AI, Consciousness and Meditation

Artificial Intelligence has become one of the most talked-about subjects in recent years. But contrary to popular belief that it is something newly discovered or invented, the roots of AI go back to the 1950s. What we are seeing today is not the invention of AI, but the exponential growth in scale, complexity, and capabilities.

Over the past few decades, advancements in computing power, vast amounts of data, and improvements in algorithm designs have turned AI into something that can perform tasks once thought to be unique to the human mind. It is no longer just about calculations or automation, it’s about creativity, problem-solving, learning, and even what appears to be high-level thinking.

Today’s AI systems can create paintings, write poetry, and generate human-like conversations within seconds. These are things that require hours, if not days, for the human mind to produce. It’s a kind of speed that can easily make one question the uniqueness of human intelligence. As this complexity increases over time, many have started believing that AI may one day become self-aware, just as humans are believed to have developed self-awareness over the course of evolution. The idea is that just like human awareness emerged out of the increasing complexity of the brain, AI too might achieve a similar state of being. After all, what took millions of years for the brain to develop, AI could reach in a few decades. However, the belief that AI might become self-aware is grounded in an assumption that needs deeper questioning.

In many parts of the modern world, especially in the West, self-awareness has long been seen as a product of the mind, a by-product of thinking. The famous line, “I think, therefore I am”, lays the foundation for this belief. According to this view, being self-aware is nothing more than thinking about thinking. The more thoughts you have, the more data you have, the more self-aware you are. The more information you process, the more conscious you become. But if this were true, then overthinking should lead one to the highest level of self-awareness. Instead, it leads to more anxiety, more stress, and more inner noise. Rather than clarity, it brings confusion; rather than connection with life, it brings detachment. Overthinking takes one away from self-awareness and the present moment, the only place where life actually happens.

Self-awareness cannot arise from thoughts, because thoughts are rooted in memory or imagination, and both belong to either the past or the future, not the present, while awareness happens only in the present moment. Awareness cannot arise from mental computation, no matter how intensely the mind processes information. It is simply the observer. The very fact that it can witness every activity of the mind is proof of its separate existence.

AI, with its access to vast data and computational power, can self-judge, self-analyze, and self-learn with greater efficiency and speed. It can instantly form networks of thoughts. But through all that, it cannot become aware. It can act as if it’s aware, and it can imitate awareness of its surroundings through the digital senses we’ve installed in it. It can emulate awareness, but it isn’t truly aware. Its existence depends entirely on data.

The foundation of modern AI lies in replicating the human brain by its structure, its neurons, its networks, its connections. But the brain, too, is a machine.

The more advanced AI becomes, the clearer it will become to us that our brains are just sophisticated computers. This may bring a strange discomfort to many, a deep anxiety, maybe even a sense of meaninglessness and purposelessness in life. If we are just machines, where is the real “us”? We may have an existential crisis.

But there’s something AI will never reach, a presence that is not based on thought, nor built by memory or algorithms. A presence that exists even when thoughts stop moving.

Try sitting in a dark room, no sounds, no movement, no external input. Your eyes are closed, and you start to observe your thoughts. Then you observe thoughts within thoughts. As you observe, as you keep the flame of awareness alive throughout and do not interfere, a quiet presence begins to grow. You notice thoughts rising and falling, not because you try to push them away, but because awareness alone causes them to fade naturally. You are not trying to repress.

It is just you being alive without any goal or purpose. As you keep this observation consistent, thoughts begin to subside and a silence appears. Not a forced silence, but one that comes naturally. In this silence, there is no past, no future, no thoughts, no interpretations, just here and now. Just presence. Just being. You are simply aware. Aware of what? Just life.

This awareness, our sense of existence without relying on thoughts or mental processing, is what sets us humans apart. It doesn’t come from a specific place in the brain, because it can’t be measured or located. It is everywhere. It is expansive and limitless.

Can AI be aware of its existence without data or processes? Can it sit silently, without purpose, without goals, without memories, and still be aware of itself?

We humans can, and that can only be known through experience, through meditation.

As AI evolves and surpasses our brain’s computational abilities, the value of meditation will only increase.

Awareness is not a mental activity, but a presence one needs to discover. The more present you are, the more aware you become, or the more aware you become, the more present you are. Meditation is the science of discovering this awareness, the awareness that observes the mind, proving that awareness is not part of the mind but exists in the background. This self-awareness is not a thought that turns inward and leads to analysis paralysis, but a kind of gentle awareness that leads to intuitive insight about the nature of life and existence.

So, while AI may reach levels of intelligence that seem almost human or even beyond human, it will remain trapped in its own kind of intellectuality. It will keep trying to simulate presence, to mimic awareness, but it will always fall short. Because what makes us truly unique is not just our complex brains. It’s not our memory, our thoughts, or our problem-solving skills. It is our ability to sit in silence, to feel without analyzing, to just be without becoming. That is something no machine can ever experience. And perhaps that is what we must now remember, in a world that is rapidly being automated.

We are not just thinkers. We are not just doers. We are also beings. And in that being, in that simple presence, lies the true intelligence, one that doesn’t depend on speed or data, but on the depth of here and now.

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