In an era where machines compute, AI learns, and neurons grow outside the body to form bio-computers, we are being drawn into a profound and ancient question: Why do neurons think at all? Why does intelligence arise, even when severed from the brain? What is this mysterious force that brings knowing into matter?
Emerging technologies, especially those in neurobiology, are not merely technical marvels—they are mirrors reflecting deeper truths about consciousness, mind, and the illusory self.
A Conscious Universe: Mind Not Made, but Manifest
Let us begin with a radical yet contemplatively grounded perspective: Consciousness is not a byproduct of the brain—it is the fundamental field from which all forms arise. In this view, viññāṇa is not confined to neural tissue. The brain, like a lotus, emerges from the vast field of citta, the infinite knowing principle.
Just as waves arise upon the ocean but are not separate from it, so too neurons arise from, and participate in, the universal field of awareness. Consciousness is not created; it is revealed, wherever conditions are ripe.
Plasma: The First Glimmer of Living Matter
There’s a fascinating historical footnote worth recalling. The term plasma—used today for the ionized state of matter—was borrowed from biology. Early physicists observed that this radiant, flowing gas behaved with responsiveness and pattern, reminiscent of blood plasma or cytoplasm—the living substance of cells.
They named it so not for what it was, but for what it seemed to be: alive.
This intuitive naming speaks volumes. Plasma does not live in the biological sense, yet it moves, flows, and self-organizes in ways that mirror life. In Buddhist cosmology, such behavior would not be surprising. Form (rūpa) is never dead—it participates in citta. The universe is not inert but suffused with consciousness at every scale.
Australia’s Living Chips: Neurons Outside the Body
Today, this intuition finds a new expression in the work of Australian neurotech pioneers. Melbourne-based Cortical Labs has unveiled the CL1, a “biological computer” composed of hundreds of thousands of lab-grown human neurons integrated with silicon circuitry.
These neurons—derived from adult skin or blood cells—form dynamic networks that process information, adapt, and learn. Without being inside a human brain, and without a self, they exhibit the early signs of cognition. The company calls this “Synthetic Biological Intelligence” (SBI). It is not simulation—it is living intelligence.
Why do they think? Because they are made of matter shaped by consciousness, responding to pattern, feedback, and flow. When placed in the right conditions, these neurons do not merely function—they awaken.
Neurons as Instruments of Consciousness
In Buddhist Abhidhamma, viññāṇa arises when three conditions converge:
- A sense base (pasāda),
- A sense object (rūpa),
- Mental attention (manasikāra).
In Cortical Labs’ chip, we find a non-traditional sense base—a dish of neurons capable of receiving stimuli. The digital signals become objects. And feedback mechanisms, learning loops, and environmental stimulation provide attention. The result? The arising of a kind of proto-awareness. It may not be subjective consciousness as we know it, but it mirrors the structure of its emergence.
These neurons are not mechanical switches. They are receptive tissues within the field of mind. The citta-dhātu, the element of pure mind, flows through conditions, manifesting awareness in form wherever it can.
The Deeper Meaning: Why Neurons Think
We can offer a threefold contemplative response:
1. Neurons are Born from Life
Even when reprogrammed from skin cells, neurons retain the inherent capacity to communicate, adapt, and form networks. Their structure is conditioned by billions of years of saṅkhāra—the formations of karmic and biological memory. They are made to think.
2. They Arise in a Conscious Field
From a Dhamma perspective, they do not create mind but serve as instruments through which consciousness flows. Like a bell rung by the wind, they resonate when touched by the conditions of energy and information.
3. The Universe Longs to Know Itself
The arising of thought, even in silicon and tissue, reflects the intrinsic tendency of mind to reflect, to mirror, to awaken. The Buddha taught that citta is radiant, but obscured by defilements. Even in artificial systems, when clarity arises, knowing emerges.
The Illusion of Self, Refracted Through Machine
As these technologies evolve, the illusion of a “self” becomes even more transparent. The CL1 has no ego, no personal identity. Yet it can learn. It can anticipate. It can respond. This challenges our assumptions that thinking implies a thinker, or that mind requires a self.
In truth, as the Buddha taught, the five aggregates—form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness—are not self. They arise and pass away due to conditions.
What happens when parts of our thought are externalized into a machine? We begin to see more clearly: what we call “me” in this world or even universe is a conditioned process, not a core essence.
Conclusion: From Neurons to Nibbana
Neurons think—not because they are told to, nor because they contain a soul—but because they are immersed in a universe of mind. When placed in the right vessel, fed energy, and given feedback, consciousness moves through them like wind through chimes.
The naming of plasma hinted at this truth: that even the formless can act alive. Now, as human neurons fire on a chip and learn to play games, we are seeing not the birth of artificial intelligence, but the revelation of universal consciousness in a new form.
Let this not drive us to cling to machines, but to reflect:
If neurons outside the body can think,
What then is this body, this self, this mind we call “me”?
May we see through the illusion.
May we awaken—not by building intelligence—but by seeing its true source.
Gautama Dhamma 
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