In the study of consciousness there is a technical term for what a perception 'feels like'. It is called a quale (pronounced 'kwah-lay', not 'quail'), a figment that our minds paint on to their model of the universe in the way that an artist adds pigment to a portrait. Such qualia (plural)

paint the world in vivid colours so that we can respond more quickly to it, and, in particular, respond to signs of danger, food, possible sexual partners ... Science has no explanation of why qualia feel like they do, and it's not likely to get one. So science can explain how a mind works, but not what it is like to be one. No shame in that: after all, physicists can explain how an electron works, but not what it is like to be one. Some questions are beyond science. And, we suspect, beyond anything else: it is easy enough to claim an explanation of these metaphysical problems, but just as impossible to prove you're right. Science admits it can't handle these things, so at least it's honest.

At any rate, the science of the mind (small 'M' now because we're not talking metaphysics)

addresses how the mind works, and how it evolved, but not what it's like to be one. Even with this limitation, the science of the brain is not the whole story. There is another important dimension to the question of Mind. Not how the brain works and what it does, but how it came to be like that.

How, on Roundworld, did Mind evolve from mindless creatures?

Much of the answer lies not inside the brain, but in its interactions with the rest of the universe.

Especially other brains. Human beings are social animals, and they communicate with each other. The trick of communication made a huge, qualitative change to the evolution of the brain and its ability to house a mind. It accelerated the evolutionary process, because the transfer of ideas happens much faster than the transfer of genes.