At first it seems incredible that patterns of electrochemical activity in a bunch of cells could
generate thought. Then again, it is also not obvious that a hundred musicians playing together could
produce a beautiful symphony, or that billions of tiny water molecules in a cloud could accumulate a
huge electrical charge that generates bright flashes of lightning and loud rolls of thunder. But much is
coming to be known about how patterns of neural firing can produce complex kinds of perception,
memory, learning, inference, language, and other mental functions. In what follows I will be
extremely introductory. I don't need to convince neuroscientists or cognitive psychologists that minds
are brains, so the explanations that follow are aimed at people new to the idea that thinking might be
explained neurologically.