Cognitive Sequence Mapping: A Structural Model of Thought and Memory within Admissible Sequence Networks

This paper extends the admissible sequence network model of temporal experience into cognition. Thought, memory, and perception are interpreted as the traversal and stabilisation of admissible paths within a network of possible cognitive states. Memory corresponds to accessible nodes, thought to active traversal, and perception to constraint-driven stabilisation of sequence. Building on prior work examining dream, waking, and blackout conditions, the framework unifies cognitive processes as variations in constraint density and path accessibility. Waking cognition exhibits stable, constraint-guided traversal, dream cognition exhibits flexible branching under reduced constraint, anxiety represents constrained path narrowing, and blackout states correspond to absence of admissible sequence formation. The model proposes that cognitive coherence arises not from linear processing but from constraint compatibility within a high-dimensional possibility space. Attention is interpreted as transition weighting, and decision-making as admissible path selection. This work forms the cognitive extension of the admissible sequence network framework, linking temporal experience, perception, and cognition under a unified structural interpretation within the Paton System.