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Functional State Space and Semantic Representation

A state space is the set of all possible configurations of a system. In the theory of dynamical systems, the state space of a discrete system can be modeled as a directed graph where each possible state “a” of the dynamical system is connected to another state “b” if some function ƒ of the system exists by which the system might transition from a to b, that is, ƒ(a) = b.

In Human-Centric Functional Modeling the human mind is represented as navigating from one group of concepts to another through reasoning processes. Assuming that a group of concepts is also itself a concept, this is equivalent to using reasoning to navigate from one concept to another. Reasoning can then be represented as a function in the space of concepts or “conceptual space” that serves as the state space of the cognitive system. This can be referred to as a “functional state space” because it represents cognition as a dynamical system in which each state is a “functional state” defined by all the transitions through which it is connected to other functional states. In Human-Centric Functional Modeling these transitions in functional state space are distinguished by two types, these are functions that defined as receiving only one input, and processes that might receive multiple inputs over time.

If functional state space has the potential to represent all concepts and all reasoning connecting them, then it has the potential to provide a complete representation of the human meaning of any concept, as well as a complete representation of the human meaning of any reasoning. A complete representation of human meaning is a complete semantic representation. Since a complete semantic representation does not yet exist, any implementation of such a conceptual space would be expected to be the first true semantic representation. Since any implementation of any functional state space is expected to be reusable to define a conceptual space, then any representation of any functional state space is potentially also a semantic representation.