Traditional Northern and Western (Eurocentric) thought regarding cognitive and sensory phenomena operates within Anthropocentric Representationalism, an ontological framework premised on the generation of (mostly visual) representations tuned to a rationale centered around the human.
While there is a precedence in which our senses are optimized to recognize patterns pertinent to our place in the ecosystem (our pattern recognition is optimized to such a degree that we are capable of detecting the human voice among other louder noises, or seeing—in cases like pareidolia—human patterns in non-human surfaces in an aggressive manner), this is not the only way. The fact that it continues to be considered the primary, original, or basic natural form may also be due to biases.
This paradigm positions the imagistic model as a universal biological baseline, functioning, in fact, as a monolithic and absolutist cultural and historical artifact; a structure that denies cognitive plurality by imposing itself as the only legitimate standard of experience, thought, and engagement with reality, invalidating any method that does not adjust to its hierarchical and visualist logic, centered on the human (not even the human pattern, but the moral abstract human—the human who should be).
Rather, multiple distinct cognitive architectures exist. The objective of this article is to find some traits of some of them by confronting some alterations in the perception and processing of reality.
The architecture we are discussing functions as a comprehensive ontological unfolding of reality sensing, conceptual processing, and philosophical participation. It constitutes an autonomous form of apprehension of existence, affirming that existence encompasses diverse structural methods of engaging with the environment.
The sensing phase of this specific architecture, which we can exemplify through terms contained in descriptions of object orientation agnosia and topological agnosia, utilizes a perception that we will call kinematic and topological.
It bears highlighting that we're calling them kinetic and topological for the purpose of this article, in an effort to establish the framework, but they are not inherently or exclusively so.
It is also crucial to distinguish that, while the "underlying reality" remains as a potentially unnamable, unattainable absolute, this cognitive architecture perceives said reality as a mesh of networks of potential energies, fluid continuities, and vectors of force, setting the foundation for a systemic cognitive process.
In this mode of environmental sensory stimuli reception, an object’s orientation and properties (front/back, up/down, temperature, taste, odor, texture, etc) manifests simultaneously with its vector of action, establishing identity as a kinetic event tied directly to its movement, with multiple possible forces coexisting in stacking or merging forms.
Within this framework, the concept of a static state is an abstract, but unattainable in nature, in the physical universe, nothing is ever truly still.
Kinematic perception extends beyond macro-locomotion to encompass vibrations and thermodynamic activity—micro-events barely perceptible, but which are indeed picked up by the sensitive apparatus. Sensory events such as texture, heat, sound, taste, and smell are, fundamentally, the processing of particles and molecules in motion.
Thus, encountering a seemingly stationary object still constitutes the reception of a kinetic event.
Similarly, spatial and container boundaries (inside/outside, continent/contained) emerge as continuous, relational overlapping fields where contingencies and thresholds remain dynamic, plural, and capable of coexistence.
This architecture does not reject relational monism but does reject the concept of a vacuum. An entity cannot be defined in isolation because existence is inextricably bound to interaction.
Materialities exist also as energy/waves that constantly interact and overlap with other matter; the relationship itself is also a foundational property of identity.
Following this kinematic and topological sensing, the processing, development, and manipulation of concepts can occur as best described through the definition of spectrums such as aphantasia (hypophantasia, synesthesia, and other "alterations" of perceptual processing, exemplifying aphantasia in general in this article).
Operating on a logic of systems, relations, contingencies, and material behaviors, this processing architecture structures reality through networks of agency and interaction.
Abstract concepts arise as dynamic phenomena. Aphantasic thought maps the world through the mechanics of change and its environmental impact, organizing fluid perceptual sensing into rigorous, object and result-oriented frameworks. These results are not driven by teleological intent (that is, the pursuit of a predetermined purpose, a conscious design, or an ultimate end), but by the emergence derived from recognizing patterns in entropic fluctuations: as the entropic index of a system fluctuates through iterations and folds, it provides a range of possible results. The cognitive architecture maps these recurring mechanical outcomes, allowing for the functional recognition of objects and processes without permanently partitioning the underlying fluid reality.
The conceptual imagination synthesizes variables, tracks entropy, and analyzes structural contingencies, transforming raw kinematic and topological sensory stimuli into complex networks of material interaction and maps of how entities and forces react and operate within overlapping or neighboring systems.
