Jiwasa and Shared Spaces

How do multiple Body-Territories construct a common reality?

Throughout this series, we have explored how representational spaces emerge, receive attention, leave traces through memory, and create new possibilities of existence.

Now a deeper question emerges:

How do multiple Body-Territories create a shared reality?

How does a family create traditions?

How does a community create culture?

How does a scientific team create knowledge?

How does a society create belonging?

How do human beings coordinate around a common future?

Decolonial Neuroscience proposes that these phenomena emerge through a process we call:

Jiwasa.

Complex Systems Before Life

Long before brains, language, or culture existed, the universe was already producing collective forms.

Crystals.

Metal alloys.

Vortices.

Bubbles.

Clouds.

Flocks.

Schools of fish.

These systems reveal a fundamental property:

The whole develops characteristics that do not exist in the isolated parts.

A bubble possesses:

• a boundary;

• an inside;

• an outside;

• temporary stability;

• dynamic organization.

Even without DNA.

Even without consciousness.

Even without a nervous system.

Collective emergence precedes life itself.

Complex systems research demonstrates that local interactions can generate coherent global patterns without central control. The collective becomes more than the sum of its components. (Ibro Neuroscience)

From Bubbles to Cells

With the emergence of biological membranes, metabolism, and self-regulation, a new form of organization appeared.

The cell can be understood as a specialized bubble capable of maintaining useful information through time.

Now there is:

• boundary;

• energy;

• information;

• memory;

• adaptation.

Life begins by creating territories.

First physical territories.

Then representational territories.

Then cultural territories.

DNA emerges as a mechanism for stabilizing and transmitting successful forms of organization.

In this perspective, life may be viewed as a dynamic process through which territories learn to preserve information across time.

Body-Territory and Representation

With complex organisms something new appears:

Representation.

The tree exists inside the Body-Territory.

The river exists inside the Body-Territory.

The village exists inside the Body-Territory.

The nation exists inside the Body-Territory.

Money exists inside the Body-Territory.

Each perception creates Utupe.

Each emotional experience may become Pei Utupe.

Each representation carries its own Xapiri.

The Body-Territory becomes a living ecosystem of representations.

Jiwasa: The Synchronization of Shared Spaces

Jiwasa emerges when representational spaces become partially synchronized across multiple Body-Territories.

This synchronization does not require identical perceptions.

Each individual remains unique.

Each Body-Territory maintains its own memories, emotions, and history.

Yet some spaces become sufficiently aligned to allow:

• cooperation;

• communication;

• learning;

• belonging;

• collective action.

Language itself emerges through this process.

Culture emerges through this process.

Science emerges through this process.

Civilizations emerge through this process.

Jiwasa Exists Before Ideology

One of the central propositions of this framework is that Jiwasa precedes ideology.

It does not originate in political systems.

It does not originate in religion.

It does not originate in economic models.

Jiwasa emerges from the necessities of existence itself.

Food.

Protection.

Learning.

Care.

Child development.

Collective survival.

Knowledge transmission.

These needs generate shared representational spaces.

From these spaces emerge belonging and cooperation.

This is what we call:

Existential Jiwasa

Existential Jiwasa is the synchronization of Body-Territories around real conditions necessary for life.

The collective strengthens the individual.

The individual strengthens the collective.

The synchronization increases the possibilities of existence for all participants.

Time Lived and Natural Synchrony

Earlier in this series we proposed that subjective time emerges through the expansion, contraction, recruitment, and release of representational spaces.

Jiwasa allows us to deepen this idea.

When multiple Body-Territories synchronize around real existential needs, shared representational spaces begin moving together.

This movement generates lived time.

The clock continues to advance.

But the clock ceases to be the primary organizer of experience.

Attention flows.

New spaces emerge.

Existing spaces reorganize.

Meaning grows.

Belonging deepens.

The individual feels part of something larger without losing individuality.

This is closely related to what we have called:

Transcending-One's-Current-Self.

Natural synchrony creates lived time.

Artificial Jiwasa

Modern systems have learned how to generate synchronization without necessarily generating life.

Algorithms.

Attention markets.

Political polarization.

Propaganda.

Financial concentration.

Digital tribalism.

These systems also create bubbles.

They create identity.

They create emotional alignment.

They create belonging.

Yet they may remain disconnected from the fundamental needs of Body-Territories.

Food does not improve.

Health does not improve.

Learning does not improve.

Belonging becomes dependent on continued attention capture.

Synchronization remains.

Existential expansion diminishes.

This creates what we call:

Artificial Jiwasa

Artificial Jiwasa is the synchronization of attention around objectives that do not primarily serve the flourishing of participating Body-Territories.

