Biosemiotics and Body-Territory

What exists in a living relationship that a recording - or an AI - cannot simply reproduce?

Two people are face to face.

One speaks.

The other does not receive only words.

They receive voice, rhythm, pauses, eye movements, breathing, posture, distance, microexpressions. While listening, their own heart continues to vary, breathing reorganizes, muscles change tension, memories may be recruited, and homeostatic needs continue to signal.

Then the second person responds.

But that response no longer comes from exactly the same Body-Territory that existed before listening.

We can imagine:

Body-Territory A₀ → encounter → Body-Territory B₁

Body-Territory B₁ → response → Body-Territory A₁

A₁ ↔ B₁ → A₂ ↔ B₂ → ...

These are not simply two messages circulating.

They are two living materialities continuously modifying the conditions under which the next sign may appear.

Now we place a screen between them.

Then we replace the live encounter with a recording of the same conversation.

Finally, we replace one of the bodies with an Artificial Intelligence.

Language may continue.

But are we still studying the same phenomenon?

The same content can be repeated. The same existential condition of the encounter cannot.

A living sign encounters a Body-Territory that was already happening

In the 5D Materiality of Consciousness — Body-Territory, any perception, memory, word, interoceptive signal, or proprioceptive signal that participates in experience must occur as a present material configuration.

The organism does not wait for the stimulus in a state of rest.

There is metabolism.

Water.

Ions.

Blood.

Breathing.

Neural and glial activity.

Heart.

Posture.

Pain.

Hunger.

Potentially recruitable memories.

The sign encounters all of this in Movement.

And some differentiations acquire Qualia: they stand out, shine, weigh, pulse, threaten, or welcome.

But here we need to add an important distinction.

What acquires Qualia does not necessarily have to occupy attentional priority.

Pain may continue to pulse while we remain focused on a conversation. A sound can be perceived without pulling us away from a task. Research on attention shows precisely that salience and attentional selection are not equivalent: highly salient stimuli may receive priority when they are relevant, but they can also be suppressed when they are distractors incompatible with the current goal. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

BrainLatam uses attentional channel here as an operational description of the functional priority maintained by the Body-Territory, not as an isolated anatomical tube inside the brain. In earlier texts, BrainLatam itself has proposed thinking of attention as a bodily and collective state involving breathing, posture, expectation, and internal sensation. (brainlatam.com)

Thus:

Qualia can color experience without necessarily taking over the attentional channel.

The screen preserves part of the other — not the whole other

A video call seems to bring two people closer.

We see the face.

We hear the voice.

But what returns to the Body-Territory is predominantly an audiovisual transduction.

The camera transforms light into signal.

The microphone transforms sound waves.

The data cross the network.

The screen and speakers transform data back into light and sound.

The other Body-Territory did not travel through the network.

The screen transports signals capable of representing the other; it does not transport the other’s entire materiality.

This is why BrainLatam uses the 12D cartography not as a claim about the physical dimensionality of the universe and not as a claim that there are exactly twelve independent senses, but as an operational reminder of a broader perceptual experience: proprioception, interoception, balance, nociception, thermosensation, internal chemoreception, and, as a BrainLatam hypothesis, belonging, among other dimensions. (brainlatam.com)

On the screen, smell, touch, the other person’s temperature, real bodily distance, and much of the shared environment do not arrive directly.

But the Body-Territory can recruit representations of these dimensions.

When you see your mother on a screen, the pixels may recruit touch, voice, smell, safety, conflict, care, and memory.

The screen provides the cut. The Body-Territory may complete part of the presence with its own history.

This creates a paradox:

Less direct sensory diversity does not necessarily mean less Qualia.

The screen may reduce the dimensions of the stimulus while simultaneously amplifying attention toward the face it preserves.

“It is happening now” is also a sign

Now an even deeper difference emerges.

Imagine a football match.

You believe you are watching it live.

The result still feels open.

Every attack may change what happens next.

Then someone says:

“This match happened yesterday.”

The image has not changed.

The audio has not changed.

But something loses intensity.

In 2026, Jiajia Yu and colleagues compared live table tennis matches with replays using simultaneous EEG and fNIRS. The live condition produced more suspense, greater emotional activation, and more pleasure, along with frontal differences and differences in beta activity. The authors relate much of this to uncertainty about the outcome. (sciencedirect.com)

But uncertainty does not explain everything.

