Edelman's 'Concept Formation' Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

Edelman (1992: 109):

The TNGS suggests that in forming concepts, the brain constructs maps of its own activities, not just of external stimuli, as in perception. According to the theory, the brain areas responsible for concept formation contain structures that categorise, discriminate, and recombine the various brain activities occurring in different kinds of global mappings. Such structures in the brain, instead of categorising outside inputs from sensory modalities, categorise parts of past global mappings according to modality, the presence or absence of movement, and the presence or absence of relationships between perceptual categorisations.

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From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the formation of concepts through the brain constructing maps of its own activities occurring in different kinds of global mappings is the material means by which perceptual meanings, construed of experience, are organised into systems of related perceptual meaning.