In my view the mind system is an experience-creating self-reentrant staging post that has the means of reflecting (with the aid of speech-thought) on the ongoing experience and in which this very reflection is experienced as self-generated performance. The entire performance pattern is continually advancing into the oncoming moment's totalization. It is in the confines of this neural interplay that mental options are generated. It is in these confines that the two disparate hemispheres optimally interact. This brings together right-hemispheric pattern perception and left-hemispheric critical analysis to create the highest form of insight and cognitive synthesis possible. In short, I perceive the mind system as being a miracle of cognitive organization. This must seem even more miraculous now that purely physical processes can be shown to sustain it. But then: 'A miracle explained makes it no less miraculous,' and we can rest assured that the physicality of the mind system adds to—rather than subtracts from—this wonderfully intricate achievement. If the physical mind is at last taken to be what it is, this puts an end to the muddle and double-think of naive introspection. It is also the end of the projective free-for-all that has caused this overworked entity to fit in with magico-metaphysical molds of anyone's fancy. Having passed its 'identity crisis,' the mind is now in a position to recognize itself as real, neurofunctionally anchored, and causally related to the organism and to the outside world. The beauty of this is that this seeming reduction of the formerly spiritual mind entity to a physically functioning organ system is no reduction at all but an expanding perspective and a widening horizon. This is because the mind in its true role as the biosphere's most negentropic and advanced manifestation can now begin to explore the whole scenario, including itself.
Zoltan Torey, The Crucible of Consciousness
