Who Decides When No One Is in Command?
Who Decides When No One Is in Command?
As we walk among other people, cells move within our bodies, microorganisms share metabolites, and roots encounter fungi beneath the soil. How many collectives participate in what we call ONE?
BrainLatam Special Series | 8th Symposium on Neuroscience and Cognition at UFABC — 2026
WHO ORGANIZED OUR STEPS?
Imagine yourself walking through a crowded public square.
Someone approaches from the left. You subtly adjust your path. Another person slows down. Someone else finds a passage between two groups.
Perhaps none of you needed to speak.
Now imagine someone stopping unexpectedly.
The movements around them reorganize.
Who decided which way everyone should go?
There is not necessarily a person directing every movement. Yet collective patterns can emerge from interactions.
How can many individuals produce an organization that none of them planned entirely?
This question resonates with the 8th Symposium on Neuroscience and Cognition at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), scheduled for November 16–19, 2026, under the theme:
“The Brain in Context: Contemporary Challenges in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience.”
At this intersection of organisms, environments, and technologies, we can expand our investigation: how do different movements participate in forming a collective, and which possibilities remain open to each Being?
THE WONDER OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS
Physicist Giorgio Parisi, awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics, contributed to our understanding of systems composed of numerous interdependent elements.
Imagine thousands of starlings flying together.
The flock changes direction. Waves of movement travel through the formation. No bird needs to know every other bird's future trajectory.
Local interactions can produce global patterns.
This is an important characteristic of complex systems: collective behavior may exhibit properties that cannot be identified by observing each component separately.
Yet emergent organization does not necessarily mean the absence of leadership.
In 2022, Luis Gómez-Nava, Richard Bon, and physicist Fernando Peruani investigated small flocks of sheep.
They observed intermittent collective movements in which leadership and following roles could alternate.
Their findings broaden our question: a collective can exhibit distributed organization while also displaying temporary episodes of leadership.
Understanding its dynamics therefore requires observing how relationships unfold.
HOW MANY COLLECTIVES EXIST WITHIN A BODY?
As you walk through the square, another collective movement is taking place inside you.
Immune cells circulate through the blood, cross tissues, and participate in defending the organism.
Imagine a small injury to your skin.
Chemical signals can recruit white blood cells to particular locations. Cells recognize molecules, respond to gradients, and participate in inflammatory processes.
No individual cell needs to know the organism's entire history to respond to the signals it encounters.
But this does not mean regulation is absent.
Receptors, chemical messengers, and communication networks participate in the response.
We encounter different organizational layers: molecules, cells, tissues, organs, and the organism.
What we perceive as a single body contains numerous interdependent systems.
These layers do not function simply as smaller copies of one another.
Each scale possesses its own mechanisms, limitations, and properties.
THE MICROBIOTA: A COLLECTIVE ACROSS SPECIES
Now consider the microorganisms inhabiting your intestine.
Bacteria belonging to different species consume nutrients, compete for resources, and produce substances that other organisms may use.
This metabolic exchange, known as cross-feeding, contributes to the organization of microbial communities.
The human organism provides environmental conditions for these interactions, while microbial products may influence the host's physiological processes.
We are observing relationships that extend across different species.
Yet a microbiota is not necessarily a harmonious society.
Cooperation, competition, and environmental changes can transform its composition.
We must also distinguish a microbial community from a multicellular organism: both exhibit organization, but their evolutionary histories and regulatory mechanisms differ.
Perhaps we can recognize an important possibility:
One system can participate in another without losing all its distinctive properties.
WHAT HAPPENS AMONG THE ROOTS?
Now imagine a preserved Latin American rainforest.
Above the ground, trees, birds, insects, and mammals participate in different ecological relationships.
Below it, roots encounter fungi, bacteria, and countless other organisms.
Brazilian researchers such as Juliana Souza de Pontes and Leonor Costa Maia have investigated communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the Cerrado and in transitional areas toward the Caatinga and Atlantic Forest.
These fungi can establish associations with plant roots, participating in processes related to plant nutrition.
But we must carefully interpret these networks.
The existence of mycorrhizal connections does not, by itself, demonstrate that trees intentionally exchange messages or altruistically distribute resources.
The functions of these relationships depend on the species and conditions being investigated.
A Biome encompasses multiple interdependencies without necessarily constituting a single consciousness.
A forest does not need to think like a person to exhibit an extraordinary complexity of relationships.
WHAT KEEPS A LIVING BEING ALIVE?
