Cognition and Power: 1 Power as Field Control

1. Rethinking Power

Power is traditionally treated as an effect on minds:

• persuade, convince, manipulate beliefs

• win agreement, enforce compliance

• influence choices by controlling information

This view assumes a substrate that does not exist: independent, stable cognitive agents.

From our relational perspective, that assumption collapses.

Cognition is participation in a field, not manipulation of internal representations.

Power, therefore, does not primarily operate on minds.

It operates by shaping the field in which cognition occurs.

Power is not persuasion.

Power is field control.

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2. Fields Precede Agents

Cognitive agents are local stabilisations within a field, not the origin of cognition.

A cognitive field is a structured space of:

• attention: what is noticed and ignored

• salience: what matters in context

• affordances: what actions are possible

• trajectories: what responses flow naturally

Agents only appear to think independently.

In reality, they move along patterns pre-structured by the field.

Power does not need to “convince” anyone.

It only needs to shape the constraints of the field.

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3. Attention as the Primary Target

If cognition is participation, attention is the first point of control.

Controlling what is:

• visible,

• thinkable,

• salient,

• normal

…is far more consequential than controlling beliefs or ideas.

Power operates invisibly:

• some possibilities are amplified, others dampened

• some distinctions are obvious, others hidden

• some paths are encouraged, others costly to follow

Participants comply not because they are convinced, but because participation along these paths feels natural.

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4. Power Without a Controller

Field control does not require a central agent.

Structures like:

• institutions

• routines

• metrics

• infrastructures

• temporal rhythms

…stabilise participation autonomously.

No single individual is “in charge.”

Cognition aligns because the field itself is organised — quietly, persistently.

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5. Implications

Understanding power as field control:

• Makes visible the invisible architecture of cognition

• Explains why persuasion often fails without structural alignment

• Reveals why resistance feels exhausting rather than forbidden

• Shows that cognition is shaped structurally before content is ever considered

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Next, we can zoom in on the mechanics of attention and collective alignment — the first layer of how fields are constructed and maintained.

Post 2 — Collective Attention and Its Politics will explore that.