Well, if you think that a
mind is the brain, the answer is ONE. Now,it is fair and
correct to assume that a mind is associated with one brain, in fact
you have memories of things occured to a specific brain and you can
move your hands, but not someone's else, though all these obvious
confirmation of the thesis, well, there is something misleading in
the One Man Gang theory about mind.
You observe a brain, you
see is reacting like a mind, it's done.
The problem is, you
abstract the brain from its environment, but isolation is in the
theory, not in reality. First thing, try to make a cognitive vacuum
around your supposed One Man Gang. In linguistics, if you don't
expose a child brain to a linguistic community during the time of a
window of development (usually teenagehood), your subject will be
severely impaired. In his mind. Another case: put a man in jail,
alone, deprived of contacts, for many years. He will go mad, right?
Oh yeah, you can bet. What happened? He's gone emotional. He has no
friends. Be more specific: his brain lacks feedback, literally
feeding from other minds: he's mentally starving.
OK, so we'll agree that to
have a healthy mind, you need companionship. Good. But it's not
enough.
Do you know how the brain
itself works? The most recent model is of a parallel, distributed,
decentralized system. It means that the brains is doing several times
the same things, from different departments, without direct
supervision. A good detail is the distribution: what does exactly
mean different departments?
Well, your brain is made of several,
overlapping configurations of neurons. Further on it is possible to
distinguish areas dedicated to work on specific tasks, like language,
visual processing and so on. But most interestingly, the brain is
operationally greedy. Yes my friend, the brain wants to process and
he doesn't give a dime about how. Take calculations. Despite the
limping metaphor of the brain like a computer, a normal biological
human brain doesn't like too much computing. Why? I tell you why: it
has been evolved to live in the savanna, jungle or mountains. He had
to run, to aim, to manipulate tools, to express aggressivity, to
conquest females, to strike deals and alliances, to gain control of a
tribe and so on. In the wild, there is more action than numbers. So
if by any chance you put an electronic calculator in front of a
brain, he will use it merciless. Does it account as distribution? No?
Yes? When you want to remember something, you write it down. Good.
Your brain retrieves the information from the notepad. Or from a
neuroconnection associated. Where is the difference? The skin. If you
think that cognitive process are solely the ones occurring within the
boundary of your skin, then you need give me stringent definition of
how the brain delegates function within his boundaries and outside:
how does it defragment the procedures?
If you like to live
without boundaries, then you can enjoy the procedural liberalism of
the brain. This is in a nutshell the extended mind thesis of Andy
Clark.
If we have an extended,
distributed mind, we are probably in good company. I mean, the
restless delegation and negotiation of procedures by your brain is
also an interminable communication with other brains. If you want to
remember something, you can write it down or ask it to a friend. If
you want to move the hands of someone else, you can always ask him.
Trivial? Maybe, but who are you? You don't consider yourself a
bio-circuit, but a curious human being, in search of adventures,
following interests, instinct: you have aspirations, ambitions, you
are deluded by many aspects of society, you are disillusioned by
others, you hope for a better future, you love, you hate, you are
someone, it's you. Now, all these things are done in negotiations
with your peers, beloved, friends, parents, colleagues, neighbors,
co-commuters, acquaintances, perfect strangers. Yes you learn what
does it mean to be you, by a constant negotiation with the others.
Your mind is the product of this negotiation amongst the many brain
interconnected in your time space social region. Of course the brain
associated with your identity has a lot of privileges, but not
exclusively. You don't decide who you are entirely. And you don't
decide what to think entirely. Many of your thought, many of the
thinking paths of your mind are borrowed, stolen or granted from
others. 
This is the honorable
society of brains. So the answer is MANY.
Of course there are rumors
that the society doesn't exist at all, but it is an invention of the
foreign press to discredit the humans...
In this case the answer
is: NONE...
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