Can the mind really achieve anything?

Not without the rest of the body. People can achieve a lot with the right mindset.

While I think it’s true that you can’t achieve anything without thinking that you can… It would be a little extreme to assume the opposite. I think people were born with certain skills and they should use them. E.G. some people have powerful vocal chords and they can sing.. not just from practice.. but from a gift they had at birth.

I suppose anything that can be conceived by the mind can be achieved with the mind.

Well, you do need to think that you can do something before you can do it. That is the beginning of the possibility. But there are also a great number of factors that must be arrayed your way for the thing to happen, too. Some of those, you can solve. Some, you can’t.

For example, Jimmy in the ghetto and Howard Graham Buffet (Warren’s son) can both go on to work hard and become millionaires, I suppose. However, Jimmy’s going to face obstacles that Howard might not, such as finding it harder to get a job, an education, a different set of cultural expectations, and the resources needed to get a good start on his dream, whatever it is. Howard would have been born with a leg up. I suppose this is what people mean when they say that “we all have equal opportunity, but we are not guaranteed equal results” (although what they say they mean is that if Jimmy and Howard don’t both reach their millionaire dream, Jimmy just didn’t work hard enough).

Sometimes, Jimmy’s going to work hard, concentrate, and focus, but he’s just not going to have the resources or opportunities – so the American dream is theoretically possible for everyone, but in reality, many people are not going to make it.

I think it’s idealistic to say that anyone can do anything. Some people face obstacles beyond their control. Some people may be able to surmount the obstacles, but can everybody? Probably not.

Of course it is true.

But if it involves something physical, then we may be limited by physical limitations.

Focus, intensity and perseverance, the keystones to success, all orginate in, and are reinforced by the mind. The mind, via willpower, can drive the body to undreamed of heights.

No. It also requires body. The mind/body dichotomy is a fallacy.

No mind can achieve anything and people are limited by their individual thought processes.Certainly some people are much better at problem solving than others.Maybe a neurosurgeon would be a good person to ask.

You can imagine anything but you can only achieve what’s within your physical and intellectual capabilities (and these days, financial limitations too).

Yep the mid can achieve anything it believes….. it’s only limitations is itself…..that it doubt.

Well, based on how we live now, I’d say a definite yes.

To quote Han Solo: ” I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit.”

The fact that you are reasonably healthy, well nourished, safe and are sitting in a well constructed building, on furniture manufactured in highly engineered factory, and are using your personal computer, which is plugged into the wall drawing electricity from another highly engineered and complex system, the power grid, power that is made from the fossil remains of long dead dinosaurs, through yet another complex process and are logged into the internet and can ask this question on this site to begin with is a testament to what the human mind can achieve.