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On the one side are the naturalists/materialists who maintain that all that exists is nature in one form or another: galaxies, planets, cells, molecules, atoms, particles, energy; everything is part of nature, subject to space and time, and, in theory at least, measurable. For the naturalist ‘brain’ and ‘mind’ are two words for the same thing. Consciousness, they therefore claim, must be some part of nature, some kind of neural activity in the brain, But that explanation seems inadequate because the more carefully we look, the less consciousness seems to be made up of cells, molecules, atoms, etc. The brain is made up of parts, but the mind is not. One naturalist, hoping to be useful, has said that the mind is the brain at work. Yes. And a sunset is light and dust at work, and The Emperor Concerto is moving air at work, and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is paint and plaster at work. True. But so what? We learn nothing of beauty or music or art, and we learn nothing by saying the mind is the brain at work.

On the other side are those who hold that consciousness is something other than or more than a different kind of nature. It is something immeasurable. For the naturalist-plus, brain and mind are words for different realities. Consciousness may require a brain, but it is not the brain. No matter how closely you study it, a brain cell is not a thought. The brain is not the mind. The differences are baffling and profound and seem irreconcilable. It is, of course, only a problem for the conventional naturalist. The naturalist-plus, (Supernaturalism is not a useful term here.) though he doesn’t understand consciousness, accepts that there is more to nature than nature. Whether the mind is a mortal mystery that vanishes with mortal death, or whether it has ties with dreams that come “when we have shuffled off this mortal coil” is a profound question, but it is not at the heart of the mind-body problem. At the heart is the understanding of mind, an “attribute of the gods.”