Human brain zero: uncovering the lowest neural state for consciousness engineering
Frontiers in Neuroscience May 8, 2026 Maël Donoso
Consciousness engineering treats consciousness as an emergent property of organized processes in complex adaptive systems, which could be biological or artificial. The continuous stream of human experience is described as a trajectory through time that ends when the brain ceases to function, but this termination is a biological contingency, not a physical necessity. If the processes sustaining consciousness could be transferred to a more robust physical substrate while preserving continuity, human cognition might persist beyond biological death. The authors propose a heuristic construct called human brain zero (HB0), defined as the lowest neural state in terms of complexity and integration that still allows consciousness to reemerge. Identifying HB0 candidates using neuroimaging proxies could provide a lower bound for consciousness engineering, making the problem more tractable.