Hey there:)

To start off I believe that the word "mind" truly doesn't define anything and is rather a vague term (as you already mentioned) to describe the psyche and all of its other components.
The mind is a construct of the brain. The mind refers to the connection of neurons and synapses that make up the brain and enables you to generate that "mind". Therefore, any trauma or stimulus you receive will be translated by the brain and thus affect the brain. Scientists have yet to still understand how the brain is capable of doing so, but from an evolutionary perspective, we know that humans have the highest degree of consciousness that allows them to think about these things. If you had a trauma it demonstrates that you were aware of that situation and because of that perception/understanding, you "allowed" yourself to experience that trauma. If you were not able to interpret that situation properly, your brain would have not been able to translate that information and would have not created a trauma. (Unless the trauma you are talking about is inflicted by a physical force). Our brain can be roughly divided into three areas that serve different functions: the brain stem (automatic functions: breathing or digestion), the cerebellum (coordination and balance), lastly the cerebrum (memory, problem-solving, thinking). Each of these areas has evolved and been "incorporated" into the human brain. The cerebrum being the "latest" region to evolve and exist, is the region that makes us so different from other species. It allows us to generate consciousness or as you call it the mind. So the idea that the brain and mind can be separated from each other is incorrect as the mind is created by the brain and is, therefore, a byproduct of it.
If there was any existing trauma the evidence would be visible in the brain. Although identifying what specific region is causing that would be much more difficult.

Hope this helps!:)

I've just been watching a story about Martin Pistorius (who suffered locked-in syndrome) and I think our science cannot distinguish between the mind and brain though it is clear (as with Martin Pistorius) that they are quite distinct even though they interconnect in their functionality. With Martin Pistorius, the doctors thought he had lost brain-function (in terms of being conscious/aware) but it turns out they just couldn't recognize it with the current instruments and procedures. So, perhaps, we should not be too rushed to dismiss the possibility of the mind functioning beside the brain and not necessarily dependent upon it.

The mind is a construct of the brain. — Llum

Hmmm...

http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Mysteries-of-the-Mind/Living-without-a-Brain.html

"Where is trauma located?"

That's somewhat like asking, "Where is the piccolo's middle "C" in the 4th measure located within the MP3 file"? It's a category error.

A mind is existentially dependent upon a brain, amongst other things...

Where is trauma located? Does it lies in the brain which affects the mind or does it lies in the mind which affects the brain? — WhiteDreams

As in psychological trauma? It occurs in the brain. The mind is identical to the brain, namely, the aspect of the brain that is aware or conscious (conventionally, "mind" is synonymous with "consciousness"). I believe that trauma like any (or most?) psychological experience involves both nonconscious and conscious brain activity.

If trauma lies in the brain, and hypothetically, the mind can be a tangible object which can be transferred to a different brain, will the scar of trauma still be there together with the mind? — WhiteDreams

If that were possible, then the rewiring might affect how the trauma is re-experienced, if it's re-experienced at all.

If it is so, vice versa, then if the tangible mind is transferred to a traumatize brain, say, a brain with PTSD, will the mind acquire PTSD too? — WhiteDreams

Same as above.

The analogy is a computer, which is composed of hardware and software. If the software has a bug, this bug will appear even if we change computers. If it is a hardware issue, the bug will appear in any software added to the computer. A bad sound card will cause any software that uses these resources to have an issue. A virus added to the software can cause any computer to act like there is a problem.

The brain is unique in that hardware and software are merged into firmware. There is a mind over matter and matter over mind affects via the firmware.

If I stress myself out over small things; software issue, this can cause changes in the body that can impact health. It can cause the habitual release of certain neurotransmitter combo's and adrenaline that can start to impact the brain hardware. Or a brain tumor can cause pressures in the brain that start to impact how our software outputs.

Conscious evolution, in the classic sense, can be induced via software changes that can impact the hardware of the brain. For example, the strategy of love your enemy and faith is designed to induce the release of certain neurotransmitter combinations, that help to spatially integrate the memory and software. When you are in love, everything seems connected and nice. This hardware matrix allows room for software updates that can increase the hardware set point.

Many of the ancients were brain IT specialists skilled in the software side of the firmware. Witch doctors use software side manipulations hoping to impact software and hardware problems. Modern doctors are more hardware side since this is easier to observe and quantify, scientifically.

I believe that the word "mind" truly doesn't define anything and is rather a vague term — Llum

I do not find "mind" in the least "vague." "Mind" names our capacity to know and to make decisions. Knowing is being aware of present intelligibility -- typically neurally encoded contents. Deciding is committing to one of a number if mutually incompatible alternatives.

