The "Mind"

[Gram]

So this topic came up in a thread recently and given it's a concept never explored in the series or here I thought why not theorize it!

So what do we know of the "mind" within KH? Well we know that it is tightly intertwined and a part of the heart itself as well as that, like the heart, it's largely tied to memory. (another of the heart's key aspects)

But how exactly do these three things intertwine? Just how do they connect? Well to further understand this let's take a look at some things revealed as the series has went along, namely how the heart is born and matures.

Although it was hinted for years it was finally bluntly stated by Data-Ansem the Wise (Diz) during the ending of DDD:

The heart has always been quick to grow. Each exposure to light, to the natural world, to other people, shapes this most malleable part inside of us. Nobodies are not different from us in that manner.
Sora was the only one able to return to his human form without destroying his Nobody. That is a statement to the love in his heart for other people, and the bonds that tie them together.
Perhaps...he has the power to bring back the hearts and existences of those connected to him--to recreate people we thought were lost to us forever.
Our most precious treasures--even an empty puppet--the trees of the forest, and the petals on the wind--there are hearts around us everywhere we look.
And it does not take superhuman powers to see them.

Surely we remember as children the way our hearts made everything seem so shiny, and perfect. Sora has a heart like
that--uncorrupted, willing to see the good before the bad. When he sees the heart in something, it then becomes real. When a connection seems broken, he may have the power to mend it. He has touched countless hearts, he has accepted them, and he has saved them.
And some of those hearts have never left him--whether they fell into darkness or were trapped there--whether they sleep in the darkness of Sora's heart, or were welcomed into its warmth--they can be saved.
All Sora needs to do is be himself and follow wherever it is that his heart takes him. It is the best and the only way.

As well as touched upon by Xemnas withing DDD:

A heart is never lost for good. There may have been variances in our dispositions, but a number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement.
Once born, the heart can also be nurtured.

Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self. But understand, one can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets, for as many times as it takes. And so I knew, even after we were divided into Heartless and Nobodies, it was just a temporary separation.

And it is even further elaborated on by Joshua himself:

By ourselves, we're no one. It's when other people look at us and see someone--that's the moment we each start to exist.
All they needed was for someone to see them, connect with them. And the two of you were a big part of making it happen.

Even Nomura comments on this:

–What is the definition of a heart in Kingdom Hearts?

Nomura: It is the theme of the series. To explain it simply, a person has a body, a soul, and a heart. As an image, the soul is the life source, without it a person would be dead. Since the heart doesn’t have a form, memories play an important part in forming a heart. Also, the heart isn’t limited to people, but to all things. I tried to explain this concept to Disney, and they merely said that it must be an Eastern way of thinking. It may be interesting how overseas players think of it.

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Through experiences, bonds, and over all interaction with people and the world around them, a being will eventually form a heart as it turns those experiences into memories and those bonds into strength.

Then there's memory. We learned early on in the days of Chain of Memories and through the story of Roxas, and nobodies as a whole, that memories are also a key component of a being.
It's the memory of those experiences and interactions with the world that acts as the foundation for the heart, the memory is the building blocks of the heart as it were.

The best example of this is Roxas. When Sora changed into a heartless he mentions that his memories was beginning to fade, that he was even forgetting who he was.
But before this could go any further Kairi steps in and has her magical girl/princess dues ex machina moment in which Sora, for lack of better explanation, regains a human/physical form as well as keeping his mind and memories that were fading away.
This incident affected Roxas profoundly because by lacking the memories of his old life, Roxas was born empty.

From there Roxas was forced to start from scratch and over the course of Days he slowly but surely started to become more and more human like as he formed his own experiences, made his own memories of those experiences and formed bonds with Axel and Xion.
By the end of it he had formed a heart and sense of identity unique to himself rather than being a continuation of Sora.

And as for other nobodies, they retain their human memory and from what we've seen in the normal cases, that nobody bases a identity for itself based on those memories which seems to make them nearly the same as the human counterpart.
Given enough time and the right conditions the nobody will then form a heart based on the new memories and experiences gained further showing that memories help form the heart further showing the relation.

And it's right about here that your likely wondering what I'm getting at, well, just take a look at what I just described to you.

A heart is born as a sentient being becomes more aware of itself, gains experience, forms memories of said experiences and forms bonds with others in which they assert their existence.

