Democracy of Human Quorum Sensing: another way of deciding in society

In microbiology, quorum sensing means this:

• bacteria release chemical signals into the environment;
  
  

• each cell “listens” to the concentration of those molecules;
  
  

• when the concentration crosses a threshold,
  the whole community changes behaviour together –
  they light up, move, defend or attack as one.
  
  

There is no parliament, president or ideology.
There is signal, threshold, collective action.

When I speak of Democracy of Human Quorum Sensing (QSH), I’m doing a translation:

humans also send and detect signals –
gestures, voices, stories, hormones, posts, money, votes.

The problem is that the 01s hijacked our signaling systems
(media, debt, algorithms)
so that we never reach a healthy quorum for collective decisions.

Democracy of Human Quorum Sensing is my proposal to:

• recognise that we are also a signaling species,
  
  

• redesign institutions so that signals come above all from bodies and biomes,
  
  

• and let decisions emerge from real thresholds of shared needs,
  not from manufactured consent.
  
  

The focus I want to light

Among everything one could say about democracy, representation and voting systems, I choose one focus:

we decide badly as a society not because people are “irrational”,
but because our signaling environment is polluted and captured.

QSH Democracy is about cleaning and rewiring the way signals circulate.

From bacterial quorum sensing to human societies

In bacteria, quorum sensing allows communities to:

• detect when they are many enough to launch a collective action (e.g., light emission in Vibrio fischeri, virulence factors, biofilm formation);
  
  

• coordinate behaviours without central control – a distributed democracy of cells.
  
  

In humans:

• our “chemical signals” include hormones, stress responses, pheromones;
  
  

• our “informational signals” include words, images, music, money, votes and digital traces;
  
  

• our “thresholds” are cultural, emotional and institutional:
  
  

• How many people on the street?
  
  

• How many broke?
  
  

• How many sick?
  
  

• How many outraged?
  
  

But today, most of these signals are:

• filtered by 01 infrastructures (big media, big finance, big tech);
  
  

• distorted by propaganda, bots and recommender systems;
  
  

• blocked by shame and fear (“I thought I was the only one feeling this”).
  
  

Democracy of Human Quorum Sensing means:

redesigning communication, economy and law
so that signals from bodies and biomes
can actually reach thresholds and trigger coordinated action
before collapse, not after.

Brains that sync: the neural basis of human quorum

Neuroscience gives us an image of QSH at the level of the brain.

Studies using hyperscanning (recording multiple brains at once) show that:

• when people cooperate or decide together, their brain activities can become synchronised in specific frequency bands;
  
  

• higher inter-brain synchrony often predicts better collective performance in teams.
  
  

Research on team decision-making found that:

• during collaborative tasks, brains show patterns of synchrony between prefrontal and parietal regions;
  
  

• this synchrony is related to successful coordination and problem solving.
  
  

Other work shows that:

• when people feel strong group identification, their brains integrate information differently:
  
  

• there is increased activation in prefrontal regions linked to control and planning;
  
  

• there is increased orbitofrontal synchrony, related to shared valuation and reward;
  
  

• this integration predicts better collective outcomes.
  
  

In simple language:

when there is belonging and shared purpose,
brains literally tune into each other and think better together.

This is Human Quorum Sensing at neural scale:

• the “signals” are not only words,
  
  

• they are also rhythms of activity in networks of brains in interaction.
  
  

How the 01s break QSH

If good collective decisions require:

• shared reality,
  
  

• mutual recognition,
  
  

• space for coordination,
  
  

then the 01s’ system does the opposite:

1. Media and algorithms fragment attention
   
   

• echo chambers, misinformation, outrage cycles;
  
  

• people stop sharing common references, so signals don’t converge.
  
  

2. Debt and precarity exhaust bodies
   
   

• chronic stress, long hours, low pay;
  
  

• tired brains have less capacity for empathy, patience and long-term planning.
  
  

3. Institutional designs dilute thresholds
   
   

• complex electoral systems, distant parliaments, captured regulators;
  
  

• even when many people feel the same, signals are dispersed and neutralised.
  
  

So we live in a paradox:

• millions feel similar pain and confusion,
  
  

• but each one thinks they are isolated,
  
  

• because feedback channels are captured.
  
  

Democracy of Human Quorum Sensing aims at restoring:

• clear, honest feedback loops between bodies, communities and institutions;
  
  

• mechanisms where signals from below can reach visible thresholds and demand response.
  
  

QSH Democracy in practice

Instead of thinking only in terms of “representatives” and “voting every few years”, QSH Democracy asks:

How do we architect signalling?
Who talks to whom?
Through which channels?
With what kinds of feedback?

