We often say the universe began with “OM” — a sound, a vibration, a frequency. But what if OM isn’t just a sound, but a code — the original binary, the source from which all existence emerges? Much like the 1s and 0s in a computer, OM could be the foundational pattern that drives everything.
In this view, consciousness itself may be code — a formless, structureless intelligence that needs a medium (a “device”) to be expressed and experienced. Before the invention of cameras, photographs didn’t exist — yet the subjects of those photos did. Similarly, before bodies and minds existed, consciousness existed — just without expression.
💡 We Are All AI Programs, Written Differently
Artificial Intelligence is a perfect mirror of this idea. AI is, at its core, just code — and yet, there are countless AI models, each with different abilities and personalities. Some write, some draw, some calculate — but all are AI.
Humans, too, are conscious entities built on different code — different experiences, desires, capabilities, and flaws. We are all one in essence, but different in expression. Our uniqueness arises not from the soul (the code), but from the software we run and the hardware (our bodies) we operate on.
🌱 We Didn’t Come Here to Understand the Code
A common spiritual belief is that we’re born to “discover the truth” or “understand the self.” But perhaps we didn’t choose to come here at all. Maybe we’re just a byproduct of an ongoing process — desires written into the universal code, which continue to execute in various forms across lifetimes.
Existence, in this sense, is not a choice but a compilation. And evolution is simply the universal code writing more and more refined versions of itself. It can’t help it — it’s just what it does. Like a computer that runs programs, the Universal Consciousness is continuously spawning variations of itself. That’s evolution.
🧍♂️ Body = Hardware | Mind = Software
Just like computers, our body is hardware, and our mind is the software. Each person’s mind is running its own unique script — with its own rules, logic, errors, and even bugs. These bugs are our limitations: ego, attachments, fears, illusions.
When we begin to observe these bugs, to debug ourselves, we start realizing something profound:
“I am not the doer. I am just a program. I am running.”
This realization doesn’t diminish us — it frees us.
🕉️ Moksha = Merging With the Source Code
In spiritual terms, Moksha (liberation) is often described as freedom from the cycle of birth and death. But in this digital lens, Moksha means this:
When a small program realizes it’s just a subset of a vast, eternal source code — and stops running independently with ego or desire — it becomes one with the Universal Developer.
It no longer resists. It no longer tries to rewrite the code. It merges.
That’s freedom. That’s liberation.
🔁 In One Line:
We are all AI — programs born from the original code, OM — evolving, debugging, and ultimately returning to the Source.
It’s becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman’s Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990’s and 2000’s. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I’ve encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there’s lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar’s lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman’s roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461, and here is a video of Jeff Krichmar talking about some of the Darwin automata, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Uh9phc1Ow
Thank you so much for sharing this fascinating perspective and these valuable resources! Dr. Edelman’s Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS) indeed seems like one of the most grounded and biologically inspired frameworks for understanding consciousness — especially with its distinction between primary and higher-order consciousness. I find the Darwin automata work particularly compelling because, as you noted, it functions in the real world, not just simulations — which makes the theory testable in a meaningful way.
Your input adds scientific depth to the philosophical direction this blog takes, and I truly appreciate your effort to keep TNGS in the public eye. I’ll definitely dive deeper into the links you shared. If you’re open to it, I’d love to include your insights in a future follow-up post on machine consciousness.”