“Where human life is concerned, scientific tools are not neutral: ‘the mind has been recreated in their image'” (Rose & Abi-Rached 159).

To be more specific… the collective ‘we’ defines the brain through the instruments created to define the brain. If the rapidity of the synapses firing when watching a bird drink from a fountain needs to be measured (for example) then an instrument will be tailored specifically to measure that function. We only know what we know from what we create to measure what we want to know.

Neuroscience is like language. In language, tools (letters, numbers, words, and other symbols) are created to express emotions, actions, etc. In the neurosciences, tools are created to measure these specific things. In language these tools are arbitrary (in the modern sense) and in neuroscience these tools are created to narrowly define specific actions in the brain.

That brings me to the impossible notion that the mind can be undefined or defined definitely because the mind is the one defining its self. But even thinking about defining the mind forces you to use your mind and thus the whole notion is off-set. The mind is constantly re-defining its self based upon what it knows and for what it does not know, it creates and instrument to figure it out and the process begins again and again.