Semantic Fields theory views the mind as a lattice of numerous constellations of meaning called Semantic Constellations or SeCos. A SeCo brings together widely different elements and processes (such as concepts, sensations, actions, words, memories, etc.) and binds them into a meaningful whole. Through each experience, the links and interrelations between elements are modified, thus allowing the SeCo to reorganize itself. The SeCo, in other words, is a network that behaves as a dynamical system, and self-organizes. It is the act of giving meanin--to what we perceive and intend--that builds the coherence of the SeCos, and, ultimately, of the semantic lattice. For example, take a painter looking at a landscape. 

It would be a gross oversimplification to imagine that the landscape is simply a set of stimuli evoking conditioned responses (concepts, memories or actions), as in the behaviorist framework. Rather, the landscape is itself a complex natural system having developed its own ecological web of interactions; and the mind interacts with this complex system through multiple parallel linkage processes that imply sensory impressions and feelings, meaningful words and concepts, imaginary scenes, a load of past experiences, a certain state of consciousness coloring the evolution of the perceptive process, anticipations as to how to render it all through a painting, and so forth. 

In other words, while contemplating the landscape the psyche-mind is engaging in a rich, complex and multileveled networking process. Through this unique, novel experience, the painter’s "Landscape" SeCo develops new internal clusters, grows with novel meanings and new links to related clusters, and shifts to a new global organization. 

Semantic Fields theory also posits a transversal network integration of mental and neural processes. SeCos integrate processes from lower neuronal processes up to higher rational ones, implicating all levels in-between (sensory, affective, imaginary, etc.). For example, learning how to draw will imply the co-evolution of processes from different levels, such as form-recognition, sensori-motor acts, labeling and categorizing, feelings, intentions, etc. 

This perspective, involving a transversal, psychophysical, network, casts the mind-body problem in a different light: human knowledge and ideas are never purely mental, abstract, or rational; rather, they are deeply tied to sensory, motor, affective, or hormonal processes. The model thus concurs with a growing recognition of nonrational processes in cognition (Reber, 1993). Varela, (1991) for example, holds that cognition develops out of--and remains tied to--a strong coupling of sensory and motor exploratory behaviors. 

Similarly, the model fits well with Charles Tart’s (1975) description of states of consciousness as idiosyncratic patterns of sensory and mental processes, behaviors, mind-sets, knowledge-sets, and memory. Finally, the transversal cognitive architecture may shed light upon the psychological complexes described by psychoanalysis--the pathological grouping of traumatic experiences with mind-sets, behaviors, and physiological processes.

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