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Meaning is created in the human brain by weaving thought and emotion into coherent categories and narratives.

The brain interprets emotional signals through appraisal and reality-testing, regulating them by explanation.

Explanations guide mental processing and help determine what gets processed.

Explanations do not have to be right; they just have to make experience coherent, for better or worse.

Meaning is how we experience the brain’s hierarchical classification system. It allows us to make comparisons, rankings, and judgments about value: what is desirable, helpful, beautiful, and moral. Emotion, experience, culture, religion, and historical moment heavily influence the brain’s construction of meaning.

Meaning is largely a function of the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain in back of the forehead), which reaches full structural maturity around age 28. I call it the "adult brain". Emotional signals are........

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