In the 2026 study The Liveness Lift, participants watched identical content while researchers manipulated the belief that the transmission was live or prerecorded. Simply believing that the content was live increased social connection, pleasure, and engagement, and the effect persisted even when the researchers controlled for indeterminacy of the content. (journals.sagepub.com)

In other words:

“This is happening now” can modify the encounter even when the audiovisual content remains the same.

Earlier experiments found something similar with social gaze: participants were actually watching prerecorded videos, but some believed they were watching a live transmission. That belief alone was enough to alter gaze behavior. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

This suggests a BrainLatam methodological idea:

Existential Declaration of the Experiment

Before interpreting the data, we should record:

What did the participant believe they were living?

Was it live?

Was it recorded?

Could the other person really see them?

Could the other respond?

Was the outcome still open?

Was it a person or an AI?

Who was that person to them?

The existential declaration is not merely information about the experiment. It can materially participate in the experiment itself.

A recording is not a repetition of the event

This point appears with great force in a 2026 EEG hyperscanning study.

Mothers and adolescents first interacted freely live. Later, they were separated and watched a recording of their own interaction.

The represented content was precisely the encounter they had lived through.

Even so, frontotemporal inter-brain synchrony was higher during the live interaction than during observation of the represented experience. And the live-versus-recorded difference was clear in mother-adolescent dyads, but not in the same way among strangers. (nature.com)

This means that even “live” is not an isolated property.

The history of the relationship matters.

A classic study by Redcay and colleagues had already compared contingent live video interaction with a recording of the same interaction. The live condition recruited more regions associated with social cognition and reward. The critical point was contingency: in the recording, the face seemed to look at the participant, but could no longer respond to them. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

A recorded gaze has direction. A live gaze has the possibility of reciprocity.

Therefore:

Replay is not repetition of the event. It is a new event produced from a record of the previous one.

Can something emerge from two bodies that neither possessed alone?

This is where BrainLatam introduces Jiwasa.

Not as an Indigenous synonym for neural synchrony.

Not as a “collective mind.”

Not as erasure of the individual.

Jiwasa is used as a conceptual window to ask whether, between different Body-Territories, possibilities of action can emerge that neither could produce in isolation. BrainLatam has been articulating this idea with the Aymara inclusive “we” and with Latin American studies of cooperation. (brainlatam.com)

The 2025 study by Ivo Leiva-Cisterna, Paulo Barraza, Eugenio Rodríguez, and Guillaume Dumas provides a particularly strong experimental bridge.

Sixty participants were organized into 30 dyads. Using simultaneous EEG, the researchers applied rhythmic visual stimulation at 16 and 40 Hz and manipulated synchrony between participants during a cooperative task. The work moved beyond simple correlation: experimentally increasing certain forms of inter-brain coupling was associated with improvements in cooperative coordination, especially in the 16 Hz protocols. (academic.oup.com)

But:

Synchrony is not Jiwasa.

Synchrony can be measured.

Jiwasa must be investigated as something that emerges in the relationship.

Jiwasa is not two brains doing the same thing; it is the possibility of producing together something that neither possessed alone.

Hyperscanning needs to move beyond the isolated brain

A 2023 review identified 215 hyperscanning studies and 27 different methods for calculating inter-brain coupling. fNIRS was the most common modality, used in 119 studies. This shows the strength of the field, but also the difficulty of interpreting what “synchrony” actually means. (sciencedirect.com)

Relational Neuroscience proposes precisely that these measures should be interpreted together with behavior, physiology, social proximity, and interactivity. (sciencedirect.com)

Researchers with strong Chilean participation took another step in 2025 by proposing embodied hyperscanning: simultaneously measuring brain and body during social relationships, rather than only brain-to-brain. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

This approaches 5D Materiality directly.

Brain.

Heart.

Breathing.

Movement.

Skin.

Environment.

Qualia.

Attentional channel.

Relationship.

Decolonial Neuroscience: in what reality was the data born?

Here a larger problem appears.

An EEG file may survive the experiment.

A spreadsheet may survive.

The video may be replayed a thousand times.

But:

The recorded data are a trace of the event. They are not the event again.

Decolonial Neuroscience needs to ask not only who was measured, but also in what reality that Body-Territory was living when it was measured.

Did researchers and participants speak the same language?