This continuous ontological participation, from kinematic sensory reception to non-anthropocentric systemic perception, processing, and cognitive development, is found exemplified in some individuals frequently diagnosed with alterations to an exogenous norm, rather than being placed in categories that operate with a different ontological architecture.
This ontological configuration finds philosophical articulation and participation within animistic and Daoist frameworks.
In animistic ontologies, a "person" or entity exists through the capacity to interact with the "agency" of the environment and sustain relationships within a system, reflecting the focus on the material impact of its vectors and characteristics, and the relational operative responses of the environment.
Simultaneously, the topological fluidity of the sensing phase aligns with Daoist principles, in some of which reality is approached as a state of pure potentiality and fluid environmental integration.
By analyzing massive concepts like time, divinity, happiness, god, or freedom through their tangents, ramifications, and vectors of force, this cognitive architecture cultivates a fecund, process-oriented spiritual and intellectual engagement.
It stands as a model of reality, generating meaning by moving in unpartitioned resonance with the forces that transform the world.
Integrating this alternative architecture into an ontological framework, rather than a purely clinical one, dismantles the notion that operating outside the imagistic standard constitutes a system failure, an anomaly, or a structural deficiency.
The dynamics observed in the spectra of aphantasia and agnosias (topological and orientation) are not proposed here as the only alternative to the hegemonic model, but as illustrative examples that open the door to countless other architectures; a declaration of "plurisistemicities."
This architecture does not postulate a systemic superiority, but simply another form of alignment and material engagement with the universe. (In any case, reality being perhaps incommensurable, we lack instruments of any kind to make absolute and definitive assertions).
This consideration frees cognitive multiplicity from medical hierarchies, providing a theoretical framework that validates these processes as complete ontological structures.
It demonstrates that one can operate, philosophize, and process complex systems through mechanics, vectors, and relations without depending on an internal visual anthropocentric theater, operating as an autonomous system that does not need to be repaired or assimilated by the dominant logic.
By conceiving identity based on relational operative responses, the colonial separation between the "subject" spectator and the "object" nature dissolves; the human begins to operate as a participating node within a mesh of neighboring forces, allowing for models of habitability based on systemic coexistence rather than domination.
In the realm of creation, this decoupling from an exclusively optical-visual and anthropocentric gaze triggers an ontological dissolution similar to the death of the author (coined by Barthes). By removing the supremacy of the human as the central observer, the individual ceases to be the absolute axis of creation. The axis shifts toward the material interaction between the artisan or maker and nature.
The "image" or the work may continue to exist, but not as a visual byproduct of human will, but as a relational, vectorial, and material framework.
Under this paradigm, the artistic author as the sole producer of art dies, and the artisanal interpellant emerges: this figure is the one who unveils the physical, entropic, and spatial interactions between reality and the individual, not to impose a narrative, but to materialize an investigative, poetic, artistic, and experimental record that allows others to glimpse this plurisistemicity.
Annex:
the following video ("Explaining Deleuze with drum machines" by Jonas Čeika) illustrates parallel concepts through the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Here are four points of theoretical convergence present in the material
Just as a drum machine is considered "defective" if judged exclusively by its ability to imitate an acoustic drum kit (a pre-established Platonic ideal), the aphantasic and agnosic architecture is diagnosed as a medical "deficit" only when measured against the hegemonic standard of the imagistic model. In both cases, failing to imitate a norm is not a structural lack, but evidence of an entirely different set of capacities.
The analysis differentiates between "tracings" (static, pre-made images imposed like stickers onto reality) and "maps" (the dynamic construction of new routes and connections). This mirrors the transition proposed in the text: moving from static visual representationalism toward kinematic and topological processing that maps networks of agency, entropic fluctuations, and vectors of force without partitioning reality.
The critique of arborescent structures—those that are hierarchical, monolithic, and force everything to refer back to a single central point of origin—resonates directly with the dismantling of Anthropocentric Representationalism. The proposal of a decentralized system connects directly with the mesh of relational energies (Rhizome in D&G) and the declaration of "plurisistemicities."
Abandoning the teleological question "what does this represent?" to ask "what can this do?" illustrates the dissolution of the colonial separation and the death of the author. Creation ceases to be the reproduction of a human mental image forced onto inert matter, and becomes the work of the artisanal interpellant, who explores the material impact, physical tensions, and operative contingencies of their environment.
