I think the brain is a locus where information is gathered to interact in a 
complex process that produces signals that stimulate responses in different 
parts of the body. The brain clearly has different parts which show an 
evolutionary development from simpler organisms. In some parts of the brain 
the information flow to outgoing sygnals is "hardwired", that is determined 
by the genetic code. However, I think that a large part of the brain in the 
"newer sections" (in an evolutionary sense) is a space for the free 
interaction of information. 

In the beginning many of the outgoing signals from this free portion are 
random, but there is an inherent feedback loop in which the outgoing signals 
effect incomming information. I believe that the primitive hardwired portions 
of the brain acts a bit like a catalyst in forming structures in the 
information flow in free part of the brain. From the primitive brain there 
are some initial hardwired objectives like hunger but eventually the dynamic 
structures in the free brain develop its own objectives like entertainment. 
Kids talking about not getting any fun reminds me a bit like that robot in 
the movie "Short Circuit" out hunting for INPUT. They act like they are going 
to die if they don't get any. It is so powerful that supercedes the hunger 
for food, so what are they feeding? 

Thus the brain is an environment in which develop the dynamic structures of 
information flow, which we call the human mind. This process can be described 
somewhat by the mathematics of chaotic dynamics. I think that this process by 
which a dynamic structure develops, adapts and evolves is the essence of all 
living things. I think that biological organisms developed on this planet in 
the same way but simply in a different medium. Instead of structures in the 
cyclical information flow of the brain it was structures in cyclical chemical 
processes. Thus I believe that the human mind is a living organism in its own 
right, that lives in the human brain. 

But the human mind is just as much a physical organism as any biological 
organism. The intensity and speed of dynamic evolution and adaptation to the 
environment (which we call learning) in the mind may far outstrip its 
biological counterparts but the process is qualitatively more of the same 
thing. 

If there is something nonphysical involved in the operation of the human 
brain then that same something must be equally involved in all processes of 
life, for there is no essential qualitative difference. If we limit ourselves 
to pure reason, the non-physical interaction may be found in only one place, 
and that is at the limits of causality described by physics. There is only 
one such limit and it is found in quantum physics (see my earlier post on 
this thread) at the point where a living organism chooses between equally 
possible reponses to an environmental stimulus and sees its self as the cause. 

These choices we make create the only part of ourselves which is not bound by 
the physical laws of the universe to destruction and decay. This is the 
origin of any true fear of death, for those choices are all that remains and 
whether these remains live or die depends on those choices. If there are no 
such non-physcal remains then no worries, and death is nothing to fear. In 
that case, I might as well just see how much I can get away with until the 
inevitable happens.