The Thoughts Of Russell Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Russell (1961: 633):

As for 'mind', when substance has been rejected a mind must be some group or structure of events.  The grouping must be effected by some relation which is characteristic of the sort of phenomena we wish to call 'mental'.  We may take memory as typical.  We might — though this would be rather unduly simple — define a 'mental' event as one which remembers or is remembered.  Then the mind to which a given mental event belongs is the group of events connected with the given event by memory–chains, backwards or forwards.

Blogger Comments:

On the ideational dimension of consciousness, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 577, 578) write:

We have shown how the system of the ideation base construes consciousness: as conscious processing by a conscious being. Conscious processing can create a higher–order world of ideas (or, as we would say, meanings)… . Conscious processes are of two kinds: sensing, and saying. …

The figure of sensing is a configuration of a Process and the participant engaged in sensing, the Senser; that is, consciousness is construed as a complementarity of change through time and persistence through time — as a conscious participant involved in an unfolding process.

In terms of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, Russell's definition of a mental event as one which remembers or is remembered corresponds to a Senser engaged in a cognitive mental process or a Phenomenon or projected idea.

Russell encodes the mind to which a given mental event belongs by reference to the group of events connected with the given event by memory–chains, backwards or forwards

the mind [[to which a given mental event belongs]]	is	the group [of events [[connected with the given event by memory–chains, backwards or forwards]] ]
Identified/Value	Process: relational	Identifier/Token

and construes the relation between mind and mental events as one of attributive possession: the mind possesses mental events

to	which	a given mental event	belongs
	Attribute: possessor	Carrier: possessed	Process: relational: possession