discontinuity???

"For the time being it is not unreasonable to conceive of the mind as emerging from the cooperation of many brain regions. This occurs when the sheer accumulation of details regarding the state of the body that is mapped in those regions reaches a 'critical pitch.' The knowledge gap we now recognize my turn out to be little more than a DISCONTINUITY in the complexity of the accumulated detail, and in the complexity of the interactions of the brain regions involved in the mapping" (Looking for Spinoza, p. 209).

Mind emerges when brain regions co-operate and detail reaches a "critical pitch."

But what on earth is a "discontinuity in the complexity"? Is this the idea that when a decision becomes sufficiently complex, the brain must resort to mental images to make processing possible? My idea is that the mental images are either a way of processing more information at higher speed or a kind of delay tactic that allows the brain more time. Are mental images useless by-products or crucial devices? That is a big question. I would suspect they are useless by-products.