We have reached a defining point in history. For the first time, scientists have the technology that allows them to peer inside the living brain and probe the mechanisms that generate our thoughts and our behavior. The human brain, which has been regarded as one of the last unsolved mysteries of the universe, is being revealed in all its magnificent complexity. Very little, if any, of what is being found could be called mysterious or beyond the bounds of rational explanation.

Scientists have already discovered enough about the human brain to fill huge libraries, so it would be reasonable to expect that the discoveries would help us understand ourselves and comprehend how we perceive, think, remember, and behave.

What makes us conscious? How do we learn? Why do we make the choices we do? The capability to answer questions like these would be of inestimable value to professionals who deal with people, including educators, communicators, economists, and politicians. In spite of this, no broad consensus has developed on what the answers to these questions are, nor on what remains to be discovered.

Why is that? Because the challenge in understanding human psychology is not one of discovery but of comprehension.

Scientists in a diverse array of individual disciplines – including anatomy, genetics, embryology, pharmacology, neural imaging, and psychology – have made remarkable progress in understanding different facets of the human mind, and yet these growing silos of information have not grown into a unified body of knowledge.

All the while, a profound gap has persisted, one that is significant in a way that all the other gaps are not. On a conceptual level the task of transcending this gap is a matter of getting the scientific discoveries that describe the matter-of-fact structure of the brain to connect with the ideas we all use to describe reality.

For instance, when someone says, “I can see the blue sky,” we can understand the idea he or she is expressing. We can visualize the act of seeing the sky and sensing the color blue. And, similarly, from a scientific standpoint, there are no insurmountable problems in understanding the physical properties of the sky, the nature of blue light, why the sky is blue, or in unraveling the mechanisms of human vision. The realm of the idea of seeing blue and the realm of the structure of the brain are each understandable in their own right. However, when we try to connect the two domains, we encounter a conceptual gulf – one that has never been bridged.

The two realms are analogous to the artistic and scientific domains. Writers can describe the subjective aspects of experience without encountering any snags. Likewise, scientists can describe – without running into discontinuities in logic – the structure of the universe and the principles by which it works. Each domain is self-contained and consistent, but disconnected from the other.

In daily life, the discontinuities between the artistic and scientific domains do not cause us much trouble. However, when it comes to comprehending the human mind, these same discontinuities are a showstopper. Both the art of communication and the objectivity of science are necessary for us to be able to explain the brain. The two perspectives have to be combined in order for us to comprehend how the structure of our brain creates ideas.

Now, as a result of the growing certainty about the discoveries of the details of human biology, it has become possible to tackle this subject in new ways and from fresh vantage points. Scientific technology has uncovered the mechanisms that enable us to perceive our surroundings and make sense of them. Additionally, we can see how our brain creates the words we use to describe what we experience. Words themselves are pivotal, as they are not only the result of how an individual’s brain works at the level of its chemistry; they are also the product of social interaction. That is, we learn words from other people.

The social nature of words has been closely studied by linguists. Words are categorizations of shared experience and in many cases are derived from metaphors. The meaning of words evolves through history as people use them to arrive at a shared understanding of new situations that are of common interest.

It is hard for us to realize that words are not neutral descriptions of reality but evolve according to the changing situation. Here is a funny illustration: during one summer when I was a student I worked at the restaurant in the Hilton Hotel near the Eiffel Tower. Until recently, if asked, I would say I worked at the “Paris Hilton.” But now if I say that, the listener is likely to become momentarily confused because “Paris Hilton” is taken to mean the reality show celebrity. The words are identical but their connotations have changed.

In the same way a word like “belief” appears to be a straightforward description of a human situation. It means that something is regarded as true, regardless of the evidence. But this meaning has come about as a consequence of the development of science and technology. The Old English word “belyfan,” meant to trust and rely on a person or thing. At that time, the concept of an absolute truth that might exist independently of faith was not conceivable – even as a remote possibility.

By seeing how the meaning of words is created through social interaction, and by seeing how words are created through the mechanics of nerves and muscles, the way in which the different domains tie together is revealed. Words are therefore the link between the ideas we use to communicate with each other and the scientific observations of the brain.

Whenever scientists discover something new, they are faced with the problem of explaining the underlying concepts. In the case of discoveries concerning how we think, the task is uniquely challenging because the words we use to describe behavior and others aspects of being human are so deeply embedded in our culture that they are “common sense.” The words we use to describe our day-to-day behavior are so obvious that if anyone attempts to question them the entire subject becomes tedious. Whenever you attempt challenge common sense you run into problems of communication.

For instance, we all know what “behavior” means. It is the way in which a person, organism, or group responds to a certain set of conditions. Behavior is generally considered to be different from “perception” and “thinking.” However, when you investigate the details of how the brain works, you find that the three functionalities are inextricably intertwined. So to explain human behavior you first have to argue against the very idea that “behavior” is a meaningful category.

Many of the words that we use to describe our behavior whose meaning is “common sense” are, in fact, confusing. Here is an example. When we open our eyes and “see” something, we imagine the scene we perceive is “out there” and the act of seeing is essentially passive, akin to what a camera does. And yet the physiology of the eye clearly demonstrates that the scene we see is at least partly constructed by the brain. It has to be, otherwise we would be conscious of imperfections in our visual field, including a large spot at the back of the eye that is blind, known as the “blind spot,” where the optic nerve leaves the eyeball. None of us can see the blind spot and so our sight must be, at least in part, creative. But the words we use to describe seeing do not have connotations that imply creativity.

Another example is memory. We commonly think of memory as being a form of storage, and yet, now that psychologists have studied the ways in which people remember and forget, it has become evident that memory is reconstructive. That is, we do not retrieve memories in the same way a computer retrieves data from a hard drive. Instead, we recall a key experience and then we recreate the details so that they fit into a coherent narrative sequence. When we talk of “remembering” something, we do not imply we are, to some extent, thinking it up, which in reality is what our brain is actually doing.

In short, there is a gap between our common sense understandings of the words we use to describe our psychological functioning and the reality of how we behave. This gap presents a challenge for anyone who is attempting to make sense of all the new scientific discoveries. For the scientific discoveries to be explained, we depend on language, and the language we use defines how we understand. Given that the language we use is based on traditional ideas, it gets in the way of our efforts to grasp the meaning of the scientific breakthroughs.

Correcting what our common sense tells us is no simple task in itself, but it is all the more challenging because many of the most important words we use to describe different domains of our lives are also used as badges of identity. For instance, scientists take pride in thinking “rationally” and eschewing “belief.” Anytime we query the meaning of words like these, we get ensnared in partisan views about the nature of science and religion.

So in order to understand the human mind, we have to step back from the labels we use to describe different realms of human existence – like science, art, and religion – and see them for what they are, which are labels. The labels are definitions of diverse, heterogeneous categorizations of human experience that are products of the details of how our brains work and our interpersonal interactions.

Once we recognize the nature of the labels we use, it becomes possible to appreciate the connections between subjects that were previously viewed as being different and, in some cases, antagonistic.

When we step back and see the connections between art, science, and religion, we can recognize that each provides valuable tools for helping us to understand ourselves. The new perspective enables us to see our culture in a new light and answer questions that have dogged intellectuals for centuries.

The implications are far-reaching and can be put to work wherever people need to communicate and work together.