Several billion neurons fire to identify the patterns of life all around us. Over a hundred million fire when they recognize light. Others fire to recognize odors, taste, touch, sounds and much more. All these signals reach the sensory cortex.

The sensory information provides current context. This information then travels to the association regions. Here, perceived objects are recognized. If one region fails, you cannot recognize a pair of scissors, with your eyes closed. You can feel the scissors, but you don't know what it is. Other regions recognize events. Science has identified each recognition region.

The data of recognized events and of the current needs of the body travel to a region called the limbic system. This region uses this context to generate emotions. The region is believed to be the seat of emotions. When patterns of nerve impulses fire in this region you feel anger, or shame. The global pattern of firing of these cells define your current feeling and emotion.

A region called the somesthetic cortex interprets the context of current feelings to trigger motor drives. Electrical stimulation of the neurons in this region can cause activities such as the flexing of a muscle, or even involuntary cries. Broad drives are reported to be triggered from this region.

The impulses from the motor regions proceed to an organ called the cerebellum, which inserts habits into the system. In a computer, a command activates a series of programmed activities. So also, in the cerebellum, an intention from the motor cortex is translated into sequences of learned movements.

The stream of impulses are more finely co-ordinated in the spinal chord, which delivers impulses to activate muscles. Muscles only contract. So, when one muscle contracts, an opposing one must relax. These instructions are delivered thousands of times a second, when you write a letter, or speak a word. The spinal cord delivers the final motor output.

Science has identified the regions which control each activity. But, it has not viewed them all as the parts of a flowing contextual pattern recognition process. A nerve cell is the basic elelment of this system. It has many inputs called dendrites and a single output through its axon. Science assumes that the inputs are computed to produce an output. But, if the nerve cell recognizes combinations, it can recognize patterns. It can recognize context.

If a nerve cell has inputs from A to G, and if it fires on receiving impulses at ABC, or DEF, then it is recognizing ABC and DEF. This is Combinatorial Coding, which can explain so many subtleties of the mind. Nerve cells fire to report both touch and pain. Combinatorial Coding can explain how a touch can subdue pain. It can explain how nerve cells can respond to context.

Combinatorial coding was suggested as early as 1991. Science has recently recognized this possibility. Recently, a Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery that the nerve cells recognize smells through combinatorial coding. The concept has been validated. But the power of combinatorial coding has not been fully realized.

Ages ago, the neurons of nosebrains remembered combinations to identify smells. Such neurons, with thousands of dendrites, could have memories for trillions of combinations. Science still seeks the location of human memory, despite the discovery of combinatorial coding. But, that discovery revealed that the nervous system could be an immense knowledgebase, with vast memories of context. And, its codes could reside within that database.

Walter Freeman, the famous neurobiologist believed the mind brought its entire memory to bear on evaluation of the next moment. Nerve cells can carry a lifetime of our memories and use elimination to instantly recognize context.

The nervous system is a production system, where sensory inputs and experiences are stored and recognized in context, to produce feelings and emotions. The most powerful feeling becomes the current feeling. The current feeling is translated by the motor system to produce a motor output. The intuitve process achieves all this in a few ten thousandth's of a second. It is an automatic pattern recognition process.

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