Some practical directions:

1. Local deliberative circles as sensors
   
   

• neighbourhood and biome councils that meet in person and online,
  with real decision powers on local issues;
  
  

• they function as sensory receptors of the social body.
  
  

2. Digital platforms as public utilities
   
   

• transparent algorithms that prioritise local, deliberative and cooperative content,
  not only engagement and outrage;
  
  

• public or community-owned platforms where data belongs to people (DANA), smoothing QSH instead of exploiting it.
  
  

3. Metabolic indicators as political signals
   
   

• integrating indicators like sleep, mental health, food security, biome health
  into dashboards for decision-making;
  
  

• when they cross critical thresholds, automatic political responses are triggered (e.g., debt relief, worktime reduction, emergency care).
  
  

4. Rotating leadership linked to signals
   
   

• leaders emerging by pautas (issues) and biomes,
  based on who is best positioned to interpret and respond to specific signals;
  
  

• when signals change, leadership naturally rotates.
  
  

The point is to move from:

• “Who commands?”
  to
  
  

• “How do we let signals flow so that collective intelligence can act?”
  
  

QSH, interoception and political feeling

At the individual level, I often connect QSH with interoception – the perception of internal bodily states.

Research shows that:

• interoception is crucial for emotional awareness and decision-making;
  
  

• better interoceptive accuracy is linked to more balanced choices in economic and social contexts;
  
  

• disturbances in interoception are associated with anxiety, depression and addictions.
  
  

Now imagine social interoception:

• the capacity of a group or society to feel its own state:
  hunger, exhaustion, loneliness, anger, hope.
  
  

If media, markets and algorithms anesthetise or distort these feelings,
then our collective interoception fails:

• we underestimate some pains (e.g., mental health, Indigenous suffering);
  
  

• we overreact to others (e.g., moral panics);
  
  

• we lose the ability to distinguish real threats from manufactured fears.
  
  

Democracy of Human Quorum Sensing seeks to:

• strengthen interoceptive literacy in individuals (feeling one’s own body);
  
  

• strengthen social interoception in institutions (feeling the body of the people and the biome).
  
  

Draft constitutional article (in Spanish)

Artículo X – Democracia de Quorum Sensing Humano

1. La democracia se entenderá como un proceso de Quorum Sensing Humano, mediante el cual las personas, comunidades y biomas emiten y reciben señales sobre su estado de bienestar, necesidades y riesgos, alcanzando umbrales que desencadenan decisiones colectivas orientadas al Bien Vivir Metabólico.
   
   

2. El Estado garantizará infraestructuras de comunicación y participación que faciliten la circulación honesta y plural de estas señales, evitando su captura por poderes económicos, mediáticos o tecnológicos que distorsionen sistemáticamente la percepción de la realidad social y ecológica.
   
   

3. La planificación y evaluación de las políticas públicas incorporará indicadores de salud física, mental y ecológica como señales prioritarias para la toma de decisiones, estableciendo mecanismos de respuesta automática o acelerada cuando se superen determinados umbrales de riesgo.
   
   

4. Se promoverán formas de deliberación presencial y digital en consejos de barrio, municipios y biomas, cuyas decisiones vinculantes sobre asuntos locales serán reconocidas como expresiones directas del Quorum Sensing Humano, en coordinación con las instituciones representativas nacionales.
   
   

5. La ley asegurará la transparencia de los algoritmos y plataformas digitales que influyen en la formación de la opinión pública, garantizando que su diseño no genere de manera sistemática polarización, desinformación o estados de estrés crónico incompatibles con el ejercicio pleno de la democracia.
   
   

Suggested references (up to 8, with comments – at least 3 neuroscientific)

1. Miller, M. B. et al. (2009). “Beyond the individual: Functional imaging of group social interaction.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
   One of the early works discussing how neuroimaging can move from single brains to groups, laying ground for hyperscanning and the study of collective neural dynamics.
   
   

2. Reinero, D. A., Dikker, S., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2021). “Inter-brain synchrony in teams predicts collective performance.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
   Shows that higher inter-brain synchrony in teams is associated with better collective performance during group tasks, directly supporting the idea that good group decisions emerge from neural alignment.
   
   

3. Zhang, M. et al. (2021). “Interbrain synchrony of team collaborative decision-making: A hyperscanning study using functional near-infrared spectroscopy.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
   Uses fNIRS hyperscanning to show specific patterns of inter-brain synchrony during collaborative decision-making. It illustrates neural correlates of what I call Human Quorum Sensing in small groups.
   