Still not catching it? Well let's take another look at Roxas. As he did these very things and formed a heart over the course of Days what happened to him?
.....That's right as he formed his heart Roxas also formed his own identity, his own sense of self! What he formed was the "mind"!
The conscious concept of recognizing ones self as a person. In this case, Roxas recognizing himself as an individual that wasn't Sora but rather "himself".

In lamen's terms what the "mind" is, is the identity a heart forms for itself!
That sense of self every being conscious of itself has, the ability to recognize itself as a person and the other beings around them!

We see this best with Sora and Ansem who both became a being with only a heart. The memories appear to be a key component in that makeup as well since by Sora regaining his mind, form and keeping his memories left Roxas blank.
It was the retaining of their memories that allowed both of them to retain their mind and thus stay who they are.

We also see proof of this from Xemnas himself in the video above:

Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self.

As we all know these experiments formed heartless and as Xemnas points out what caused this collapse and surrender of their test subjects to the darkness was them trying to convince that person's mind to renounce it's sense of identity.

The fact that heartless are described as "mindless" beings of darkness and instinct on top of the fact that they are born from the heart that's lost said identity all points to the fact that the "mind" is the heart's sense of self.
Losing that sense of self, the identity, caused the heart to falter and thus lose itself to darkness forming beings that lack neither memories nor conscious minds.

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In short what I'm proposing to you is that the "mind" equals ones heart. It's who you are, the guiding consciousness of the heart and that these two aspects are inseparable from one another while the memories are the foundation and building blocks of that heart/mind.
Xemnas and the Apprentices tried to separate them and only formed heartless as a result.

It would also explain the nobodies. Their beings born when the person they were loses their sense of self, their "mind", and heart to darkness but due to the strong will of that heart the memories, the foundation of that "mind", refuse to fall and cling to the body+soul that vanishes as the heart is lost.

Unwilling to fade away completely that person reforms as a nobody, forming a new mind and identity based on the memories it inherited from it's human counterpart. (which is why nobodies and their somebodies are nearly identical)
And should that nobody be lucky enough it'll eventually regain the heart lost as a new one forms in the place of the lost one as they gain and add new experiences and memories to the ones already retained.

So what do you think?

 

[JustSnilloc]

This is pretty solid, the mind is clearly an integral part of the heart, but what exactly it is tends to be just as mysterious as the heart itself.

I think through this theory we can break down the heart into its parts (I actually started to do a topic going into depth on the heart, but it was too much work, lol, anyways...)
- Mind, the conscience and sense of self.
- Will, the primal instincts that guide beings to live.
- Emotions
- Other ???

Light and Darkness are mixed in there somewhere too, but I like the breakdown provided. Nice job!

 

[Mite]

I think you've laid out a good theory to give more detail for a person obtaining their own sense of self through the various metaphysical properties of the series. When developing through life the heart is essential for creating a mind in the KH-verse, mostly through their shared importance of connections to memories.

Moving more from that from what I've seen, "minds" can be also be separated from hearts/bodies and transferred to other vessels, mostly due to memories being able to be moved around. The difference with minds are that they haven't been greatly showcased as such, mainly because of the dominance of the role the heart plays in the series, as most other things dovetail off of it.

In fact the only real example of a mind being transferred would be Terra's Lingering Will. Terra's armor arguably is the one anomaly in the KH series that defies the normal expectations for how all the interconnected metaphysics works. It's not a normal body for a heart to inhabit, yet Terra's mind (most likely the parts made up of angry memories of Xehanort), inhabit it and fuel it for it's one-minded purpose in life.

But I doubt we'd ever see any kind of mind swapping/brain switching because of the way the "heart" dictates everything in the series. Although Xehanort is essentially in a way, slowly making those like Xigbar and Saix reject their sense of selves (their minds) and become more like himself through that whole connection of hearts, to memories, to minds.

 

[Gram]

Ya know, after pondering the mind and other things, I think it might be best to retract the notion that the mind is inseparable from the heart. Going by JustsillNics theory on fragments it'd make sense that at least in the case of nobodies that the mind transfers because the memories do.
Memories are a heart and minds foundation, the recorded and stored information of all the experiences and bonds made thus far, so it'd make sense that at least some part of the mind transfers.

It'd explain why Sora was forgetting memories as well as who he was while a heartless and it'd explain why Roxas is blank thanks to Sora reclaiming them.
Does this mean the LS literally has Terra's mind? I'm still gonna have to say no to that because his heart is captive not lost. Plus I largely say that cause the LS is described as being born from lingering thoughts. (which contrasts the nobodies gaining actual thoughts/mind/memories)