Chilean researchers Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela developed the theory of autopoiesis to investigate the organization of living systems.
From this perspective, an organism maintains its organization through processes that continuously participate in its own production.
A living being interacts with its environment, but its existence cannot be reduced to the sum of those interactions.
This offers us an essential distinction.
We can study an organism's organization and its relationships with other systems.
We do not have to choose between an exclusively individual explanation and an exclusively collective one.
Perhaps both remain necessary, provided we recognize their differences.
This perspective resonates with our original formulation of Body-Territory, although the concepts are not equivalent.
WHAT IF THERE IS NO DNA?
Let us expand our investigation even further.
Physics reveals systems capable of producing collective patterns without being living organisms.
Artificial particles that consume energy can move and interact, forming clusters and coordinated movements.
This field is known as active matter.
Fernando Peruani, a researcher of Argentine origin, investigates how biological and synthetic systems can display self-organization.
In recent studies, he and his collaborators have examined how the properties of particles and their interactions influence the formation of collective patterns.
These systems do not necessarily require DNA, biological reproduction, or consciousness.
Organization can emerge from physical mechanisms.
This does not mean that a collection of artificial particles is equivalent to a microbiota, a flock of birds, or a human community.
It means that the emergence of collective patterns extends beyond the boundaries of biology.
And it invites us to investigate which differences distinguish physical organization, life, cognition, and conscious experience.
WHEN INTERACTION PRODUCES MEANING
Now imagine two people improvising music.
One begins a rhythm. The other responds with an unexpected pause.
The first changes their next action.
A sequence emerges through interaction.
Argentine researcher Ezequiel Di Paolo, together with Hanne De Jaegher, developed the concept of participatory sense-making.
Their proposal investigates how interactions between individuals can participate in transforming the meanings they experience.
This moves beyond merely mechanical coordination.
Participants do not simply move simultaneously. They can interpret, respond, resist, and transform what happens between them.
But coordination and agreement are not equivalent.
Disagreement can also participate in collective construction.
Perhaps the meaning of an encounter lies in the possibilities that each participant can still transform.
THE BRAIN ALSO CONTAINS NETWORKS
Among the researchers announced for the UFABC symposium are André Fujita, from the University of São Paulo, and Rafael Naime Ruggiero, from the Federal University of São Paulo.
Fujita conducts research involving statistics, computation, artificial intelligence, and complex networks applied to biology.
Ruggiero investigates oscillations and synchronization across brain networks, including their relationships with cognitive processes and psychiatric conditions.
These investigations connect mathematics, physics, computer science, and neuroscience.
However, synchronization between regions of one brain is not equivalent to coordination between individuals.
Nor does it demonstrate collective consciousness.
Each phenomenon requires appropriate methods and interpretations.
JIWASA: COORDINATION WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING
At BrainLatam, we propose Body-Territory (Corpo-Território) as an indivisible unit of existence, sensitivity, and participation in the world.
We use Jiwasa to explore shared agency in which collective organization preserves the uniqueness and autonomy of its participants.
Not every self-organizing system corresponds to this proposal.
A flock may follow a leader.
Immune cells respond to signals.
Algorithms can produce human groupings based on external classifications.
All may exhibit coordination, but their conditions are different.
Jiwasa introduces an ethical and institutional question:
Who can participate in transforming the rules through which the collective continues to exist?
This is an original conceptual proposal, not a scientifically demonstrated property of all complex systems.
HOW CAN WE INVESTIGATE THESE ENCOUNTERS?
Imagine a laboratory integrated into a preserved Atlantic Forest, using advanced technologies capable of monitoring different participants during shared activities.
Today, EEG, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), ECG, and respiratory sensors already make it possible to investigate complementary dimensions of neurophysiological activity.
As a representative of Artinis & NIRx and Brain Products, BrainLatam connects researchers with technologies for functional neuroimaging, electroencephalography, and multimodal investigation.
No single instrument independently measures autonomy, belonging, or collective consciousness.
But we can develop experimental protocols to investigate coordination, disagreement, decision-making, and relationships between physiological and behavioral processes.
Perhaps our initial question can also evolve.
As we walk among other people, cells move, microorganisms interact, and different physical systems continue producing patterns.
How many collectives participate in our existence without requiring us to transform them into a single Being?
We can continue investigating.
Jiwasa: the possibility of Being many without anyone having to stop Being.
About This Series
This article is part of a special series by BrainLatam, a sponsor of the 8th Symposium on Neuroscience and Cognition at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), scheduled for November 16–19, 2026, in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil.
