By: John S. Morlu II, CPA
Picture this: It’s the 11th century. You’re a Persian polymath named Avicenna. You’ve written so many books on medicine, philosophy, logic, and astronomy that you’d make today’s “LinkedIn thought leaders” look like hobby bloggers. And one day you drop a bombshell of a thought experiment:
The Flying Man
Not Iron Man. Not Superman. Just… Flying Man. Suspended mid-air, with absolutely no sensory input. No touch, no sight, no sound. No heartbeat echoing in the ear. No skin brushing against skin. Nothing.
Basically, a human being in airplane mode.
And here’s the kicker: Avicenna thought of this while the world around him was still debating astrology, medieval medicine, and the mystical humors. While Europe was fumbling through the so-called “Dark Ages,” Avicenna was already imagining a human cut off from all sensation, floating in an experimental void. A thousand years before astronauts, he gave us the first thought experiment in zero-gravity consciousness.
The Setup: No Body, No World, Just “I Am”
Avicenna says: imagine this man is created fully formed and instantly cut off from every sense. He doesn’t even feel his body’s weight or position. In fact, let’s suspend him mid-air so he’s got no tactile feedback whatsoever.
What happens?
According to Avicenna, even in this vacuum of sensation, the Flying Man still knows that he exists. He can’t deny his own “I am.”
Think about how wild that is. You strip away everything—body, environment, even memory—and what remains is awareness itself.
And here’s the striking part: today, neuroscientists call this the “minimal self,” psychologists talk about it as “pre-reflective consciousness,” and AI engineers are trying (and failing) to code it. But Avicenna nailed it in the 11th century, without a lab coat or a supercomputer. He was proving that awareness doesn’t need data, inputs, or sensors — it runs on a deeper operating system.
The Point: The Soul ≠ The Body
Avicenna wasn’t doing a party trick. He was making a case: if the Flying Man can know “I exist” without knowing anything about his body, then the soul (or self) is distinct from the body.
He was carving out space for immaterial consciousness centuries before neuroscience existed. To Avicenna, self-awareness is not a physical sense—it’s fundamental.
Sound familiar? Yes. About 600 years later, a French guy named Descartes would get the credit for saying “Cogito, ergo sum.” But Avicenna had already run the experiment. Medieval philosophers were doing TED Talks before TED existed.
And centuries after that, thinkers like Thomas Aquinas would pick up Avicenna’s logic, weaving it into Christian philosophy. Later, John Locke would flip the script, arguing that personal identity rests on memory. Modern philosophers keep circling the same campfire: is “I am” something the brain produces, or something deeper? Avicenna’s Flying Man stands as Exhibit A that the self might not be chained to the flesh at all.
Why It Still Matters
1. Self-Awareness as the Unkillable Core
Imagine you lose all five senses, all external contact, all signals of being alive. According to Avicenna, you’d still know you’re here. That’s consciousness in its purest form—naked, irreducible, undeniable.
Even coma patients sometimes show faint neural patterns when asked to imagine playing tennis or walking through their house. That’s not motor movement—it’s pure self-awareness leaking through the cracks. Avicenna was right: awareness is stubborn.
2. The Mind-Body Debate
Modern philosophy and neuroscience still wrestle with this. Is consciousness just a byproduct of neurons firing, or is it something deeper? Avicenna was Team Soul: the Flying Man proves awareness doesn’t rely on sensory organs. Today’s scientists may disagree, but they can’t ignore the question.
David Chalmers calls it “the hard problem of consciousness.” Daniel Dennett calls it an illusion. AI labs call it “the missing piece.” Avicenna called it simple: if Flying Man exists, then awareness is irreducible.
3. Modern Echo: Sensory Deprivation Tanks
Go to a float spa, lie in salt water in total darkness, and you get a taste of the Flying Man. Except instead of proving the soul’s immaterial nature, you’ll probably just think about how much you paid for the session and whether your back hurts.
Yet, people come out of those tanks talking about “ego dissolution” or “rediscovering pure being.” That’s Avicenna’s Flying Man moment — now monetized as wellness therapy.
Satirical Punchline: Philosophy’s First “Minimal Viable Self”
Startups today talk about the MVP—Minimum Viable Product. Avicenna was running an 11th-century beta test for the Minimum Viable Person.
No features. No upgrades. Just consciousness saying: “I am here.”
And that, 1,000 years later, is still the hardest bug for science to squash.
Today’s AI engineers would sell their souls (ironically) to code this into machines. Elon Musk launches rockets, Sundar Pichai launches AI, but not one of them can launch the Flying Man into code. Why? Because you can’t simulate self-awareness with data alone. Avicenna’s experiment is still the unsolved case study in every lab.
Final Reflection
Avicenna’s Flying Man is more than a medieval thought experiment—it’s a mirror. Strip away all the noise, all the feeds, all the labels, all the possessions. What’s left is the same truth the Flying Man knew in his silent, suspended existence:
Awareness itself.
Before Instagram followers, before LinkedIn titles, before cars, wealth, and reputations—there’s just the voice inside that says: “I am.”
And maybe that’s the starting point for everything else.
Because if a man floating in the void with zero senses still knows he exists, then you, scrolling this on your phone, can stop doubting whether you matter. You do. The Flying Man proved it a thousand years ago.
