Biogenetic Structuralism - Neurognosis and The Cognized Environment

Neurognosis and The Cognized Environment

The group's first book presented some general concepts which were later refined and used in other studies. One important concept was neurognosis, a term coined to label the inherent, rudimentary knowledge available to cognition in the initial organization of the pre- and perinatal nervous system (see Pre- and perinatal psychology). A human baby was conceived as taking its first cognitive and perceptual stance toward the world from the standpoint of a system of initial, genetically predisposed neurognostic models that come to develop in somatosensory interaction with the world.

The principal function of the human nervous system at the level of the cerebral cortex is the construction of a vast network of these models. This network of neural models in each individual is called the cognized environment, contrasted with the actual operational environment that includes both the real nature of that individual as an organism and the effective external environment (see Laughlin and Brady 1978:6, d'Aquili et al. 1979:12, Rubinstein et al. 1984:21, Laughlin, McManus and d'Aquili 1990). The notions of cognized and operational environments were borrowed by the biogenetic structuralist group from Roy Rappaport who coined the terms in his 1968 classic, Pigs for the Ancestors (see Rappaport 1968, 1979, 1984, 1999). The perspective began to take on a more developmental perspective as it incorporated the works of Jerome Bruner, Jean Piaget and others. Biogenetic structural theory now holds that not only the initial organization of the baby's cognized environment is essentially neurognostic, but so too is the course of development of those models and patterns of entrainment of models—a view not dissimilar to Carl Jung's notion of archetype (see Laughlin 1996 on archetypes and the brain).