The classic example may be René Descartes and the Mind-body problem and the philosophy of consciousness.

When I am trying to find something specific, in this case physical properties and another entire subject -- names for our selves/identity.

I look at the footnotes of pages in Wikipedia. Everybody writes the pages in the wiki so proceed with a note open to write down article titles, books and people to look up.

Also, what I think you are asking about may be neurology, because of the thoughts not having physical properties' part of your question. There are some measurable physical properties of thoughts. But, in a way you are correct in that there are many, many areas of the brain that process language, in different ways, like listening, speaking, reading, and writing, not just one area.