Transcending Our Being - Can I Leave a Narrative Without Losing My Sense of Belonging?

From cellular sensing to Jiwasa: perhaps consciousness seeks belonging even before understanding what it is looking for.

What If Changing Your Mind Meant Losing Those You Love?

Imagine a family lunch.

The food awakens memories. You recognize voices, gestures, and stories that have accompanied your existence since childhood.

Someone mentions a belief shared by everyone.

You learned that narrative from people you love. But new knowledge has transformed your interpretation.

Now you think differently.

Before speaking, you feel uncomfortable.

Perhaps you fear losing those people's recognition.

What is really being threatened: your belief or your sense of belonging?

I want to investigate this experience with you.

Perhaps the fear of leaving a narrative is also the fear of no longer feeling that we belong.

Belonging Began Before Words

Let us return to the development of our organism.

Cells multiply, receive signals, and undergo processes of differentiation.

Some participate in forming nervous tissue. Others form muscles, blood, and organs.

Each cell develops particular functions while participating in a living organization.

This differentiation depends on molecular signaling, gene expression, and relationships with specific cellular environments.

Long before we learned words such as family, community, or culture, our existence already depended on biological relationships.

At BrainLatam, we find a question here:

What if belonging were a sense that consciousness seeks to experience without fully understanding what it is searching for?

Cellular differentiation does not demonstrate consciousness in cells. It offers us a material scale from which to investigate relationships and organization.

Human Quorum Sensing: Belonging Across Scales

In microbiology, quorum sensing describes mechanisms through which bacteria detect signaling molecules and coordinate certain collective responses.

Human cells also communicate and regulate their activities, although through different mechanisms.

At BrainLatam, we propose Human Quorum Sensing (HQS) as an integrative hypothesis for investigating bodily communication, interoception, physiological synchronization, and social belonging.

We seek to understand how different scales of organization participate in the experience of Being.

Imagine recognizing someone's presence before you can explain why it makes you feel safe.

Your body is already participating in that encounter.

Perhaps the conscious search for belonging emerges from a relational history far more extensive than our explanations can capture.

The Baby Cannot Yet Say They Have Been Excluded

Now imagine a baby sitting on their caregiver's lap.

In front of them, two people are playing with a ball.

At first, everyone participates.

Then the experimenters continue passing the ball only between themselves.

The baby and caregiver no longer receive opportunities to participate.

In 2026, Niloofar Goharbakhsh and Louisa Kulke investigated this situation using EEG hyperscanning, simultaneously recording the brain activity of infants and caregivers.

The researchers compared exclusion with perceptually similar moments when it simply was not the pair's turn.

The result deserves our attention.

The infants showed greater theta power during exclusion.

This occurred before they had developed sufficient language to verbally explain what being excluded means.

Two Bodies May Feel Differently

The study revealed another important finding.

Caregivers did not show the same significant increase in theta power.

And interbrain synchronization did not increase consistently during exclusion.

Imagine a caregiver noticing the baby's discomfort.

Perhaps their most important contribution is to produce a different response, one that helps regulate the experience.

The study does not directly demonstrate a conscious sense of belonging, nor does it prove the HQS hypothesis.

Theta power may also reflect processes involving expectation, attention, and event monitoring.

Nevertheless, the experiment reveals early neural and behavioral sensitivity to changes in social participation.

We can participate in the same event without necessarily showing identical brain responses.

This possibility brings us closer to Jiwasa.

Belonging Is Not the Same as Agreeing

Let us return to the family lunch.

You still recognize those voices and share that history.

But now you interpret a particular event differently.

Imagine your family considering agreement an essential condition for remaining part of the group.

Your belonging becomes dependent on repetition.

At BrainLatam, the Man of Wood represents this risk.

He finds recognition within a semantic-affective local optimum, where a particular narrative rigidly organizes his identity.

The follower has ceased to Be.

But we can experience another possibility.

Sharing culture, food, memories, and care without requiring identical interpretations.

The bond can continue participating in our existence while we learn new ways of perceiving.

Yãy Hã Mĩy: Imitating to Transcend Our Being

Among the Tikmũ'ũn/Maxakali, we encounter knowledge related to imitation, transformation, songs, and relationships among beings.

Isael and Sueli Maxakali participate in projects that present this knowledge from Indigenous perspectives.

