Adding a penny to your two ... Penrose seems to be that very rare scientist who combines extremely high intelligence, feel (he writes of Einstein's "instinct") and the courage to "go public" with what he doesn't know, and to take the latter as a challenge to discovery. There is without a doubt an intangible realm that plays an integral and highly meaningful part in physical reality. There are tons of evidence here, very little of which is acceptable to science, which I suppose should not be surprising given science's insistance upon tangibility. While the scientific and very human habit has been to insist that we do know, Penrose thinks and thinks and circles and circles and will not give in to that very great temptation, the Materialist temptation.
If the intangible is real, there would simply have to be some operative interface between it and the brain, and to look for it makes all kinds of scientific sense, to me at least.
My take is also that whether or not Penrose is aware of it, and I think he probably is, he leaves open the scientific door to mysticism, which he seems to believe and I would agree can be approached from the scientific side. NDE, and other heretofore "verboten" phenomena, may thus become legitimate subjects of scientific study. I believe they will, with time. All IMHO, Alamo-Girl.
I agree with your reading on Penrose. IMHO, his level of thinking is much advanced beyond the usual. And I agree with your statement:
If the intangible is real, there would simply have to be some operative interface between it and the brain, and to look for it makes all kinds of scientific sense, to me at least.
I predict Penrose will eschew anything that might appear metaphysical, but will continue to push the ability of science to explore that which it currently cannot.