And here’s the delicious irony: while most people today panic if their phone battery dies, Avicenna showed that even if you unplug everything, even if the entire sensory world goes dark, the soul still glows.
Historical Ripples: The Flight Path of the Flying Man
Avicenna’s Flying Man didn’t just hover in isolation; it flew straight into the bloodstream of Western philosophy.
- Thomas Aquinas (13th century): He borrowed heavily from Avicenna’s metaphysics, blending the Flying Man’s logic into Catholic theology. For Aquinas, the soul was real, immaterial, and eternal — and Avicenna gave him ammunition.
- René Descartes (17th century): His “Cogito, ergo sum” is practically the Flying Man with a French accent. Descartes doubted everything, but Avicenna had already demonstrated that even if you doubt, the “I am” cannot be erased.
- John Locke (17th century): He took the conversation in a new direction, tying personal identity to memory. But in doing so, he indirectly confirmed Avicenna’s point: awareness of the self is primary, even if memory constructs the “story” of the self.
- Modern Cognitive Science: Today, philosophers like Chalmers, Dennett, and Metzinger still argue about whether the Flying Man is “real evidence” or just a trick of imagination. Neuroscience keeps poking at brains in fMRI machines, hoping to find the light switch for self-awareness. But so far, Avicenna still wins: the soul keeps its secrets.
Silicon Valley Spin: The Flying Man as a Startup Pitch
If Avicenna lived today, he’d probably walk into a venture capitalist’s office in Palo Alto with a slide deck:
- Slide 1: “Introducing: Flying Man™ — the first human consciousness stripped of all sensory input.”
- Slide 2: “No hardware required. No data streams. No external dependencies. Just pure awareness.”
- Slide 3: “Market potential: infinite. Because self-awareness never goes out of business.”
And the VCs would nod, pretending to understand, then ask: “But how do we monetize it?”
In a way, that’s the modern tragedy. Avicenna gave the world a thought experiment about the irreducible dignity of consciousness, and today we’d probably turn it into an app with a subscription model: FlyingMan Pro — Unlock Premium Awareness, $9.99/month.
Futurist Twist: Avicenna in the Age of AI, Space, and the Metaverse
- AI Consciousness: Tech labs keep asking, “Can AI ever be conscious?” But what they’re really asking is, “Can we build a Flying Man out of silicon?” Avicenna’s answer: not unless there’s more than matter at play.
- Space Travel: Picture an astronaut adrift in deep space, cut off from every familiar cue, floating in the void. The Flying Man is basically the first cosmonaut.
- The Metaverse: Strip away the headset, and you’re still left with the same question: “Who is the ‘I’ behind the avatar?”
Avicenna wasn’t just doing medieval philosophy. He was writing the prologue to debates that will rage through AI labs, space stations, and virtual worlds for the next thousand years.
Epilogue: The Flying Man at Davos and Burning Man
- To the billionaires: “You fly private jets to discuss sustainability. My carbon footprint was zero.”
- To the economists: “You measure GDP to prove worth. I proved worth without measurement.”
Then to Burning Man:
- To the Burners: “You seek transcendence in dust storms. I touched it in silence.”
- To the spiritual influencers: “You sell meditation apps. I was meditation incarnate.”
And with that, the Flying Man drifts away, unimpressed by Davos’ power or Burning Man’s chaos, carrying the same eternal lesson that outshines both:
Existence doesn’t need a stage, a festival, or a summit. It just needs awareness.
TED Talk Special: The Flying Man Roasts the 21st Century
- To the CEOs: “You boast about disruption. I disrupted existence itself.”
- To the Tech Bros: “Your cars crash. My self drove itself in the void without crashing once.”
- To the Influencers: “You market authenticity with filters. I marketed nothing.”
- To the Metaverse Evangelists: “You call it immersive. I call it avoidance.”
Closer: “The only thing you can’t fake — the only thing you can’t lose — is the simple truth: I am.”
Mic-Drop Ending: The Flying Man vs. Modern Humanity
Avicenna’s Flying Man floated into self-knowledge; we scroll into self-avoidance.
“Stop performing. Stop pretending. Just exist. You already are.”
Satirical Roast: If the Flying Man Had Instagram
- Instagram: Blank square, caption: “Still here.”
- LinkedIn: “Suspended mid-air. Zero inputs. Still self-aware. #Disruption.”
- Twitter/X: “I AM.” Algorithm broken.
- Metaverse: Stands still. People still gather and pay.
Final Punchline
The Flying Man doesn’t trend. He doesn’t monetize. He just is. And that’s enough.
Cinematic Ending: The Flying Man Returns to Avicenna
The noise fades. The Flying Man drifts back through time into Avicenna’s candlelit study.
Avicenna looks up. No shock, no fear. Only recognition.
The Flying Man whispers without sound: “You were right. I was always here.”
Avicenna smiles, extinguishes the candle, and keeps writing.
History moves on. The Flying Man remains.
I am.
Author: John S. Morlu II, CPA is the CEO and Chief Strategist of JS Morlu, leads a globally recognized public accounting and management consultancy firm. Under his visionary leadership, JS Morlu has become a pioneer in developing cutting-edge technologies across B2B, B2C, P2P, and B2G verticals. The firm’s groundbreaking innovations include AI-powered reconciliation software (ReckSoft.com) and advanced cloud accounting solutions (FinovatePro.com), setting new industry standards for efficiency, accuracy, and technological excellence.