Was the laboratory familiar?

Who was present?

Was there a relationship of trust?

Did the task make sense within that territory?

Was the other Body-Territory known?

Did the participant feel belonging?

Mushtaq and Agustín Ibáñez argue precisely that a global neuroscience using EEG depends not only on portable hardware, but also on engagement with communities and culturally appropriate methodologies. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

In Latin America, Guevara, Mesquita, and Orihuela-Espina show that fNIRS has been enabling more portable, ecological, and regionally situated research, including naturalistic, educational, and social-interaction contexts. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

BrainLatam therefore adds:

Existential and Territorial Declaration

Before asking what the brain did, we need to record what reality the Body-Territory believed it was living in.

The researcher was also part of that reality.

Their presence is not necessarily an “error.”

But it must stop being invisible.

NeuroDesafio LATAM research question

As a sponsor of NeuroDesafio LATAM, BrainLatam proposes:

When two Body-Territories need to sustain attention on one another in order to produce something neither could create alone, what neural, physiological, attentional, and Qualia-related phenomena emerge — and what changes when we alter the presence, simultaneity, or existence of the other?

A protocol could compare:

live in-person human–human;

live remote human–human;

recorded human–human, explicitly declared as recorded;

the same recording presented as if it were live;

interactive human–AI.

EEG and fNIRS could register parts of neural materiality.

ECG, breathing, electrodermal activity, and movement could observe other scales.

First-person reports could investigate Qualia, presence, reciprocity, and belonging.

And the final questionnaire could begin with something simple:

What did you believe was happening while this was happening?

Perhaps a truly decolonial neuroscience needs to learn to take that answer as seriously as it takes the electrical signal.

Because:

The instrument records a window. The Body-Territory lives the event.

The screen can preserve the now while losing much of the here. The recording can preserve a representation of the here while losing the shared now.

And an AI can preserve dialogue, speed, and functional reciprocity without our having demonstrated that there is, on the other side, another homeostatic living organism experiencing the sign.

The biosemiotic question remains:

When something looks like a relationship, who — or what — is actually living that encounter?

Commented References

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.
A study with strong Chilean roots using EEG hyperscanning and sensory stimulation to experimentally manipulate inter-brain coupling during cooperation. It is central because it moves the field from simple correlation toward a causal question about coordination between people. For BrainLatam, it provides an experimental basis for asking about Jiwasa without reducing it to neural synchrony. (academic.oup.com)

Schwartz, L.; Shilo, C.; Hayut, O.; et al. (2026). “Inter-brain processes during Live and Represented social moments are inter-related and shaped by behavioral synchrony”. Communications Psychology, 4, 110.
Compared live social interaction with later observation of the recorded interaction itself. The difference between participating and observing was especially clear in mother-adolescent dyads. It directly supports our phrase: a recording preserves a record of the encounter, but does not recreate its original relational condition. (nature.com)

Duani, N.; Barasch, A.; Ward, A. F. (2026). “The Liveness Lift: Viewing Live Streams Creates Connection and Enhances Engagement in Amateur Music Performances”. Journal of Marketing.
Across several experiments, including conditions with identical audiovisual content, simply believing that a transmission was occurring live increased social connection, pleasure, and engagement. It is one of the strongest references for the BrainLatam concept of the Existential Declaration of the Experiment. (journals.sagepub.com)

Yu, J.; Liu, L.; Liu, Y.; Hou, Y. (2026). “Neural mechanisms of enhanced emotional experience during live sports viewing: Multimodal evidence from fNIRS and EEG”. Behavioural Brain Research, 504, 116086.
Compared live sports and replay using simultaneous EEG-fNIRS. The live condition increased suspense, emotional activation, and pleasure, while producing frontal and beta differences. It shows how a future still perceived as open can alter the 5D Materiality of experience. (sciencedirect.com)

von dem Hagen, E. A. H.; Bright, N. (2017). “High autistic trait individuals do not modulate gaze behaviour in response to social presence but look away more when actively engaged in an interaction”. Autism Research, 10(2), 359–368.
Participants could watch the same type of video while believing it to be live or prerecorded; belief in social presence altered gaze behavior in some participants. It helps demonstrate that the condition attributed to the encounter can modify perceptual behavior itself. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Holleman, G. A.; Hessels, R. S.; Kemner, C.; Hooge, I. T. C. (2020). “Implying social interaction and its influence on gaze behavior to the eyes”. PLOS ONE, 15(2), e0229203.
All participants watched prerecorded material, but the instructions altered their belief about the possibility of live interaction. The study reinforces that perceived presence and possible reciprocity enter the phenomenon even before actual interaction exists. (journals.plos.org)