In dialogue with these traditions, BrainLatam develops an extended philosophical interpretation:

Yãy hã mĩy — Imitate Being to transcend one's own Being.

Imagine a child learning from someone they love.

The child experiments with words, gestures, and movements.

Later, they encounter new experiences and discover possibilities their ancestors had not perceived.

Their history continues to participate in their Being.

We can respect our ancestors without reducing our Being to the limits of what they were able to perceive.

Let It Come: Recognizing the Feeling

Now someone presents a different idea.

Before responding, you feel something.

Perhaps fear, curiosity, or discomfort.

Let it come.

We can acknowledge the experience without immediately agreeing with its interpretation.

Feeling testifies to our conscious experience, but it does not prove the truth of the narrative accompanying that feeling.

We can ask where the information came from and which memories it awakened.

A stimulus may participate in our perceptual configuration before becoming the focus of attention.

When it gains attentional priority, its influence may be amplified.

Recognizing this movement opens possibilities for investigation.

Let It Stay: Allowing Learning

You continue listening.

The other person shares experiences you did not know about.

Perhaps they present information that contradicts your expectations.

Let it stay.

Allowing an idea to remain does not mean immediately turning it into an identity.

We can investigate evidence, recognize differences, and compare interpretations.

Every learning experience can expand the selection of reality we are able to perceive.

Belonging does not have to require us to interrupt this movement.

We can continue sharing relationships while our understanding changes.

Let It Be: Recognizing Another Existence

Look again at the person in front of you.

They have memories, feelings, and knowledge that differ from yours.

Their Body-Territory participates in another history.

Let it Be.

Recognizing this uniqueness allows us to build relationships in which differences also produce knowledge.

In a study published in 2025, Ivo Leiva-Cisterna and colleagues investigated cooperation and sensory stimulation between participants.

Their research offers ways to understand certain forms of neural and behavioral coordination.

But cooperation does not require two people to become one.

Jiwasa can exist through the differences that allow us to keep learning together.

You May Disobey: Continuing to Be in the First Person

Imagine responding:

“I understand your story, but now I perceive this differently.”

You remain seated at the table.

You may disobey.

In our framework, disobedience means being able to question a narrative and develop one's own interpretation while preserving shared responsibilities.

If belonging required repeating every belief held by our ancestors, how could we learn anything new?

Perhaps offering freedom to those we love also means allowing them to discover possibilities we do not yet know.

Belonging can sustain transformation rather than prevent movement.

In the Atlantic Forest, I Learned to Change Position

I entered the Atlantic Forest barefoot, wearing only shorts.

I left the trail and encountered tangled roots and branches.

I needed to protect my skin while preserving the vegetation.

At times, I crawled.

My hands found support. My feet recognized the terrain.

Every movement revealed another passage.

There, I experienced intensely:

Perceive what is possible.

I continued participating in that territory while changing my position.

Perhaps our relationships can also accompany this movement.

Belonging does not require remaining still.

The Man of Maize Learns Through Jiwasa

In BrainLatam's interpretation inspired by the Popol Wuj, the Man of Clay believes he belongs to a superior order.

The Man of Wood follows narratives.

The Man of Maize recognizes his existence through food, culture, learning, water, and relationships.

He perceives that the Biome participates in producing his metabolism.

Ailton Krenak invites us to recognize the continuity of life through ancestral relationships.

Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui expands our understanding of the coexistence of differences and collective experiences.

The Man of Maize belongs and continues learning.

Through Jiwasa, transformation can enrich the possibilities of shared existence.

Let It Go: Allowing Being to Continue

Some interpretations remain. Others change.

Some cease to guide our decisions.

Let it go.

Within the BrainLatam framework, the Body-Territory constitutes the smallest and indivisible unit of the State.

Personalissima AI proposes expanding each person's autonomy in relation to data and institutions.

Citizen Drex, Biome Income, and the investigation of Production of Excess are part of proposals for economic participation and ecological responsibility.

We are heirs to the past, participants in the present, and jointly responsible for the futures we make possible for the next Body-Territories.

Perhaps transcending our Being means discovering that our relationships can continue even as our interpretations change.

If we belong even before understanding belonging, why would we need to remain trapped within a single narrative in order to continue belonging?

