Cognitive Morphogenesis: How Prediction, Consciousness, and Language Co-Emerge from an Experience-Centered Mind

This article introduces an innovative, experience-centered theory of mind that sheds light on the co-emergence of consciousness and language. Moving beyond fragmented, mechanistic accounts, our model posits the Prognostic Mind (Prognostica Mens) as the universal operational principle, continuously generating and verifying predictions. Crucially, the very formation of these predictions and knowledge itself is governed by Cognitive Morphogenesis, a fundamental process describing how understanding is generated and organized across all cognitive levels through the dynamic interplay of two omnipresent Cardinal Principles: the Holistic Self (HS) and the Quantum Self (QS). The HS is responsible for the synthesis of unified forms and identities, crucial for coherent conscious experience, while the QS manages the differentiation of figures and their intricate relationships, fundamental for structured thought and linguistic parsing. These principles underpin three evolved functional spheres: the "I Act" (perceptual-motor predictions), the "I Socialize" (social-emotional predictions), and the "I Think" (abstract cognitive and symbolic predictions). The "I Think," unique to humans, is where the Prognostic Mind's operational mode fully articulates into abstract thought, self-reflection, and the sophisticated generation and processing of language and consciousness. In this continuous cycle, perception and action are intrinsic goals of the anticipation/verification method, with perception verifying cognitive anticipations and execution performing actions to verify intentional ones. We illustrate how this framework applies from basic neurophysiological mechanisms, such as gamma motoneurons (γ-MNs) and muscle spindles in embodied attention, to higher-level cognitive processes like language, supported by compelling neurophysiological evidence from Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) in semantic and syntactic processing. The model's high-level generalization capacity provides a coherent lens for interpreting complex phenomena, including the formation of grammatical categories and language acquisition, laying groundwork for future in-depth exploration of its neurophysiological underpinnings.