Debt, Burnout, and Extractive Synchronization

History offers many examples.

Debt-based labor systems often synchronized entire populations around perpetual obligation.

The harder people worked, the more deeply trapped they became.

The collective system remained stable.

The lives within it became increasingly constrained.

Burnout represents a contemporary example.

An individual joins an organization.

Finds purpose.

Finds belonging.

Finds identity.

Yet over time, internal representational spaces become subordinated to external demands.

Sleep diminishes.

Creativity diminishes.

Relationships weaken.

Meaning fades.

The person remains synchronized.

But no longer inhabits their own existence.

Burnout may therefore be understood as a condition in which participation in a collective gradually consumes the spaces necessary for personal flourishing.

We Are Massified by the Choices We Never Had

Perhaps one of the deepest statements emerging from this framework is:

We are massified by the choices we never had.

Freedom depends upon representational space.

Nobody chooses what cannot be perceived.

Nobody compares what cannot be imagined.

Nobody critiques what lacks representation.

For this reason, education, science, mathematics, language, art, movement, and critical thinking become essential functions of a healthy society.

They create new spaces inside the Body-Territory.

They expand possible futures.

Scientific Materiality

The hypothesis of Jiwasa can be investigated empirically.

EEG, fNIRS, HRV, respiration, GSR, EMG, eye-tracking, behavioral measures, and multimodal hyperscanning provide tools for studying synchronization among Body-Territories.

EEG can reveal rapid neural synchronization during cooperation, learning, music, conversation, and collective problem solving.

fNIRS allows investigation of hemodynamic coupling between interacting brains during real-world social engagement. Recent hyperscanning research consistently demonstrates interpersonal neural synchronization across social interactions, cooperation, attachment, and learning contexts. (PubMed)

HRV and respiration can reveal autonomic synchronization associated with trust, belonging, empathy, and collective regulation.

GSR can indicate shared emotional engagement during common experiences.

EMG can capture subtle motor coordination during group activities.

Eye-tracking can reveal converging attentional focus toward objects, symbols, leaders, or events that organize collective behavior.

Behavioral measures can reveal consensus formation, cooperation, collective learning, and distributed decision-making.

Recent developments in hyperscanning increasingly combine brain and body measurements simultaneously, allowing researchers to investigate collective dynamics at multiple physiological levels. (ResearchGate)

Multimodal hyperscanning systems now make it possible to study not only dyads but also larger groups composed of 10, 20, or even 30 participants interacting in ecological environments. These approaches open the possibility of investigating how shared representational spaces emerge within classrooms, scientific teams, communities, musical ensembles, and social movements. (PMC)

This creates an unprecedented scientific opportunity:

To distinguish experimentally between:

• Existential Jiwasa;

• Artificial Jiwasa;

• lived time;

• consumed time;

• belonging that expands life;

• belonging that extracts life.

Final Reflection

Not every synchronization produces belonging.

Not every bubble produces Jiwasa.

Not every form of belonging produces freedom.

True Jiwasa emerges when synchronization strengthens the real needs of Body-Territories and expands their possibilities of existence.

Perhaps the central question of Decolonial Neuroscience is:

Are the spaces synchronizing this group producing lived life or merely consuming time?

Because Existential Jiwasa transforms time into life.

Artificial Jiwasa transforms life into consumed time.

References (Post-2021)

Zhao, Q. et al. (2024). Interpersonal Neural Synchronization During Social Interactions in Close Relationships: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of fNIRS Hyperscanning Studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. (PubMed)

Azhari, A. et al. (2025). A Systematic Review of Inter-Brain Synchrony and Social Interaction. (PMC)

Berni, T. et al. (2025). Together We Sync: A Systematic Qualitative and Quantitative Review of Hyperscanning Research. (PMC)

Carollo, A. et al. (2024). Hyperscanning Literature After Two Decades of Neuroscientific Research. (Ibro Neuroscience)

Grasso-Cladera, A. et al. (2024). Embodied Hyperscanning for Studying Social Interaction: A Scoping Review of Simultaneous Brain and Body Measurements. (ResearchGate)

Chen, Y. et al. (2025). An fNIRS Hyperscanning Dataset on the Modulation of Inter-Brain Synchrony. (Nature)

Speer, S. P. H. et al. (2024). Hyperscanning Shows Friends Explore and Strangers Converge During Conversation. Nature Communications. (Nature)

Parisi, G. (2021). In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonder of Complex Systems.

Vorreuther, A. et al. (2026). Reviewing Digital Collaborative Interactions with Multimodal Hyperscanning. (PMC)