The mind is a construct of the brain. — Llum

Thank you for your faith claim. The mind certainly involves the brain as brain trauma affects out ability to perform neural processing, and hence the contents presented to awareness. However there are no rational grounds for thinking that the brain alone explains what we experience as mind. As there is a vast amount of neural processing that we are unaware of, it is clear that awareness is not a concomitant of neural processing. To know, we need not only neurally encoded and processed contents, but awareness of those contents. Despite almost 3,000 years of naturalist speculation, we have no viable model for how physics can produce awareness -- and there are sound reasons for this.

from an evolutionary perspective, we know that humans have the highest degree of consciousness that allows them to think about these things. — Llum

No, we don't. Evolution might be able to explain superior data processing, but it has absolutely nothing to say about consciousness in the sense of subjective awareness. Further, as far as I can tell conscious in this sense has no "degrees." Either we are aware of some contents, or we are not. We can be aware of more or fewer contents, but that is not a "degree of awareness."

So the idea that the brain and mind can be separated from each other is incorrect — Llum

I agree. Inseparability does not, however, mean that they identical.

depends where our minds are stored as to if or not any psychological trauma would transfer. personally, if i were to experience some damage and have need to transfer to a new cranium, i'm covered. i do automatic back-ups to The Cloud.

The brain can be investigated, from the outside, by science in the third person. The mind, on the other hand, has to be investigated, from the inside, in the first person. If I am having a tooth ache, this will show up for outside observation, as brain activity and behavior changes. It will also show up in my own mind's eye through my being conscious of it through the experience of pain in my mouth. These two things are connected, but each is observed differently.

Neither the first person or third person observation can get the full pictureall by itself. If you never had a toothache, third person data would never be enough for the full affect. While a scientist with an induced toothache may be too distracted, internally, to analyze the external data. Scientific investigation in the first person requires the ability to self observe even under internally distracting circumstances.

Observing the brain from the outside satisfies the philosophy of science, which requires others being able to reproduce and verify your results. Observation of the mind, in the first person; from the inside, violates the philosophy of science, as it is currently defined. This is not easy to verify. This is the real divide; philosophical. In the tooth ache example, pain is subjective or may be different for different people, so what is the standard we would all use?

As another example, if you had a dream and were conscious enough to remember all the details of the dream, this data is not something we can prove, scientifically, since nobody else can dream our dream and there is no machine to do it for the group. From the outside we can monitor brain activity, know one is dreaming, and even record this, so others can see the same graphs and diagrams for dream verification. But the conscious activity connected to the personal experience of the dream is unique to each person and not subject to third person verification.

The philosophy of science factors out the first person experiences needed to investigate the mind. The current philosophy only allows that which others can also see. Psychology is called a soft science because much of its data cannot be verified, even if true. It requires empathy, faith and a working knowledge of lots of similar data, to show this is within the realm of possibilities. From that trends appear.

If you took first person soft science, to the next level, and used your consciousness to explore your own unconscious mind, to figure out how the mind's operating system works, even perfect data collection cannot be verified under the terms of the philosophy of science. The mind is segregated based on a philosophy. The philosophy of science was designed to segregate the mind, so only what was verifiable by all would be studied. The mind is unique to each and has a subjective element. The mind was left as the final frontier and its investigation would require an amendment to the philosophy of science, so it could be called science and not lump as subjective metaphysics.

Neither the first person or third person observation can get the full pictureall by itself. — wellwisher

i think they need a second person opinion

If I stress myself out over small things; software issue, this can cause changes in the body that can impact health. It can cause the habitual release of certain neurotransmitter combo's and adrenaline that can start to impact the brain hardware. Or a brain tumor can cause pressures in the brain that start to impact how our software outputs. — wellwisher

If hardware cannot accept and operate software then it is dead.

Is it not?

i think there are two types of trauma .... the physical one , where you hit your head on something and now you have a physical injury that may affect motor skill functions, cognitive functions ... no clue , I am not a doctor . then there is the trauma that is the struggle of humans ... the trauma of what some may call "bad" experiences from the past .

an event that took place in the past which involved some type of violence or situation that created a great deal of fear in the individual will be the trauma i will attempt to give an opinion about . Where is that trauma located ?? it is in your mind , in the tool controlled by your brain .... that trauma is the inability to let go of something that no longer is ..... that is not to say that it was not real , it happened ....but it created something else , beyond fear ... it created an identity around the circumstance , and the individual incorporates that new identity into who they are .... that pain is carried daily , and that is trauma .

