Recognition in a Distributed System

A general design for a distributed system is presented which characterizes system recognition of external events as a sheaf in a Grothendieck topos on a category of diagrams. The information that the system may derive from this sheaf involves transitions through a state space constructed from a collection of topoi interconnected by geometric morphisms. Similarities of this design with natural neural systems leads to the premise that cognitive processes involve the construction and manipulation of sheaf-like structures.