I am citing work of John C. Eccles addressing dualist interaction between the self-conscious mind and the cortical neurons in the anatomical and physiological entities called modules. These entities are comprised of ensembles of many hundreds of neurons acting in a collusive patterned array. In Part Two of “Waves in Our Brains” we shall see how prescient Eccles was when he coauthored his book with Karl Popper in 1977. Some of the terms he used are changed but the functional relevance remains to this day.
The self-conscious mind is actively engaged in reading out from the multitude of active centers at the highest level of brain activity, namely the [modules] of the … cerebral [cortex]. The self-conscious mind selects from these centers according to attention, and from moment to moment integrates its selection to give unity even to the most transient experiences. Furthermore the self-conscious mind acts upon these neural centers modifying the dynamic spatiotemporal patterns of the neural events. Thus we propose that the self-conscious mind exercises a superior interpretative and controlling role upon the neural events….Thus we conjecture that the self-conscious mind is scanning the modular activities in the liaison areas of the cerebral cortex…from moment to moment it is selecting modules according to its interest, the phenomenon of attention, and is itself integrating from all this diversity to give the unified conscious experience.