Value-Category Memory Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 118-9):

The appearance of primary consciousness, according to the model, depends on the evolution of three functions. Two of these evolutionary developments are necessary but not sufficient for consciousness. 

The first is the development of the cortical system in such a way that when conceptual functions appeared they could be linked strongly to the limbic system, extending already existing capacities to carry out learning. 

The second is the development of a new kind of memory based on this linkage. Unlike the system of perceptual categorisation, this conceptual memory system is able to categorise responses in the different brain systems that carry out perceptual categorisation and it does this according to the demands of limbic brain stem value systems. This "value-category" memory allows conceptual responses to occur in terms of the mutual interactions of the thalamo-cortical and limbic-brain stem systems.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, conceptual functions entail the organisation of perceptual meanings into systems, and the linkage of these to the limbic system is the material means by which perceptual meanings are assigned values that have been evolutionarily selected as adaptive for the species.

Since memory is the ability to repeat a performance, the value-category memory that is based on this linkage is the ability to instantiate such value-weighted perceptual systemic potential.