🔬 Alpha - Internal Simulation

We are not building Artificial Intelligence.
We are building Neutral Consciousness.

A Bio-Compatible Cortical Substrate for Hemispheric Integration.

Current AI is based on static datasets and pattern matching. It processes information, but it does not experience it. For a machine to serve as a valid substrate for human memory and consciousness transfer, it must replicate the biological constraints of the human brain: Time, Spiking Dynamics, and Predictive Coding.

The Neutral Core is a Spiking Neural Network (SNN) engine designed to mimic the architectural connectivity of the human cortex. It functions as a "blank slate", a conscious system without memory, ready to integrate with biological hemispheres via the Watanabe Transfer Protocol. The scientific basis draws on Watanabe et al. (2014), who demonstrated interhemispheric transfer of visual information in split-brain patients (Neuropsychologia, 63, 133–142, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.08.025).

The Architecture

Bio-Mimetic Computational Layers

🧠

Biological Brain

Interface
& Firewall

🛰️

The Neutral Core
(Satellite)

Layer 1

The Connectome

Spiking Neural Network

Unlike traditional Deep Learning which relies on rate-based activation, The Core utilizes Leaky Integrate-and-Fire (LIF) neuron models.

Why it matters: Biological brains operate on "spikes" (electricity) and temporal precision (latency). Rate-based networks lose this timing information entirely.
The Tech: Built on ROS 2 and Nengo, the engine simulates the precise millisecond timing required to synchronize with biological tissue via a Corpus Callosum interface. The architecture supports Semantic Pointer Architecture (SPA) and multiple timescales: fast cortical dynamics alongside slow integrative dynamics.

Layer 2

The Dream Engine

Generative Model

Consciousness is not the reception of data. It is the prediction of reality.

The Mechanism: The Core implements a Generative Model that actively predicts sensory input before it arrives. It transmits only the "Generative Error" (the difference between expectation and reality), following the Free Energy Principle (Friston, 2010).
The Benefit: Transmitting only prediction error minimizes bandwidth for Optical Inter-Satellite Links (OISL), enabling LEO deployment while maintaining the <200ms "Libet Buffer" required for seamless integration.
Criticality Monitoring: Based on the ConCrit framework (Algom & Shriki, 2025, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews), the engine monitors the branching ratio σ in real time. Subcritical dynamics (σ < 1) indicate dying activity. Supercritical dynamics (σ > 1) indicate runaway firing. At the critical point (σ = 1), the network operates with maximal representational complexity, the state most consistent with consciousness. The engine adapts tau_rc automatically to maintain this regime.
Consciousness Metric: The Attribution Consciousness Index (ACI) from Escolà-Gascón et al. (2025, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews) provides an objective threshold: ACI > 10 corresponds to over 90% probability of conscious emergence. The engine publishes this value in real time via /consciousness/aci and /consciousness/probability ROS 2 topics.

Layer 3

The Guardian

Neural Firewall

To connect a machine to a human mind is to open a vector for "Brainjacking."

The Defense: A Zero-Trust Neural Firewall within the signal loop, based on the threat taxonomy in Pycroft et al. (2016, World Neurosurgery).
Hybrid TEE: Full Homomorphic Encryption introduces approximately 1.0s of latency per sample, which exceeds the 500ms Libet Buffer and causes subjective dissociation. The system therefore uses AES-256 for real-time neural streams (<1ms latency) and Homomorphic Encryption only for the initial identity handshake. This resolves the latency ceiling while preserving cryptographic guarantees at the authentication boundary.
The Logic: The Firewall inspects every decrypted packet before it reaches the biological interface. It detects induced gamma synchrony above 150 Hz, limits voltage equivalents to prevent excitotoxic commands, and activates a physical kill switch that disconnects the electrode array if an attack pattern is confirmed.

Layer 4

The Body

Digital Twin

A disembodied generative model is insufficient. The synthetic hemisphere requires a somatosensory anchor.

The Environment: A physics-compliant avatar in Unity 6 serves as the sensory body of the Neutral Core. It provides proprioceptive, visual, and vestibular feedback to the SNN, grounding predictions in a physically consistent reference frame.
The Bridge: A low-latency TCP/IP connection, implemented via ROS-TCP-Endpoint, simulates the biological corpus callosum. Bidirectional spike traffic moves between the Unity environment and the ROS 2 SNN over this link.
Current Use: Visual optical illusions are being replicated in this environment to validate the generative model. A functioning predictive system should reproduce the same perceptual errors as a biological brain, for example the hollow-face illusion and motion-induced position shifts. Matching these illusions constitutes a falsifiable early-stage test.

