ABSTRACT
The interaction of three homeostatic functions (orientation, simplification, and display) creates an experience labelled the mind. In everyday language they are called self, cognition, and consciousness. When the brain is unable to automatically process information, the Neurological Self (NS), partly located in the anterior area of the limbic system, is activated to restore the disequilibrated area of the brain to homeostasis. The NS, with the simplifying process (cognition), either adapts or accommodates the disequilibrating information to restore it to its steady state condition. Display (consciousness) holds disequilibrating information in place giving cognition time to process it. Neurological systems follow three rules: practice makes permanent, use it or lose it, and grow or die. Human brains are more than twice the size of other creatures of the same body weight, and we live longer. Our brains have grown over evolutionary time. With that growth our brains have developed skills enabling them to simplify the nonsensory processes of the frontal lobes of the brain. With that skill we are able now to be self-conscious. The experience of personality is a relatively late evolutionary development.
