Can anyone who's read this book define self, mind and consciousness, please?

[Stephanie]

Sections of this book were very interesting, but I found that it was conceptually fuzzy. Can anyone provide clear definitions of the words self, mind and consciousness as they are used by Sam Harris?

For example, in the Conclusion, Harris writes: "Consciousness itself is divisible - as we saw in the case of split brain patients - and even in an intact brain consciousness is blind to most of what the mind is doing."

Why doesn't this say consciousness is blind to most of what the BRAIN is doing?

I can easily wrap my head around conscious and unconscious activities of the brain, but doesn't this make the concept of mind superfluous?

[Nate]

Self - like personal identity. the place we reference everything back to. the "experiencer" behind the eyes, so to speak. And of course, it is an illusion.

Mind - thoughts, emotions... what lets you know you're aware of yourself and that you a self (when the illusion is maintained.)

Consciousness - the awareness of perception, emotion, and cognition. Different from the self, because consciousness is inherently without a self.

Harris is saying that we aren't consciously experiencing the whole of our experience because we are perpetually lost in thought.