ABSTRACT
THE SEQUENTIAL PLAN OF THIS BOOK In developing the thesis that mind, in all its marvellous attributes, evolved as a survival advantage to assist in the co-ordination of sometimes coherent and sometimes incoherent intersensory messages, it is necessary to present some basic ideas of what such a thesis, or any thesis qua theory, must involve, and this chapter is devoted in part to that. It thus presents the theory of theory, or a metatheory. It also includes a discussion of parallels between sensory and cognitive function, and introduces certain neurophysiological facts concerning the existence of even single cortical cells devoted to intersensory processing. And it also reviews various insights from neuropsychology which show how the human mind, though it evolved from the senses, has now emerged from them and can persist transcendent of them. Thus, the dynamics of mental function parallel those of sensory function, not the reverse. And, as I shall try to demonstrate, the various forms of sensory interaction constitute the largest subset of animal and human experiences and the largest subset of causes for motivations and behaviour. Consequently, it is these aspects of mental function that present the greatest challenge to mathematicians and physicists and neuroscientists and other modellers seeking to describe well the underlying processes and dynamics that may 'explain' mind.
