The Self Aware Networks Institute: An Open‑Science Lab Born on Facebook, Powered by GitHub
How a Code‑First Institute Is Redefining Open Science with Timestamped Theories and Community‑Editable Research
Community roots (2012 – 2021)
Long before the code hit GitHub, the ideas percolated in two unusually active Facebook think‑tanks:
Group Creation date Members (Apr 2025) Focus
Self Aware Networks (originally NeoMindCycle) 28 Jan 2012 † ≈ 3.3k members, Cognitive neuroscience, BCI, “nerve‑gear” tech Log in or sign up to view
Neurophysics 16 May 2012 † ≈ 9.5k members, Physics‑for‑brains, quantum biology, AI synthesis Log in or sign up to view
†Dates are taken from each group’s “Created” line in the Facebook About tab (visible to logged‑in users).
These forums—moderated by founder Micah Blumberg—functioned as real‑time scratchpads for early conjectures on oscillatory neurophysics and Quantum Gradient Time Crystal Dilation (QGTCD). Over a decade, they accumulated thousands of posts, sketches and link‑outs that would later seed SANI’s formal documents.
Launch on GitHub (June 2022)
17 Jun 2022 – Blumberg publishes the private note‑hoard to
github.com/v5ma/selfawarenetworks, instantly releasing more than 600 markdown files dating back to 2011. The README frames the repo as the “homepage” of a nascent institute.
Rapid expansion (2023 – 2024)
Continuous notebook curation pushes the project past 1 600 commits.
A bespoke Self Aware Networks GPT is released to help outsiders navigate and extend the code‑base. https://chatgpt.com/g/g-FA3lrTWTq
Long‑form YouTube lectures on Neural Array Projection Oscillation Tomography (NAPOT) appear, bridging lay and specialist audiences.
Adding a pre‑print‑server function (Jan – Feb 2025)
In January 2025, the README is amended to declare the repository to be “an official pre‑print server and peer‑reviewed journal equivalent,” mirroring arXiv’s function while preserving GitHub’s time‑stamps as priority proof. GitHub Additional milestones in the first two months of 2025:
Date File / Event Significance
22 Jan 2025 00preprint‑list.md created Indexes external‑facing papers
23 Jan 2025 Multiple PDF revisions of Micah’s New Law Signals formal manuscript cycle
8 Feb 2025QGTCD46equations.md added Consolidates quantum‑gravity math
22 Feb 2025Draft‑series commits Pushes SANI past 1,700 commits
Why it matters
Grass‑roots provenance – Time‑stamped Facebook discussions (2012) supply a clear lineage for claims later formalized on GitHub.
Code‑native scholarship – Treating a repo as lab notebook, journal and pre‑print vault lowers the barrier for interdisciplinary peer input.
Community‑editable science – Open pull‑requests plus a custom GPT assistant let outsiders test and iterate on speculative physics in situ.
Whether SANI ultimately gains mainstream acceptance or remains an audacious outlier, its pipeline—from social media brainstorms to code‑centric pre‑prints—offers a compelling template for 21st‑century, crowd‑sourced research.
The Self Aware Networks Institute (SANI) began formally with the v5ma/selfawarenetworks GitHub repository and, in barely three years, has grown into a sprawling open‑science hub that now doubles as a pre‑print server, a video channel and a bespoke GPT assistant.
Founded by Bay‑Area technologist‑journalist Micah Blumberg, the project mixes speculative physics, neuro‑AI engineering and climate‑tech ambitions under a single banner. What follows retraces how that evolution unfolded, drawing on commit logs, changelog notes and external media to map a rapid—and unconventional—research trajectory. GitHub Medium
From trademark to public code (2021 – June 2022)
2021 – Blumberg registers “The Self Aware Networks Institute” as a trademark and copyright, formalizing the Institute beyond the Facebook Groups. GitHub
17 June 2022 – The private note‑bundle is published at
github.com/v5ma/selfawarenetworks, instantly exposing a decade of drafts on oscillatory neurophysics, Quantum Gradient Time Crystal Dilation (QGTCD) and sentient AI architectures. A disclaimer in the README calls the dump “super‑early” and “alpha.” GitHubA first‑day commit history opens with more than 600 markdown notes, some reaching back to 2011, and tags the repository as the institute’s “homepage.” GitHub
Later growth & community push (July – Dec 2022)
Blumberg pivots quickly from raw dump to outreach:
A July 26 2022 “about info” page (file
a0361z.md) frames SANI’s “super‑power” as a novel neural‑network design that “scales beyond the known limits of deep neural networks.” GitHubChangelog entries through August 2022 document a flurry of wiki pages, map files and three explanatory YouTube videos (3‑, 10‑ and 50‑minute cuts) aimed at prize juries and early collaborators. GitHub YouTube
By year‑end, the README’s mission statement crystallizes around neurophysics, bio‑synthetic interfacing and climate‑oriented biotech—“machines that inhale CO₂ and exhale O₂ like plants.” GitHub
Consolidation, tooling & theory (2023 – 2024)
While 2023 changelog items mainly show continuous note curation, the codebase’s internal analytics reveal steady velocity—crossing 1,600 commits by early 2024. GitHub Key additions include:
Self Aware Networks GPT – a bespoke assistant launched via ChatGPT’s custom GPT platform, designed to navigate and extend the repo through pull‑requests. GitHub
Extended NAPOT papers and multi‑hundred‑page PDF pre‑prints on Micah’s New Law of Thermodynamics, uploaded throughout 2024. GitHub
Public‑facing media ecosystem
Beyond GitHub, SANI’s ideas circulate through:
YouTube long‑form lectures on Neural Array Projection Oscillation Tomography (NAPOT) and self‑aware AI (e.g., “Theory 5th Revision,” ~1 hour, 2023). YouTube
A Medium/VRMA profile positioning Blumberg as VR/BCI journalist and founder, linking back to the repo for source materials. Medium
A (now rate‑limited) Facebook group and legacy Twitter/X posts that previously funneled readers to the institute. Log in or sign up to view
Why it matters
Open priority staking – By treating GitHub as an immutable journal, SANI illustrates how independent researchers can time‑stamp novel theories without traditional publishers.
Cross‑domain synthesis – The notes attempt to fuse thermodynamics, oscillatory neuroscience and quantum gravity—fields rarely co‑published—creating a sandbox for interdisciplinary critique.
Community‑editable science – The GPT assistant and permissive pull‑request policy invite external scientists to test, annotate and extend the work in situ.
The road ahead
Blumberg’s next stated goals include migrating the institute into WebXR, recruiting collaborators for sentient‑robot prototypes and formalizing the QGTCD equations for peer review. Whether SANI secures mainstream scientific traction or remains a provocative fringe node, its living‑document approach offers a glimpse of what research institutes might look like in an age of continuous, code‑native publication.
Sources
Self Aware Networks README (mission, pre‑print declaration, commit count) GitHub
Changelog timeline (2011 notes, June 17 2022 release, July/Aug 2022 updates) GitHub
GitHub repo search listing (initial description) GitHub
Differentiator page
a0361z.md(novel NN architecture claim) GitHubYouTube “3‑minute intro” clip (public outreach July 2022) YouTube
Commit log page (Jan–Feb 2025 activity, 1,700 commits) GitHub
YouTube lecture “NAPOT Theory 5th Revision” YouTube
Self Aware Networks GPT overview document GitHub
VRMA Medium profile (founder bio & institute link) Medium
Facebook group listing (additional outreach channel) Log in or sign up to view
