A neglected “dualist” theory offers some insights:
I think the best explanation of the relationship of the mind to the brain is Aristotelian hylomorphism which is the viewpoint that the soul is the form of the body and that certain powers of the soul, particularly the intellect and will, are not generated by matter but are immaterial things—what Thomas Aquinas would call the “spirit.” But other properties of the mind, like perception and memory and imagination are physical. They are directly related to brain matter and they are generated by brain matter. I think that’s the best explanation philosophically for what we find in neuroscience.
“The mind’s reality is consistent with neuroscience” at Mind Matters News
Note: For more thoughts on hylomorphism (hylemorphism) see Michael Egnor, How can mind interact with matter? (Mind Matters News)
See also the earlier parts of the discussion: Why eliminative materialism cannot be a good theory of the mind. Thinking that the mind is simply the brain, no more and no less, involves a hopeless contradiction. How can you have a proposition that the mind doesn’t exist? That means propositions don’t exist and that means, in turn, that you don’t have a proposition.
and
Why the mind cannot just emerge from the brain. The mind cannot emerge from the brain if the two have no qualities in common. In his continuing discussion with Robert J. Marks, Michael Egnor argues that emergence of the mind from the brain is not possible because no properties of the mind have any overlap with the properties of brain. Thought and matter are not similar in any way. Matter has extension in space and mass; thoughts have no extension in space and no mass.