“What is a mind?‪”‬

When he was six years old, professor Mark Solms realised that everything he has learned during his upbringing about life and death was insufficient to explain these puzzling existential dilemmas. This revelation was difficult to bear, and a cause for distress and unrest for years to come. Even more difficult for him was to accept the fear that life might have no purpose, that all what we live is in the end for nothing.


It is professor Solms’ own belief, that this unrest has lead him to pursue a career in psychoanalysis and later on in neuroscience. He was convinced of the fact that only by studying the mind he would perhaps one day be able to understand more about the mysteries of life that have puzzled him so much in his early years. Or, at least, he believed, if there was something worth doing in this life, all else being in vain, it would be to understand the mystery of human consciousness. The mystery of why it feels like something to see colour, to feel pain or to experience happiness.


In his Futurelearn course “What Is a Mind?”, Mark Solms uncovers the four defining properties of mind: subjectivity, consciousness, intentionality and free will. He offers compelling answers to the question of origin and nature of consciousness, and he offers a set of scientifically supported hypotheses about conscious and unconscious processes, and about free will.


This booklet is a summary of the six weeks course presented by professor Solms through the Futurelearn platform. It serves as an appetiser to the course as well as summary for graduating students, allowing them to promptly return to the material for consolidation.