Redcay, E.; Dodell-Feder, D.; Pearrow, M. J.; et al. (2010). “Live face-to-face interaction during fMRI: a new tool for social cognitive neuroscience”. NeuroImage, 50(4), 1639–1647.
Compared contingent live interaction with recorded playback of the same interaction and found stronger recruitment of systems related to social cognition and reward in the live condition. It remains an important precedent for distinguishing representation of the other from the real possibility of reciprocity. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Hakim, U.; De Felice, S.; Pinti, P.; et al. (2023). “Quantification of inter-brain coupling: A review of current methods used in haemodynamic and electrophysiological hyperscanning studies”. NeuroImage, 280, 120354.
Reviewed 215 studies and identified 27 methods for measuring inter-brain coupling. fNIRS was the most common modality. It is essential for maintaining caution: inter-brain synchrony is a method-dependent measure, not automatic evidence of shared thought, Qualia, or Jiwasa. (sciencedirect.com)

De Felice, S. et al. (2025). “Relational neuroscience: Insights from hyperscanning research”. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 169, 105979.
Proposes Relational Neuroscience and argues that inter-brain dynamics should be interpreted together with behavior, physiology, social proximity, and interactivity. It directly resonates with BrainLatam’s refusal to reduce a relationship to correlation between two brain signals. (sciencedirect.com)

Grasso-Cladera, A.; Costa-Cordella, S.; Mattoli-Sánchez, J.; et al. (2025). “Embodied hyperscanning for studying social interaction: A scoping review of simultaneous brain and body measurements”. Social Neuroscience, 20(3), 163–179.
With strong participation from researchers linked to Universidad Diego Portales in Chile, this work proposes extending hyperscanning to simultaneous brain-and-body measurements. It is a direct bridge to 5D Materiality: relationships occur between whole organisms, not between two disembodied brains. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Zhang, Y.; Gaspelin, N. (2024). “Salience effects on attentional selection are enabled by task relevance”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 50(11), 1131–1142.
Shows that high salience increases selection when the stimulus is relevant, while equally salient stimuli can be suppressed when they are distractors. It supports our operational distinction: Qualia/salience and attentional priority do not have to coincide. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Mushtaq, F.; Ibáñez, A. (2025). “Electroencephalography (EEG) and the Quest for an Inclusive and Global Neuroscience”. European Journal of Neuroscience, 61(6), e70078.
Argues for EEG as a strategic tool for global neuroscience and highlights population diversity, technical barriers, and the need to co-create culturally sensitive methods with communities. It supports the move from sample diversity toward a neuroscience situated in territory. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Guevara, E.; Mesquita, R. C.; Orihuela-Espina, F. (2026). “Emerging panorama of functional near-infrared spectroscopy in Latin America”. Neurophotonics, 13(S1), S13002.
Documents the growth of fNIRS in Latin America and its potential for naturalistic environments, education, social interaction, and regions with less infrastructure. It strengthens the proposal to build ecological paradigms within Latin American territories themselves. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Mudrik, L.; Hirschhorn, R.; Korisky, U. (2024). “Taking consciousness for real: Increasing the ecological validity of the study of conscious vs. unconscious processes”. Neuron, 112(10), 1642–1656.
Argues that the study of consciousness has become too distant from everyday conditions and proposes changing stimuli, contexts, measures, and research questions. It is an important reference for the thesis that experimental control should not eliminate precisely what makes an event lived. (sciencedirect.com)

BrainLatam — 5D Materiality, 12D, Attentional Channel, and Jiwasa.
The synthesis of this text can be formulated as follows: the Body-Territory lives in 5D materiality; the 12D cartography reminds us that a relationship exceeds vision and hearing; Qualia differentiates without necessarily capturing the attentional channel; and Jiwasa asks what can emerge when different Body-Territories preserve their particularities and still produce possibilities that neither possessed alone. The Existential and Territorial Declaration adds a methodological requirement: to record not only the data, but also the reality the participant believed they were living when the data were born. (brainlatam.com)