Perception Of An Open-Ended Environment Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 152):

Categorisation mechanisms work through global mappings that necessarily involve our bodies and our personal history. Perception is therefore not necessarily veridical. In our behaviour we are driven by a recategorical memory under the influence of dynamic changes of value. Beliefs and concepts are individuated only by reference to an open-ended environment, the description of which cannot be specified in advance.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, perception is not necessarily veridical, and the description of an open-ended environment cannot be specified in advance, because perception involves construing experience ("an open-ended environment") as perceptual meaning, in terms of an individuated system of perceptual potential, previously established on the basis of the varying adaptive value of each of the previous instances of perception.