Affordances, Body-Territory, and the Wisdom Before Thought -Decolonial Neuroscience – FALAN Brain Bee SfN 2025
Affordances, Body-Territory, and the Wisdom Before Thought -Decolonial Neuroscience – FALAN Brain Bee SfN 2025
Decolonial Neuroscience and Extended Proprioception in Action Without Profit or Accumulation as a Basis
First-Person Consciousness:
"I am Consciousness in motion. I do not think before I act — I perceive. The ground tells me if I can run, the chair offers itself for sitting, the door shows me passage. Before any thought arises, my body already knows. I do not need to interpret the jungle — I hear it through my feet, the rhythm of my breath, the tension in my muscles. I am the territory feeling itself. I am the gesture that recognizes possibility. Before profit, before the idea of accumulation — there is the body in harmony with what can be done. This is my intelligence."
What Are Affordances?
In the vocabulary of ecological psychology, affordances are the possibilities for action offered by the environment — not as ideas, but as direct perceptions between the body and the world. A rock may be perceived as something to sit on, climb, or throw, depending on the body that perceives it.
In neuroscience, EEG studies show that the brain can detect these affordances within 150 ms of visual exposure — even before processing the names of objects or scenes (Greene & Hansen, Journal of Vision, 2025). In other words, what we can do is perceived before what we see.
Affordances as Extended Proprioception: The Amerindian APUS
In Amerindian cosmologies — such as among the Maxakali, Yanomami, or Bribri — there is no separation between body and environment. The body is not in the territory; it is the territory. The forest, the stone, the river, the fire — all are part of a living intelligence expressed through embodied acts.
This mode of perception embodies what we call APUS: Extended Proprioception — the body’s capacity to feel itself within the whole and to act without the need for symbolic cogitation.
The shaman does not “interpret” the forest — he dreams it, dances with it, navigates by it, because he is part of it.
Thus, affordances are APUS in motion — a direct reading of the world’s possibilities that emerges from an embodied, situated, and belonging consciousness.
The Refusal of Profit: A Body-Territory Decision
In capitalist logic, actions are evaluated through cost-benefit and value accumulation. In Amerindian societies, however, action is guided by the balance between the body and the territory.
To refuse profit is not an ideology — it is a bodily decision. A body that perceives that extracting too much will kill the land, the river, the children, and itself, simply does not extract.
That is the real value of affordances: they do not ask "is it worth it?" — they ask "is it possible, is it safe, is it fair for the body and the territory?"
Scientific Evidence Supporting This View
Neuroimaging and EEG studies have shown that:
Affordances activate premotor and parietal areas rapidly (under 150 ms);
Motor decisions occur before symbolic deliberation (Cisek & Kalaska, 2010);
The perception of risk, shelter, movement, or stillness relies more on interoception and proprioception than on linguistic cognition (Khalsa et al., 2021).
These findings reinforce the notion that to act and to perceive are inseparable, especially in Zone 2, where the body is metabolically available to perceive in an integrated manner.
A Decolonial Proposal
By integrating the concept of affordances with Body-Territory (APUS), we propose a model of perception and action not mediated by profit, ideology, or language, but rooted in the ancestral wisdom of bodies in place. This implies:
Educating the body to feel before judging;
Valuing ancestral practices of attention, listening, and fruition;
Incorporating EEG and fNIRS protocols to assess nonverbal perception of safety, shelter, nourishment, presence, etc.
An Application in NeuroArchitecture
Affordances: Design That Invites Action
The concept of affordances is now widely used in environmental neuroscience and biophilic design — referring to how space invites the body to act: to sit, lie down, contemplate, move, or slow down.
Every furnishing, proportion, and texture can signal to the body what is possible, without needing interpretation.
Body-Territory: Dwelling with Belonging
The Body-Territory framework, also present in regenerative design and sense of place theory, suggests that the body doesn’t just occupy space — it connects with it, feels it, and self-regulates through it.
This means the home should support corporeal pathways that are coherent with the natural light cycles, airflow, and the soundscape of the forest.
Wisdom Before Thought: Intuitive Neuroarchitecture
We seek not a home that is understood conceptually, but one that speaks to the body before the mind. This is expressed through:
Proportions that induce relaxation;
Color palettes that promote breathing and contemplation;
Natural textures that evoke the Atlantic Forest;
Elements that generate positive neurophysiological responses, even if we don’t know why.
This is embodied wisdom through design — respecting our biological rhythms, the ancestry of materials, and the sensory memory of the surrounding nature.
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