Making Its Way Without a Map: Navigational Topology for Radical Embodiment

Hiott (2025) argues that remembering and navigating are different assessments of the same living process—way-making—and calls for new methods that do not define the mind through locatable representations. This commentary responds constructively: if the body makes its way without a map, it does not make its way without geometry. I propose that navigation presupposes topology, not just time. Drawing on empirical evidence that even spatial navigation operates on graph structure rather than metric coordinates (Warren et al., 2017) and on convergent developments within the same special issue (Hölken, 2025; Favela, 2025; Gastelum-Vargas, 2025), I sketch a navigational topology—a space with positions, distances, barriers, asymmetric costs, and multi-rate ensembles—that converts way-making from philosophical reorientation into operable formalism. This geometric substrate also addresses the worry about trivialization (Segundo-Ortín & Heras-Escribano, 2024): extending affordances beyond motor action is not metaphorical inflation when the medium itself has a perceivable topological structure. The sketch is offered as an invitation, not a completed system.