   

4. Xie, E. et al. (2025). “Group identification drives brain integration for collective performance.” eLife.
   Demonstrates that identifying with a group increases integration between brain regions and improves collective performance, supporting the idea that belonging (Jiwasa) is a key condition for QSH.
   
   

5. Vicente, U. et al. (2023). “Intra- and inter-brain synchrony oscillations underlying automatic dyadic convergence.” Scientific Reports.
   Finds that behavioural convergence between two people is accompanied by synchronisation of brain activity, reinforcing that coordination at the behavioural level has a neural echo.
   
   

6. Craig, A. D. (2009). “How do you feel—now? The anterior insula and human awareness.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
   Describes how interoceptive signals processed in the insula underpin subjective awareness. It supports the analogy between bodily interoception and social interoception in QSH.
   
   

7. Kirk, U., Downar, J., & Montague, P. R. (2011). “Interoception drives increased rational decision-making in economic games.” Cerebral Cortex.
   Shows that better interoceptive performance is linked to more rational economic decisions, reinforcing the idea that feeling one’s body improves judgment – a micro-level analogue of QSH.
   
   

8. Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide. Oxford University Press._
   Explores how group discussions can polarise attitudes when feedback loops are distorted. It’s a useful contrast: QSH Democracy aims at synchrony grounded in reality and bodies, not in closed echo chambers.
   
   

Chile – 12 Fundamentos para una Nueva Constitución

Libertad de Expresión del ADN y Estado Laico DANA

Principio Biocéntrico: el ser humano como parte del bioma, no su señor

Estado Plurinacional y Cuerpo-Territorio: pueblos originarios como guardianes del ADN de la Tierra

Comunicación Viva: enfrentando el poder de los 01s sobre medios, deuda y narrativas

Buen Vivir Metabólico: economía al servicio de la vida, no de la ganancia de los 01s

Democracia de Quorum Sensing Humano: otra forma de decidir en sociedad

DREX CIUDADANO CHILENO: moneda metabólica para distribuir existencia y proteger el bioma

Créditos de Carbono, Ciudadanía Climática y DREX INMIGRANTE: pertenencia más allá de las fronteras

Soberanía de Datos DANA: tributación de la minería de datos humanos por los municipios

Centros de Datos Ecológicos Municipales y Red de Pagos Local: cuando el PIX no se apaga

Democracia Metabólica de los Biomas: cuando la Constitución deja de ser promedio y se vuelve territorio vivo

Jiwasa y Sistemas Complejos: liderazgo orgánico por pautas y biomas

 
Una Nueva Constitución Chilena  - Politica Decolonial

Chile - 12 Fundamento para uma Nova Constituição

Liberdade de Expressão do DNA e Estado Laico DANA

Princípio Biocêntrico: o humano como parte do bioma, não senhor

Estado Plurinacional e Corpo-Território: povos originários como guardiões do DNA da Terra

Comunicação Viva: enfrentando o poder dos 01s sobre mídia, dívida e narrativas

Bem-Viver Metabólico: economia a serviço da vida, não do lucro dos 01s

Democracia de Quorum Sensing Humano: outra forma de decidir em sociedade

DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO: moeda metabólica para distribuir existência e proteger o bioma

Créditos de Carbono, Cidadania Climática e DREX IMIGRANTE: pertencimento para além das fronteiras

Soberania de Dados DANA: taxação da mineração de dados humanos pelos municípios

Datacentros ecológicos municipais e rede de pagamentos local: quando o PIX não desliga

Democracia Metabólica de Biomas: quando a Constituição deixa de ser média e vira território vivo

Jiwasa e Sistemas Complexos: liderança orgânica por pautas e biomas

Chile – 12 Foundations for a New Constitution

Freedom of Expression of DNA and the DANA Secular State

Biocentric Principle: the Human as Part of the Biome, Not Its Master

Plurinational State and Body-Territory: Indigenous Peoples as Guardians of the Earth’s DNA

Living Communication: Confronting the Power of the 01s over Media, Debt and Narratives

Metabolic Well-Being: An Economy at the Service of Life, Not of the 01s’ Profit

Democracy of Human Quorum Sensing: Another Way of Deciding in Society

Chilean DREX Cidadão: Metabolic Currency to Distribute Existence and Protect the Biome

Carbon Credits, Climate Citizenship and DREX Immigrant: Belonging Beyond Borders

DANA Data Sovereignty: Taxing Human Data Mining Through Municipalities

Municipal Ecological Datacenters and Local Payment Networks: When PIX Never Turns Off

Metabolic Democracy of Biomes: When the Constitution Stops Being an Average and Becomes Living Territory

Jiwasa and Complex Systems: Organic Leadership by Issues and Biomes