The strong, hardcore version of Cognitive Realism. It asserts that our cognitive structures don't just influence but fundamentally determine and limit the boundaries of our possible experience. What we call "reality" is an inescapable projection of our neural wiring; we cannot perceive, conceive of, or even imagine anything outside the categories our brains provide. It's not that we see the world through a tinted window; it's that we are the window, and everything we see is a property of the glass.
Example: "Trying to imagine a truly new color is the prison of Cognitive Determinism. My brain's visual system is built from combinations of red, green, and blue photoreceptors. Every color I can experience or dream of is just a mix of those. A 'new' color outside that RGB triangle is cognitively impossible for me. My reality isn't just shaped by my senses; its entire color palette is predetermined by them."
by Abzunammu February 2, 2026
Get the Cognitive Determinism mug.The stronger, often discredited claim that human societies, their cultures, institutions, and technological trajectories are directly and inexorably shaped by their physical environment (climate, topography, resource availability). In its hard form, it suggests that geography is destiny, leaving little room for human agency, cultural innovation, or historical contingency. It's the idea that you can largely predict a society's fate by looking at a map.
Example: Hard Geographic Determinism would argue that the "laziness" attributed to certain tropical cultures is not cultural, but an inevitable adaptation to a hot climate where intense, sustained labor is physiologically dangerous, and food is abundant with little effort. It reduces complex history to environmental inputs, ignoring the vast diversity of societies that have arisen in similar landscapes. Theory of Geographic Determinism
by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 3, 2026
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