Utupe, Pei Utupe, and Xapiri: Brain Images, Soul, and Representation

How does something come to exist for consciousness?

A tree exists in the territory. A river flows through the world. A star crosses the night sky. Yet for anything to become part of human experience, it must acquire representation within the Body-Territory.

In the concepts we are developing, we use a term inspired by Yanomami thought:

Utupe.

Everything that exists has an Utupe: a spatial representation within a Body-Territory.

The Utupe of a tree may include form, color, smell, sound, memory, posture, breathing, belonging, and possibilities for action. The Utupe of a river may include water, brightness, movement, crossing, childhood memories, nourishment, danger, healing, territory, and continuity.

Every perceived thing acquires an internal space.

This space can be activated, reactivated, expanded, contracted, transformed, or released.

Utupe: The Spatial Representation of Existence

Within Decolonial Neuroscience, Utupe refers to the representational space of something within the Body-Territory.

This space integrates:

• interoception;

• proprioception;

• semantic memories;

• episodic memories;

• visual imagery;

• sounds;

• smells;

• belonging;

• possibilities for action.

Recent research on mental imagery suggests that representing something involves sensory, cognitive, and affective simulations, bringing perception, memory, and emotion into continuous interaction.

Representation involves the entire body.

It participates in breathing, muscle tone, attention, gaze, memory, and the way the Body-Territory positions itself in relation to what is perceived.

The Five Dimensions of Utupe

Every Utupe possesses five fundamental dimensions:

three spatial dimensions;

one dimension of movement;

one dimension of Xapiri.

The three spatial dimensions provide form, position, depth, and extension.

The dimension of movement enables transformation, displacement, approach, withdrawal, activation, and release.

The dimension of Xapiri corresponds to qualia: the subjective brightness of experience.

Xapiri is the dimension that allows a representation to shine, dance, and become vividly present within existence.

Without Xapiri, there is structure.

With Xapiri, there is lived experience.

Xapiri: The Brightness That Dances Within Experience

Every Utupe possesses its own Xapiri.

Xapiri is the luminosity of representation.

It is the way something becomes alive for consciousness.

A tree may carry the Xapiri of reverence.

A song may carry the Xapiri of longing.

An idea may carry the Xapiri of insight.

A loved one's face may carry the Xapiri of presence.

Davi Kopenawa brought global attention to the power of the Xapiri as spirit-images of the forest and the living world. In this framework, we respectfully draw inspiration from the term to think about the qualia dimension of experience while recognizing the distinction between Yanomami cosmology and a scientific decolonial model.

The Meteor and the Xapiri of the Night

Imagine a Body-Territory in a state of Fruition and Metacognition.

A person sits quietly.

The night is clear.

There is no moon.

The sky appears deep and vast.

Breathing follows the rhythms of the territory.

The body remains open, attentive, and present.

Stars gradually occupy representational spaces within consciousness.

Then a meteor crosses the sky.

For a few seconds, everything reorganizes.

Attention converges.

Breathing changes.

Posture shifts.

The gaze widens.

Emotion emerges.

The sky gains depth.

Time itself seems to change.

What moves through the experience extends beyond the meteor's physical trajectory.

It is the meteor's Xapiri.

Its brilliance.

Its qualia.

Its luminous dance reorganizing the entire Body-Territory.

That streak of light creates Utupe.

When it becomes integrated with emotion and episodic memory, it becomes Pei Utupe.

Pei Utupe: Soul in Our Framework

Within our concepts, Pei Utupe is Soul.

Pei Utupe is Utupe lived, felt, and incorporated as episodic memory.

It emerges when a spatial representation becomes integrated with emotions and begins participating in the personal history of the Body-Territory.

A childhood home may become Pei Utupe.

A mother's voice may become Pei Utupe.

An ancestral river may become Pei Utupe.

A meeting, a loss, a promise, a song, or a star-filled night may become Pei Utupe.

In this framework, Soul corresponds to felt episodic memory: representation, emotion, embodiment, and lived experience unified within the Body-Territory.

Recent research suggests that bodily self-consciousness participates in the retrieval of episodic memories, reinforcing the connection between body, presence, and lived remembrance.

