Jamie, I should have kept the philosophy on the forum. Perhaps I could ask you some questions:

How does a set of action potentials (nerve impulses) become like the pain in your experience? 
Why are some action potentials correlated with "pain" in experience and others "blue"? (The action potentials themselves are almost identical).
At any instant how does an action potential in one nerve cell become associated with an action potential in another to make a pain in the thumb? How do these separated, almost identical flashes of electricity become the experience (especially when they do not flash synchronously)?
What is your experience like? Is it like flashes of identical pulses in a soggy mass of tissue at all?
So how does the mind relate to the body?