Commented Scientific and Cultural References

Experimental Evidence on Belonging and Exclusion

Goharbakhsh, N.; Kulke, L. (2026). Can You Feel My Pain? Neural-Behavioural Changes in Caregiver–Infant Dyads During Ostracism. Developmental Science, 29(5), e70269.
https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70269

A preregistered study involving infants aged 5–7 months and their caregivers, using EEG hyperscanning. In the theta-power analysis involving 34 infants, greater theta power was observed during social exclusion. Interbrain synchronization did not show a generalized increase. This study provides important experimental evidence for investigating early sensitivity to social participation, without directly demonstrating BrainLatam's hypothesis of a conscious sense of belonging.

Leiva-Cisterna, I.; Barraza, P.; Rodríguez, E.; Dumas, G. (2025). Sensory multi-brain stimulation enhances dyadic cooperative behavior. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 20(1), nsaf104.
https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf104

Research involving Chilean institutions that investigates sensory stimulation, interbrain synchronization, and cooperation. It offers a Latin American reference for developing hypotheses about coordination between individuals while preserving the distinction between neural correlation, cooperative behavior, and conscious experience.

Latin American Thought and Ancestral Knowledge

Ailton Krenak (2022). Futuro ancestral. Companhia das Letras.

The Brazilian Indigenous thinker connects ancestry, water, territory, and the continuity of life. His work enriches the understanding of belonging as a living relationship capable of accompanying change and new possibilities of existence.

Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, in dialogue with Paola Lopes Zamariola and colleagues (2024). Campo Abierto: conversas sobre prácticas y discursos descolonizadores con Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui. Rebento.
https://periodicos.ia.unesp.br/index.php/rebento/pt_BR/article/view/803

Explores territoriality, temporality, collective practices, and the coexistence of differences, contributing to an understanding of Jiwasa as belonging that preserves individual uniqueness.

Lucero González Suárez (2023). El ser del hombre a la luz del Popol Vuh. Análisis fenomenológico-hermenéutico. LiminaR. Estudios Sociales y Humanísticos, 21(1).
https://doi.org/10.29043/liminar.v21i1.948

The Mexican philosopher examines the human figures of clay, wood, and maize in the K'iche' Maya tradition. Her work helps contextualize BrainLatam's metaphors while distinguishing this contemporary philosophical interpretation from the meanings of the Popol Wuj within its own cultural and spiritual traditions.

Isael Maxakali, Sueli Maxakali, and Indigenous curators (2025). Mundos Indígenas — UFMG.
https://www.ufmg.br/espacodoconhecimento/noticia/exposicao-mundos-indigenas-do-espaco-do-conhecimento-se-torna-itinerante-na-ufmg/

This exhibition presents the knowledge and cosmologies of different Indigenous peoples, including the Tikmũ'ũn/Maxakali. It provides cultural context for dialogue with Yãy hã mĩy while respecting Indigenous authorship and the distinct meanings of these traditions.

BrainLatam: Conceptual Continuity

BrainLatam — Jackson Cionek (2026). Can I Feel Your Exclusion? When Two Bodies Participate in the Same Event.
https://brainlatam.com/blog/posso-sentir-a-sua-exclusao-quando-dois-corpos-participam-do-mesmo-acontecimento-8675

Interprets Goharbakhsh and Kulke's experiment from the Body-Territory perspective, highlighting how different neural responses can participate in a shared relational event.

BrainLatam — Jackson Cionek (2025). Human Quorum Sensing — The Science of Belonging.
https://brainlatam.com/blog/quorum-sensing-humano-a-ciencia-do-pertencimento-neurociencia-decolonial-6887

Develops the author's hypothesis connecting biological processes, interoception, emotional relationships, and collective participation. It provides the central conceptual reference for investigating belonging as a sense that consciousness may seek before explicitly understanding it.

BrainLatam (2026). Jiwasa — Belonging Without Remaining in the Same Position.
https://www.brainlatam.com/blog/jiwasa-pertencer-sem-permanecer-na-mesma-posicao-8663

Develops the proposal of shared agency, according to which different Body-Territories can create collective possibilities without needing to make their experiences identical.

Clarify the HQS hypothesis boundariesStrengthen the transition into Jiwasa

BRAINLATAM · W43/2026 · THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM