A tourist admires the glittering blue of the ocean and the mountains looming above. She picks up her camera and takes a photograph of the landscape. She is awed by the beauty of nature. The camera feels nothing.

Consciousness is one of the great mysteries of philosophy. How does the spongy grey matter inside the head produce that intangible thing we call the mind? Why do humans and animals have feelings, but cameras do not?

Prof Mark Solms, director of neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) neuroscience institute, believes scientists have been searching in the wrong part of the brain for answers to what drives the link between perception, emotion, thought and consciousness. ..