indicating the mechanical and involuntary nature of the process. Other examples of mental modules concern cognitive processes responsible for language processing and facial recognition . Theories of the nature of mind aim to determine what all mental states have in common. They seek to discover

17685-471: The word piano and a picture of a piano are intentional in a derivative sense: they do not directly refer to a piano but if a person looks at them, they may evoke in this person a mental state that refers to a piano. Philosophers who disagree that all mental states are intentional cite examples such as itches, tickles, and pains as possible exceptions. According to behaviorism , mental states are dispositions to engage in certain publicly observable behavior as

17820-540: The world of Shinto and it is the people of the community who attend festivals as groups, as a whole village who are seeking to unlock the human potential as children of kami". During the New Year Festival, families purify and clean their houses in preparation for the upcoming year. Offerings are also made to the ancestors so that they will bless the family in the future year. Shinto ceremonies are so long and complex that in some shrines it can take ten years for

17955-626: Was brought from Katori to be enshrined in the second sanctuary of Kasuga Taisha when that shrine was founded in Nara . In the Heian period per the Engishiki (written in 927), Katori was listed as a myōjin taisha ( 名神大 ) and was one of only three shrines (alongside Ise Jingū and Kashima Jingū) to be given the higher-level designation of Jingū . In the Heian period, the shrine came to be regarded as

18090-564: Was considered to be kami by ancient people will still be considered kami in modern Shinto . Even within modern Shinto, there are no clearly defined criteria for what should or should not be worshipped as kami. The difference between modern Shinto and the ancient animistic religions is mainly a refinement of the kami -concept, rather than a difference in definitions. Although the ancient designations are still adhered to, in modern Shinto many priests also consider kami to be anthropomorphic spirits, with nobility and authority. One such example

18225-418: Was the development of the neocortex , which is responsible for many higher-order brain functions. The size of the brain relative to the body further increased with the development of primates , like monkeys, about 65 million years ago and later with the emergence of the first hominins about 7–5 million years ago. Anatomically modern humans appeared about 300,000 to 200,000 years ago. Various theories of

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