The article engages with the research topics announced for André Fujita and Rafael Naime Ruggiero, expanding the discussion to complex systems, physiology, ecology, social cognition, and active matter.
BrainLatam's original hypotheses and interpretations do not necessarily represent the positions of the invited researchers or event organizers.
Official event website: https://www.even3.com.br/viii-simposio-em-neurociencia-e-cognicao-da-universidade-federal-do-abc-761401/
References — A Second Reading of the Article
1. Collective organization can emerge through interactions, with leadership roles changing over time.
Gómez-Nava, L.; Bon, R.; Peruani, F. (2022). Intermittent collective motion in sheep results from alternating the role of leader and follower. Nature Physics, 18, 1494–1501.
The study demonstrates how small flocks of sheep alternate leadership and following roles during collective movement.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01769-8
2. Microbial communities can organize through metabolic relationships among species.
Culp, E. J.; Goodman, A. L. (2023). Cross-feeding in the gut microbiome: Ecology and mechanisms. Cell Host & Microbe, 31(4), 485–499.
The review explains how metabolites produced by certain microorganisms may become resources for others.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2023.03.016
3. Fungi and plants establish associations that vary across Latin American Biomes.
Pontes, J. S. et al. (2024). Heterogeneity in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Communities of the Brazilian Cerrado, Transitional Areas toward the Caatinga, and the Atlantic Forest. Microbial Ecology, 87, Article 29.
This study, involving Brazilian scientists, examines the diversity of mycorrhizal fungi across different vegetation formations.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-023-02337-0
4. Connections between roots and fungi must be interpreted according to the available evidence.
Karst, J.; Jones, M. D.; Hoeksema, J. D. (2023). Positive citation bias and overinterpreted results lead to misinformation on common mycorrhizal networks in forests. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 7, 501–511.
The authors caution that mycorrhizal networks do not automatically demonstrate preferential resource transfers or intentional communication between trees.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-01986-1
5. Living organisms maintain their organization while interacting with their environment.
Maturana, H. R.; Varela, F. J. (1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. D. Reidel.
The Chilean researchers developed autopoiesis as a framework for understanding the organization and autonomy of living systems.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8947-4
6. Physical systems without DNA can also produce emergent collective movements.
Gompper, G. et al., including Fernando Peruani (2025). The 2025 motile active matter roadmap. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 37, 143501.
The review brings together research on biological and synthetic active matter, including mechanisms of movement and collective organization.
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-648X/ada6a1
7. Interactions between individuals can participate in producing meaning.
De Jaegher, H.; Di Paolo, E. A. (2007). Participatory sense-making: An enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6, 485–507.
The work, coauthored by Argentine researcher Ezequiel Di Paolo, investigates how meaning can be transformed through social interaction.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-007-9076-9
8. Complex networks provide tools for investigating relationships among biological processes.
Fujita, A. Academic profile and research areas. University of São Paulo.
The Brazilian researcher develops applications of statistics, computation, and complex networks to biology and neuroscience.
http://lattes.cnpq.br/0247990329725342
9. Brain networks can exhibit coordinated oscillations associated with cognition and behavior.
Ruggiero, R. N. Academic profile and research areas. Federal University of São Paulo.
The Brazilian researcher investigates neural mechanisms and brain oscillations, including their involvement in stress responses and psychiatric conditions.
http://lattes.cnpq.br/5372318020253092
10. Collective coordination can also preserve differences and individual possibilities for participation.
Cionek, J. (2026). A maravilha de Ser muitos sem deixar de Ser [The Wonder of Being Many Without Ceasing to Be]. BrainLatam.
This original essay develops the Jiwasa perspective and its relationships with Body-Territory and shared agency.
https://www.brainlatam.com/blog/a-maravilha-de-ser-muitos-sem-deixar-de-ser-8757
11. Investigating the brain in context requires integrating different disciplines.
UFABC (2026). 8th Symposium on Neuroscience and Cognition — The Brain in Context: Contemporary Challenges in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience.
The symposium brings together biological, cognitive, computational, and social research to expand scientific questions about the brain and its relationships.
Conceptual note: Body-Territory, 5D Consciousness, Jiwasa, and Personal AI (IA Personalíssima) are original conceptual proposals developed by BrainLatam. The scientific references support specific phenomena discussed in this article but do not constitute empirical validation of these frameworks.
BRAINLATAM · W45/2026 · BLOG 04 · ENGLISH EDITION
