The mind is generally associated with feelings, sentience, and consciousness of self, while the brain is a dissectible biological tissue. But learning about the brain, which is part of a larger system called the nervous system, can teach us about the mind and thus about our nature.

The brain is a material network of neurons, synapses and biochemicals. The mind is a flow of subjective experiences, such as pain, pleasure, anger and love.

consciousness — that ultimate lens of being, which shapes our entire experience of life and makes blue appear blue and gives poems their air of wonder — is not a mental activity confined to the brain but a complex embodied phenomenon governed by the nervous-system activity we call feeling.