its real , it hurts , it pushes you to self destruct and sabotage your actions , it isolates you from the world ...... but it is also a phantom .... it isn't you , it is a memory and that memory belongs to the mind .... or better said , the ego .... it needs trauma and it uses it to further separate and isolate and some of us ... including myself have used that trauma to be the crutch that will never let us walk with our heads straight

we have all experienced trauma , in one form or another ... everyone has , this world is full of egos that wan to survive and need to attack to do so ..... but there is a way to deal with trauma .....

acceptance of this pain , don't run from it nor fight it ... it is real , and you must embrace it because it is real .... and if you embrace it with an open heart acceptance will occur .... and from then eventually forgiveness which is the ultimate release of a negative entity that resides within

I never fully realized what forgiveness was until I actually read the explanation of the word ...... to simply hold no resentment towards whatever it is that you resented .

Trauma is very real , and longer lasting than bruises ..... it is in the mind , and that is one of the many ways the mind is toxic , because it does not care if the news is good or bad to create an identity to strengthen the ego ...it simply uses what is available to say ... I am unique and no one can destroy me ..... who is me ?? ..... that is the question you one day should ask yourself , and perhaps you may remember that you ...isn't defined by your experiences ... not the real you anyways . :)

I define the mind as the organizational mechanism of life. The brain, therefore, becomes the sensible manifestation of that operation. [In the same way that our bodies represent life albeit a sensible representation. Earlier, I had used the term 'physical manifestation' but now I think 'sensible' is more appropriate to clearly mean that which impacts the senses.] Also, for any mechanism to operate, there must be a driving force, and in life, I call it 'Will'. Will or will-power is generated by life and drives all the processes or mechanisms.

Trauma, I define as an injury or unnatural limitation in life or any of its expressions. In this way, I don't perceive trauma as a quality within the mind or brain but as a quality conveyed to them, or to be more precise, through them.

Allow me to use some examples:
Say a lazy 'couch-potato' developed a bad heart due to his bad habits. Then he got lucky and received a heart transplant from a young healthy professional sportsman. Say the donor had an accident and suffered irreparable brain damage but the rest of his body was intact. Now, is it not plausible that the lazy guy could still eventually cause injury to his new heart through the same indiscipline that saw him lose the first.

Secondly, suppose the previous situation is reversed and this time a healthy, well-disciplined guy received a not-so-healthy heart. (Perhaps he was born with a heart condition and through proper discipline managed to push through beyond the limits modern medicine had imposed on him but unfortunately the inevitable end had to come.) For him, though, any heart would be better than none. Anyway, through appropriate discipline and guidance, is it not plausible that he could undo some damage to his new heart if not completely reverse all its injuries?

I believe the same would apply to the brain (if it could be donated) or any other organ. Thus, I think trauma is more of something we allow (even through our own ignorance) than something attached to our bodies.

I would also like to mention that our biggest deterrent in overcoming trauma/disease, is our lack of improvement in our ability/capacity to heal or recover from injury. Modern medicine allows us to heal/recover but only as much as we are dependent on such medicine. It does not help us to improve our natural abilities. If I take cold medicines all my life, at 90 years of age, I'm still as vulnerable as I was at 10 if not more. If we worked on learning how to restore ourselves to perfect utility, injury/trauma would not have such devastating effects as it does presently.

In general it would seem "human mind or consciousness" requires "human brain" and that the link between any particular individual consciousness and individual brain is a strong one. In discussions of human mind and human brains, the literature around physical injuries and mental functions as well as biochemical or chemical disturbances and mind functioning would be a good starting point for examining the relationship. With that in mind the question of transferring ones mind to another's brain would seem a non starter at least a speculation with no support in experience or science.

I'm in the camp that says the distinction is problematic. Mind is in one sense the unique stylistic behaviour of the brain, or the behaviour of the brain/body combination. That's what we recognize when we mourn Grandad's passing away.

In the other sense, of subjective consciousness, again there it's quite feasible to look at consciousness as simply Being itself: the being of the brain, the very existence of the brain as it is in and of itself, not how it looks (grey lump) - IOW consciousness is the very perturbations of the brain by outside causal forces, and actually includes those forces (IOW consciousness isn't all in the brain, but is a "spread" phenomenon that includes its objects as part of its process).

In that sense the trauma, whatever it is, is located in the body (traumatized tissue) or in the brain (traumatized tissue in some more refined sense - for example something like the gated, reverberating pain proposed by Arthur Janov of "primal scream" fame), but that doesn't stop it from being in the mind, since the brain is the mind, in both senses above.