The definition has been much debated, but there are two aspects of the definition that are shared among all. All accounts also share, that at the root of self-complexity is the spreading of activation. He admits to the great deal of overlap between these categories, but suggests that there are enough differences to make a distinction. These four faces may correspond to cognitive theory, cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, and philosophy of the mind. Goertzel insists that it is by working on these four levels at once, that complex systems science may be able to transform psychology.
Psychology lacks an overarching perspective which brings the brain, mind and behavior together.
They are attractors of neural dynamical systems, but in psychology can also be understood as attractors of a more abstract dynamical system. They adapt to their environment. Their environment consists of other attractors in the mind and perceptual motor attractors in the external world. They utilize different networking principles, for example, working as a hierarchical structure or an associative structure where attractors interact with other attractors. Goertzel agrees this is a very general view of the mind, which could easily be articulated in every day language.