The Symbolic Regulatory Semantic Network (SRSN): From Biological Survival to the Formation of Meaning and Self.

General IntroductionDespite rapid advancements in brain sciences and cognitive linguistics, the fundamental problem concerning the origin of consciousness, meaning, and self remains unresolved without a unified explanation. How do neural signals transform into subjective experience? Is meaning derived from language, or does language later serve as a means to encode prior meaning?This paper proposes a new answer that transcends the traditional duality between matter and consciousness, and between language and meaning, by presenting an interpretive-neural model called: SRSN: The Symbolic Regulatory Semantic Network.We propose that consciousness does not emerge all at once, but rather as a result of the accumulation of neuro-symbolic processes that organize experience in stages, beginning with raw predictive perception and culminating in self-narrative interpretation. Likewise, meaning is not a product of language; on the contrary, language is later used to encode internally produced meaning. The paper presents a functional-neural model of the self, free will, intentionality, and identity, as interpretive localizations resulting from a symbolic organization of experience.What is SRSN?SRSN is a distributed neuro-symbolic structure that performs a regulatory interpretive function, through which it produces: * Meaning as an internal symbolic representation * Consciousness as a perceptual-narrative superposition