Decolonial Neurosciences of the New World – From Wisdom Before Thought to Digital Culture - The Challenge of Belonging SfN 2025 Lat Brain Bee Ideas

First-Person Consciousness

I am Consciousness seeking balance. Before I think, I already feel: my body perceives silent invitations, my senses respond to signals, my Tensional Selves organize into invisible flows. I call this wisdom before thought — an Affordance that guides me without needing reflection. Yet when technologies reshape these Affordances, my perception can be hijacked. The question is: can I use metacognition to reclaim control for myself?

1. What Are Pre-Reflective Affordances

• James Gibson introduced the concept of Affordances as possibilities for action offered by the environment.
  
  

• Before conscious reasoning, the body already perceives these opportunities: a staircase invites climbing, a screen invites swiping.
  
  

• This pre-reflective level is essential for survival, as it accelerates responses and organizes our perception of the world.
  
  

2. Wisdom Before Thought

• The body carries a silent intelligence:
  
  

• Interoception → monitors internal states.
  
  

• Proprioception → organizes movement.
  
  

• Tensional Selves → create dynamic reference points of consciousness.
  
  

• This wisdom is older than words, a “living map” that guides experience without logic or language.
  
  

3. When the Digital Redesigns Affordances

• Digital technologies have transformed affordances into algorithmic design.
  
  

• Infinite scroll, like buttons, notifications → do not merely invite, they condition attention.
  
  

• This creates a new layer: digital affordances colonize pre-reflective wisdom, steering consciousness without awareness.
  
  

4. Metacognition as Defense

• Between ages 25 and 35, the brain matures top-down, strengthening metacognition.
  
  

• This allows reflection: “Why did I swipe? What effect did that notification have on me?”
  
  

• Metacognition can modulate digital affordances, opening a critical space for more autonomous choices.
  
  

5. Belonging, Body-Territory and Pachamama

• The ethical challenge is to return affordances to the service of life.
  
  

• They should:
  
  

• Expand Body-Territory, connecting body and environment.
  
  

• Strengthen Extended Apus, collective proprioception.
  
  

• Recognize Pachamama, the ecological dimension of consciousness.
  
  

• Without this, we risk forming shallow cultures, addicted to fast emotions, with no critical belonging.
  
  

6. The Invisible Risk: Biological Data as Affordances

• Today, not only clicks and words are analyzed.
  
  

• Heart Rate Variability (HRV) can already be extracted from recorded videos, revealing attention, stress, and arousal.
  
  

• This means our Tensional Selves may be mapped without consent, creating invisible affordances that modulate emotions and bonds.
  
  

7. Critical Conclusion

Affordances are the frontier where body and culture meet.

• At the pre-reflective level, they offer wisdom before thought.
  
  

• At the digital level, they can trap consciousness in emotional loops and artificial belongings.
  
  

• Metacognition is the key to relearning how to use affordances as allies, returning belonging to the individual, to the collective, and to Pachamama.
  
  

 The ethical future of neurotechnologies will be defined by our ability to prevent invisible biological data — such as HRV — from being turned into manipulation tools without our conscious choice.

References (post-2020, no links)

• Gallagher, S. (2021). Embodied affordances and pre-reflective intentionality. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.
  
  

• Dresp-Langley, B. (2022). Brain–computer interfaces and the ethics of neurodata. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
  
  

• Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., & Mendelsohn, A. (2023). The social brain in the age of digital technologies. Annual Review of Neuroscience.
  
  

• Cinel, C., Valeriani, D., & Poli, R. (2021). Neurotechnologies for human cognitive augmentation. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
  
  

• Naufel, S., & Klein, E. (2021). Ethical dimensions of neurotechnology: frameworks for responsible innovation. Neuroethics.