As recognized by several cognitive scientists (such as Minsky and Freeman), although humans certainly engage in abstract reasoning, this is not the way our mind operates most of the time. Computational rule-bound processing, as expressed in logical or mathematical reasoning, must be seen as a high-level process--more akin to something we painfully learn and force our minds into, rather than a basic, natural working of the mind. Semantic fields theory posits that the true ground of thought is a low-level connective dynamic--the spontaneous linkage process. 

Essentially, clusters of semantic elements are attracted to, and link themselves to, other semantically related clusters. This connective dynamic is implemented both within and across SeCos. The semantic activation process is typically triggered by similarities across clusters. However, given the complexity of these clusters, differences are bound to be present too, thus permitting discrimination, differentiations, and the creation of new paths within the SeCo.

In the present model, learning can be defined as the elaboration of new link-clusters and the selection of new paths within the SeCo-network. In this sense, there is no fundamental distinction between experiencing something novel, generating meaning, and learning. We learn by weaving a dynamical network between qualitative experience, various neurological processes, and higher-level conceptualizations. SeCos are the vehicle through which the mind-psyche experiences and reorganizes itself; what has been learned is represented by the new organization of the SeCo--and its enfolded past states. 

The whole mind-brain network organization acts as an endo-context influencing the meaning an experience will take on, and hence, the unfolding of that experience. But the outside world is itself a complex, meaning-laden network. As stressed earlier in the landscape example, the outside world must be seen as webs of complex, self-organizing systems that have evolved specific interrelationships and interactions. 

In the present model, then, as the mind interacts with the world it develops multiple parallel links with other complex systems; it learns to grasp their evolutive dynamics and their organization as a whole. Consciousness makes sense of the world through a complex web of links and relations, that is, through connectivity and inter-influence of all the elements and processes linked together in the lattice. 

Consequently, we might state that the meaning of a novel experience emerges out of the complex interaction between a semantic endo-context (the lattice) and a meaning-laden exo-context (the environment). Both endo and exo-contexts influence--but do not compel or direct--the further evolution of the relevant SeCo.

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