Neuronal Group Selection: Conditions and Consequences: 3 Synthesis — The Mind as Evolution Internalised

If natural selection redefined life as a network of relational constraints, Edelman’s neuronal group selection extends that logic inward, showing that the mind itself is a continuation of Darwinian selection. In this framework, cognition, consciousness, and memory are not representations imposed upon reality, but relational actualisations within a dynamic selectional field.

1. Selection as the core logic of mind

The same triad that governs evolution — variation, differential survival, and retention — operates within the brain:

• Variation: Neural groups generate diverse patterns of activity.

• Differential stability: Coherent patterns are reinforced by reentrant signalling and functional success.

• Retention: Stabilised configurations persist, shaping subsequent activity.

Through this loop, the mind continually constructs itself, selecting its own relational states in alignment with internal and external contingencies.

2. Consciousness as relational alignment

Consciousness is not a singular locus but an emergent property of distributed selection. It arises when recurrent neural interactions achieve sufficient coherence to form a temporally and spatially integrated pattern. Awareness is therefore the actualisation of potential relations — an ongoing negotiation across multiple scales of neural activity.

3. Memory and learning as semiotic recursion

What we call learning and memory are not static stores but stabilised selections within a network of possibilities. Each act of perception or thought is itself a selection event, and the history of selections constrains future potential. The mind, in effect, evolves continuously within its own lifetime, mirroring Darwinian processes on a micro-temporal and semiotic scale.

4. Implications for relational ontology

Edelman’s theory completes the relational project Darwin began. Life demonstrates the semiotic actualisation of potential; the brain demonstrates the internalisation of this logic. Meaning is not imposed; it is selected, stabilised, and continuously re-actualised through relational interaction. The boundary between organism, environment, and cognition dissolves: mind and world co-define each other through ongoing selectional dynamics.

5. From biology to semiosis

Neuronal group selection shows that evolution is not confined to genes or bodies. Its principles recur wherever variation, relational constraint, and stabilisation exist. Cognition, perception, and even symbolic thought are expressions of this same logic: a recursive, self-organising system of semiotic actualisation. The mind is evolution internalised — a living field of relational possibility brought into coherent being.