Utupe and Spirit: Organized Semantic Memory

We also use the term Spirit in a specific conceptual sense.

Spirit corresponds to Utupe as semantic memory space.

It encompasses meanings, names, categories, symbols, narratives, myths, theories, and shared knowledge.

The spirit of a tree may include botany, ancestry, ecology, literature, cosmology, environmental politics, and the history of a people.

The spirit of a word may carry centuries of usage.

The spirit of a science may organize entire ways of observing reality.

Thus:

Spirit is Utupe: organized semantic memory.

Soul is Pei Utupe: felt episodic memory.

Xapiri is Qualia: the brightness that dances within experience.

Recent models of mental representation increasingly examine the relationships among episodic memory, semantic memory, and hybrid forms of representation, providing valuable support for this conceptual distinction.

Souls, Spirits, and the Freedom to Exist

Souls and spirits are part of human existence.

They participate in memories, symbols, rituals, narratives, dreams, arts, sciences, families, peoples, and territories.

When cultivated through freedom, care, and openness, they enrich everyday life.

They help us remember, create, belong, study, pray, research, sing, care, and imagine.

When used to capture attention, productivity, money, or votes, these spaces may become mechanisms of confinement within the Body-Territory.

Decolonial Neuroscience seeks to cultivate a responsible relationship with these spaces.

Scientific Materiality

EEG, fNIRS, HRV, respiration, GSR, EMG, eye-tracking, and behavior can help investigate the material traces of Utupe activation.

EEG can reveal rapid neural dynamics associated with attention, memory, and mental imagery.

fNIRS can reveal hemodynamic changes associated with cortical metabolic demand.

HRV, respiration, and GSR can indicate autonomic engagement and emotional intensity.

Eye-tracking can reveal how perception explores what is observed.

Behavior can reveal approach, withdrawal, hesitation, care, choice, and wonder.

These measurements record physiological traces associated with Body-Territory activation.

They help us infer when an Utupe gains strength, when a Pei Utupe organizes Soul, and when Xapiri appears as the lived brightness of experience.

Closing Reflection

Something comes to exist for consciousness when it acquires Utupe.

Utupe organizes representation.

Pei Utupe constitutes Soul: the integration of representation, emotion, and episodic memory.

Xapiri constitutes the brightness of experience: the qualia dimension that dances within the Body-Territory.

Decolonial Neuroscience emerges from the meeting of science, evidence, body, territory, memory, image, soul, spirit, and qualia.

Every Body-Territory lives the world through the Utupe it can activate, feel, care for, and transform.

Scientific and Cultural References (Post-2021)

Boccaccio, F. M. et al. (2024). Mental Imagery between Cognition and Emotion.

Contribution:
Reviews the relationship between mental imagery, cognition, and emotion, supporting the idea that internal representations involve sensory, affective, and cognitive processes.

Parma, C. et al. (2024). An Overview of Bodily Awareness Representation and Interoception.

Contribution:
Discusses interoception, proprioception, and bodily awareness as foundations of embodied experience.

Penaud, S. et al. (2023). The Role of Bodily Self-Consciousness in Episodic Memory Retrieval.

Contribution:
Investigates how bodily self-consciousness participates in episodic memory retrieval.

Addis, D. R.; Szpunar, K. K. (2024). Beyond the Episodic–Semantic Continuum: The Multidimensional Model of Mental Representations.

Contribution:
Proposes a multidimensional view of mental representations, integrating episodic memory, semantic memory, and hybrid representational forms.

Sumaúma (2024). Davi Kopenawa and the Living Presence of the Xapiri.

Contribution:
Highlights contemporary discussions surrounding Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami cosmology, and the living presence of the Xapiri.

Akademie Schloss Solitude (2021). Xapiri.

Contribution:
Presents Xapiri as living images and knowledge beings within Yanomami cosmology, emphasizing the importance of engaging with the concept respectfully and contextually.

Foundational Principle

Everything that exists may acquire Utupe within a Body-Territory.

Pei Utupe constitutes Soul: representation integrated with emotion and lived experience.

Xapiri constitutes the Qualia dimension: the brightness that illuminates and dances through existence.