The theory of the brain presented in your third and fourth paragraph interests me. Can you recommend a book, wikipedia article, or white paper on the subject?
Oliver Sacks and V. S. Ramachandran have written several good books about the functional organization of the human brain. YouTube has several Ramachandran presentations, and those will have links to many other interesting videos. They are neurologists, so they excel at showing what happens when certain tiny regions of the brain are damaged.
The attention deficit disorder literation has a lot about attention and focus. Edward Hallowell and John Ratey's books are particulary readable; their Delivered From Distraction is a standard work.
Almost forgot: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has written extensively about the "flow" state of mind that people seem to find particular satisfying and attractive.
Scott Adams (Mr. Dilbert) writes about losing his ability to speak, then regaining it using rhyming and singing. http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-08/ff_adams?...
The attention deficit disorder literation has a lot about attention and focus. Edward Hallowell and John Ratey's books are particulary readable; their Delivered From Distraction is a standard work.
Scientists have been mapping the connections between various "machines" in the brain using an MRI technique. It looks remarkably like a network of computers, with different modules for different functional tasks. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080630200947.ht... http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/21042/?a=f