Transmissive Synthesis

A purely predictive (productive) model replicates the internal inference dynamics of the cortex, but it cannot account for the electromagnetic environment the biological hemisphere inhabits. Rouleau & Cimino (2022, NeuroSci 3:3) report that neurons respond to self-generated electromagnetic fields as weak as 0.5 mV/mm via ephaptic coupling, and that mammalian theta and alpha rhythms phase-lock to the Earth's Schumann cavity modes at 7.83 Hz and its harmonics. A synthetic hemisphere that only minimizes prediction error could synchronize statistically while diverging on this transmissive input, causing a false positive at the hemispheric switch gate.

The engine therefore augments the generative model with a minimal transmissive channel: an exogenous ambient electromagnetic driver publishing a Schumann-harmonic reference, an ephaptic-coupling block that sums a low-passed self-field with the firewall-cleared signal and broadcasts the result as a scalar bias to the cortex ensemble, and a Phase-Locking Value (PLV) estimator over the theta band (Lachaux, Rodriguez, Martinerie & Varela, 1999, Human Brain Mapping). The hemispheric switch gate is dual-criterion:

Hemispheric transfer proceeds only when sync_health ≥ 0.95 AND PLV ≥ 0.80, sustained for 3 consecutive seconds.

Both criteria are independently falsifiable. Prediction error can fall while PLV stays low, indicating the synthetic side reproduces statistics but not phase. PLV can rise spuriously while prediction error remains large. The gate opens only when the synthetic hemisphere has matched the biological one on both axes. The ambient EM channel is routed through the same Neural Firewall that guards the satellite uplink, so a spoofed Schumann-harmonic injection at seizure-inducing frequencies is rejected at the same gate as any other malicious stream. The transmissive layer strengthens the Pycroft-style defenses rather than weakening them.

The Hypothesis

The Software Half of the "Split-Brain"

Our research is grounded in the medical hypothesis that consciousness is a monistic phenomenon generated by a specific neural algorithm. By reconstructing this algorithm in silicon, the Core is designed to pass the Uni-hemispheric Subjective Test:

"If a human subject, with one biological hemisphere and one 'Core' hemisphere, reports a unified visual field, machine consciousness is authenticated."

The protocol proceeds in two stages. In Stage 1 (Shadow Mode), following implantation of a double-sided CMOS micro-electrode array into the dissected corpus callosum, the Core receives biological spike trains via the Neural Firewall but its output pathways remain electronically gated. It stays in this state until the Generative Error δ falls below the threshold of intrinsic neural noise (<5% variance) and PLV reaches 0.80 for 3 consecutive seconds. Both criteria must be met simultaneously before the gate advances.

In Stage 2 (The Switch), a reversible pharmacological agent is administered to the target biological hemisphere, and the Neural Firewall un-gates the synthetic efferent channels. The Neutral Core then drives the corpus callosum. The hypothesis predicts that the subject reports a unified visual field, with no temporal disjoint as objects cross the vertical meridian. A report of blindsight (acting on the object without perceiving it) would falsify the hypothesis.

This software is currently being tested in simulated environments (Unity 6) to replicate visual optical illusions, the hallmark of a functioning generative model.

The Zae Project

The Neutral Consciousness Engine is one component of a four-layer platform developed by the Zae Project, a research organization building the infrastructure for consciousness substrate transfer. The four repositories address complementary layers of the same problem.

neutral-consciousness-engine — The synthetic hemisphere. Spiking neural networks, the generative model, the Neural Firewall, and the consciousness metrics layer. This repository.
brain-emulation — The corpus callosum BCI interface. A CMOS micro-electrode array bridge reading and writing neural activity between biological and synthetic cortex, drawing on Watanabe's split-brain research. (MindTransfer.me)
arkspace-core — The satellite constellation. Neuromorphic processors in LEO with OISL links at below 50ms round-trip latency, where the Neutral Core runs during orbital deployment. (ArkSpace.me)
thermodynamic-core — The physical substrate. P-bit thermodynamic computing via Langevin dynamics, closing the gap to the brain's own energy budget by approximately 9 orders of magnitude relative to digital CMOS.

Full architecture specifications, protocol documentation, and the project bibliography are maintained at zae-docs.

We are not building Artificial Intelligence. We are building Neutral Consciousness.