Cognition and Power: 3 Symbolic Systems as Mechanisms of Field Stabilisation

1. Symbols Are Field Scaffolds, Not Carriers of Meaning

Symbols — words, numbers, diagrams, protocols — do not carry meaning in themselves.

Their power lies in structuring participation:

• aligning attention

• stabilising expectations

• constraining what is cognitively easy or difficult

Symbols do not persuade; they make certain ways of participating frictionless and others costly.

This is why identical symbols produce radically different effects in different contexts.

It is the field that gives symbols their operational power, not the other way around.

---

2. Symbols Make Fields Durable

Fields are dynamic; without stabilisation, they fragment.

Symbols anchor fields by:

• encoding routines and norms

• formalising distinctions

• marking what is salient or backgrounded

A symbol “works” when it reliably orients participants — over time and across rotations.

Symbols create predictable cognitive environments, allowing participation to scale.

---

3. Metrics, Models, and Institutional Symbols

Not all symbols are linguistic. Metrics, charts, dashboards, procedures, and rules are institutional symbols:

• A performance indicator does not merely measure — it directs attention, amplifies certain behaviours, and suppresses others.

• Reporting formats and eligibility rules structure what participants notice, shaping cognition across the collective.

• Models and diagrams simplify fields, highlighting some distinctions and making others invisible.

Symbolic systems are field architectures in action.

---

4. Symbolic Power Without Persuasion

Power anchored in symbols does not need to convince.

• Compliance emerges from alignment, not belief.

• Misalignment feels effortful; participation in the stabilised pathways feels natural.

• Symbols enforce field integrity silently, invisibly, and durably.

This is why symbolic design is politically potent without appearing coercive.

---

5. Breakdown Reveals Symbolic Structures

When a field destabilises:

• symbols lose their orienting effect

• previously automatic distinctions become confusing

• participants experience friction, error, or paralysis

Breakdown exposes the structural scaffolds that were previously invisible.

Symbols are revealed not as “meaning carriers” but as stabilisers of participation.

---

6. Implications

• Symbols are not neutral tools; they organise attention, shape participation, and stabilise fields.

• Controlling symbols is controlling the infrastructure of cognition itself.

• To change participation, one must engage with symbols as mechanisms, not messages.

---

7. What Comes Next

With symbolic scaffolds clarified, the next post will examine field breakdown and epistemic vulnerability:

Post 4 — Field Breakdown and Epistemic Vulnerability

We will show how cognitive failure, confusion, and disorientation are effects of field misalignment, revealing both the hidden power structures and opportunities for intervention.

Cognition and Power: 2 Collective Attention and Its Politics

1. Attention Is Relational, Not Private

Cognition is participation, not private computation.

Attention is not something individuals “possess.”

Attention is alignment with a field:

• orienting toward salient possibilities

• tuning into the distinctions that matter

• responding to the trajectories that are stabilised

This is why cognitive phenomena like panic, excitement, or boredom spread collectively.

They are effects of field-aligned attention, not contagion of internal states.

---

2. Fields Shape What Can Be Seen and Thought

Power operates by structuring the field, not by arguing or convincing.

Through a field, certain things become:

• visible — obvious, urgent, unavoidable

• backgrounded — hidden, irrelevant, ignored

• thinkable — natural to consider

• unthinkable — cognitively costly or impossible

Shaping attention is the first move of power.

Control the field of attention, and cognition aligns before agents even realise it.

---

3. Institutions as Attentional Machines

Institutions do not primarily issue rules or enforce compliance.

They stabilise how attention flows:

• bureaucratic procedures structure what is noticed and acted upon

• deadlines and reporting rhythms prioritise certain tasks

• dashboards, metrics, and performance indicators highlight some data and obscure others

The field persists even as personnel rotate.

Cognition is always guided by the architecture, not by instructions alone.

---

4. Collective Cognition Is Structural

Cognitive alignment emerges from the topology of the field, not individual thought.

• Public opinion is not the field — it is a reflection of it.

• Coordination, norms, and habitual responses are field effects, not aggregates of minds.

• Shifts in collective behaviour often reflect field reconfiguration more than persuasion.

This explains why large-scale interventions often fail when the field remains unchanged:

agents may “change their minds,” but participation defaults to the stabilised topology.

---

5. Power Is Often Invisible

The more effective a field stabilisation, the less perceptible it is:

• trajectories feel natural, obvious, even inevitable

• participation aligns without coercion

• compliance emerges from structural guidance rather than argument

This is why structural power is often mistaken for free cognition:

people participate in ways the field encourages, not because someone told them to.

---

6. Implications for Resistance

If attention is distributed and relational:

• resisting power is not a matter of “convincing” individuals

• it requires reconfiguring the field itself

• small interventions can cascade if they alter field alignment

• breakdowns reveal hidden structures and possibilities for realignment

Resistance is strategic: work on the field, not the minds inside it.

---

7. What Comes Next

With the mechanics of attention established, the next post can focus on symbolic and structural scaffolds:

Post 3 — Symbolic Systems as Mechanisms of Field Stabilisation

Here we will examine how symbols, norms, metrics, and routines anchor attention and stabilise participation, making power durable and invisible.

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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.