The Cognitive Thread: 2 Attention as Horizon Contraction

Attention is one of psychology’s most overburdened metaphors.

Spotlight. Filter. Resource. Gate. Bottleneck. Priority system.

Every model tries to preserve the same assumption:

There is too much information “out there,” and the mind must select what enters “in here.”

Once relation is primary, this entire architecture dissolves.

There is no “out there” overflowing with inputs.

No “in here” equipped with capacity limits.

No mechanism sorting, filtering, or computing.

Instead, there is a horizon of potential — the structured readiness of a living system coupled to its ecological surround.

Attention is not a process within a container.

It is a dynamic operation on the horizon itself.

Attention is horizon contraction.

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1. Removing the Myth of Attentional Resources

In mainstream cognitive theory, attention is costly because it consumes a limited resource.

But once we take relation seriously, cost is not a depletion of an internal store — it is:

• the metabolic requirement to sustain a given horizon width

• the effort involved in stabilising a narrowed field of inclination

• the difficulty of preventing unused potentials from widening the horizon automatically

The “resource” metaphor is merely the residue of a mechanistic model with a fictional interior space.

In a relational ontology, attention does not use up a resource.

It reshapes the relational field.

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2. Attention as a Controlled Collapse of Possibility

A living system exists in a state of structured potential: many gradients, many inclinations, many possible alignments.

A wide horizon means:

• multiple simultaneous pathways of readiness

• high coupling bandwidth

• low specificity

Attention narrows this:

Attention is the deliberate reduction of degrees of freedom to stabilise an actionable gradient.

It collapses the wide readiness field into a constrained subset, making certain actualisations feasible while suppressing others.

This gives us precise relational definitions:

• inattention → horizon too wide; gradients interfere

• focus → horizon narrowed to an optimal basin

• distraction → involuntary re-expansion of the horizon

• hyperfocus → horizon over-contracted; alternative gradients suppressed

• flow → horizon tuned perfectly to the task’s gradient landscape

Nothing here involves selection or filtering.

The system does not choose items; it reshapes its readiness topology.

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3. Why Horizon Width Matters

Changing the width of the horizon modulates:

• sensitivity to gradients (narrow → high precision; wide → high flexibility)

• metabolic cost (narrow horizons require continuous inhibition; wide horizons cost more to maintain globally)

• temporal scale of action (narrow → fast sequential cuts; wide → slower, distributed responsiveness)

• ecological coupling (wide → high bandwidth; narrow → selective constraint)

Horizon width is the system’s primary cognitive lever.

Attention is simply the act of adjusting it.

This shift makes attention no longer a step in a pipeline, but a global reconfiguration of relational potential.

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4. The Ecology of Attention

In relational terms, attention operates not in the head but in the system–environment nexus.

A bird narrowing its horizon to track a predator is not “selecting input”; it is collapsing its sensorimotor readiness around a specific gradient.

A child absorbed in drawing is not “filtering distractions”; the drawing dynamically contracts the horizon to a narrow attractor groove.

The environment is not “out there” to be processed.

It is a field of gradients whose salience depends on current horizon shape.

Thus:

• attention is enacted in the coupling

• the horizon is co-shaped by organism and ecology

• narrowing is not an internal act but an ecological manoeuvre

Attention becomes a behaviour, not a mental mechanism.

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5. Attention as a Pre-Condition for Construal

Only by narrowing the horizon can the system make an actualisation cut — the construal of a phenomenon.

With a wide horizon, gradients compete; none stabilise.

With a properly narrowed horizon, a gradient becomes actionable, and construal can occur without collapse or interference.

This produces a deep identity:

Attention is the preparation of the horizon that allows construal to actualise as a stable phenomenon.

It is not a precursor to meaning.

It is the shaping of relational potential that makes meaning possible.

Attention is the pre-semiotic modulation of the field.

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6. Why This Recut Matters

A relational account of attention avoids every mechanistic assumption:

• no spotlight

• no filter

• no capacity limits

• no internal representations

• no processing pipeline

• no dual-system architecture

Instead:

Attention is the strategic narrowing of the system’s horizon of potential, enabling stable coupling and viable actualisation.

This redefinition allows the rest of cognition to be re-derived.

Emotion modulates the cost and elasticity of horizon shifts.

Working memory stabilises local pockets of potential to prevent collapse during sustained narrowings.

Intuition and analysis become contrasting strategies for managing horizon width.

Attention is the hinge on which the entire cognitive thread pivots.

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Next: Post 3 — Emotion as Metabolic Readiness Modulation