A 'Scientific' Theory Of Consciousness Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 82):

To be scientific, the theory must be based on the assumption that all cognition and all conscious experience rest solely on processes and orderings occurring in the physical world.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this criterion for 'scientific' derives from Galileo's primary qualities and Descartes' res extensa, as previously discussed on this blog.  Note that, on this model, Chomsky's Formal linguistics is not scientific, since it is concerned instead with Descartes' res cogitans.

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics, this approach to 'cognition and all conscious experience' reconstrues the 'inner domain' of mental (and verbal) processes in terms of the 'outer domain' of material and relational processes.  That is, it provides the material basis for consciousness, but stops short of modelling consciousness itself.