What is the mind-body problem? When we introduce it to students, we often present it as a choice between two views each of which faces apparently insuperable difficulties: substance dualism and physicalism (or materialism). But this looks like a choice between an idea no-one really believes and an idea no-one really understands — not a very satisfactory situation. And in any case, few philosophers these days put the Cartesian concept of substance in the centre of their metaphysics. Some do — and for them the problem might be pressing; but is it pressing for those who do not? In recent years some philosophers have attempted to sharpen the issue and locate the real problem in facts about the nature of ’the physical’, or the conception of the world given by physics. Physics, they say, gives only a quantitative description of reality; but we need also to consider the ‘qualitative’ aspects. In this talk I criticise this conception of the mind-body problem, and argue that we should focus instead on the question of how mental capacities are embodied in the brain and body of the subject. Such a question needs few metaphysical presuppositions and, although hard to answer in general terms, is empirically tractable.