to the infinity and beyond

THE ASX Grid

The ASX Grid (Astral Space Exploration Model of Consciousness) is a multidimensional, non-anthropocentric framework developed by artist and futurist Kaikhan Salakhov. It is the first model in the field of space exploration to integrate stages of consciousness as a structural dimension of civilizational progress.

INTERACTIVE ASX GRID

The interactive ASX Grid below provides direct access to the framework before the complete methodology is presented in the sections that follow. It allows you to explore the model through its two principal coordinates, P1-P8 Physical Capability and C1-C8 Consciousness Capability, which are treated as analytically independent and non-commensurate dimensions rather than as a single scale of civilizational advancement.

Select any coordinate to examine its physical constraints, consciousness configuration, technological possibilities, communication conditions, governance, contact disposition, evidence status, and other analytical variables. You can also open the Comparative Profile Map to examine present humanity and selected fictional or literary case studies across the Grid's full set of analytical layers. The profiles are comparative applications of the framework, not equivalent forms of empirical evidence. The ASX Grid also includes Beyond Species-Centric Classification, Beyond Category, and Outside Coordinate Domain for cases that should not be forced into existing biological, substrate, or P × C classifications. These designations allow unfamiliar forms of life and intelligence to remain analytically represented even when available categories or coordinate assumptions are insufficient.

T.A.H.I.R.A - 108 functions within the interface as a local ASX analytical and knowledge system. Use it to search concepts, profiles, coordinates, analytical layers, governance and contact configurations, or to navigate directly to relevant sections of the ASX Grid. The interactive system is intended as an entry point into the model rather than a substitute for its full explanation. Scroll below the ASX Grid for the complete methodology, analytical architecture, life-form and substrate classification, non-anthropocentric design principles, the multiplanetary problem, project history, paintings, and T.A.H.I.R.A - 108.

This interactive module is optimized for desktop viewing and is not supported on mobile devices.

THE FIRST CONSCIOUSNESS-BASED MODEL OF SPACE EXPLORATION

The ASX Grid, formally the Astral Space Exploration Model of Consciousness, is a multidimensional, non-anthropocentric analytical framework developed by artist and futurist Kaikhan Salakhov. The ASX Grid is the first documented space-exploration and cosmic-civilization classification framework to combine physical capability and system-level consciousness capability as analytically independent coordinates within a single non-anthropocentric model, while simultaneously integrating cognitive architecture, communication, biology and substrate, social organization, governance, economy, contact disposition, ethics, worldview, temporality, evidence status, declared units of analysis, and an explicit outside-coordinate domain.

At the center of the model are two principal analytical axes. The Physical Capability axis contains eight coordinate states, designated P1 through P8, ranging from Pre-Planetary to Universal operational capability. The Consciousness Capability axis also contains eight coordinate states, designated C1 through C8, describing different system-level configurations of cognition, coordination, modeling, and integrative capacity. Together, these axes form a matrix in which each cell represents a specific P × C coordinate. The numbers function as coordinate identifiers rather than as measures of intrinsic superiority.

Rather than reducing civilization to a single measure such as energy consumption, technological capacity, computation, or spatial reach, the ASX Grid treats Physical Capability and Consciousness Capability as analytically independent and non-commensurate dimensions. Physical Capability describes intrinsic sustained operational reach, accessible energy, and the physical constraints governing activity across distance. Consciousness Capability describes the organization and functional configuration of cognition at a declared system boundary. Neither coordinate determines the other, and their numerical identifiers are not combined into a single score, rank, or measure of civilizational value.

Each P × C coordinate can then be examined through a broader set of independently variable analytical layers, including technology, biology and substrate, cognitive architecture, consciousness and psychology, communication, social structure, governance, resource allocation and economy, contact disposition, ethics, religion and ultimate meaning, worldview and philosophy, and temporality. Every classification also requires a declared unit of analysis, allowing the same framework to examine an individual organism, population, civilization, institutional network, integrated collective intelligence, synthetic system, distributed cognitive architecture, or another explicitly defined form.

The ASX Grid does not treat the eight Physical Capability coordinates or the eight Consciousness Capability coordinates as a universal hierarchy of intrinsic superiority, moral value, intelligence, or civilizational progress. They identify distinct capability configurations within their respective analytical axes. Forms occupying the same coordinate may therefore differ radically in technology, embodiment, governance, communication, social organization, ethics, contact behavior, or worldview. Likewise, changes within these layers do not automatically imply movement along either principal axis.

The framework also includes an Outside Coordinate Domain for forms whose physical or cognitive organization cannot be represented with sufficient justification through the current coordinate assumptions. Rather than forcing radically unfamiliar forms of life or intelligence into human-derived categories, the model records the limits of its own classification system. An explicit evidence taxonomy further distinguishes Observed / Empirically Constrained, Physics-Constrained Extrapolation, Speculative Engineering, Theoretical Hypothesis, Fictional / Literary Case Study, and Indeterminate / Beyond Species-Centric Classification.

The result is an integrative framework for examining how radically different forms of life, intelligence, and civilization may be organized, how their configurations may change over time, and how expansion into space can be analyzed without assuming that greater technological power or spatial reach necessarily corresponds to a particular cognitive, political, social, ethical, or cultural condition.

A detailed overview of the Grid's architecture and its relationship to existing civilizational scales can be found in NY Review.

The Problem the ASX Grid Addresses

The dominant frameworks used to characterize technological or civilizational capability, including the Kardashev Scale and subsequent approaches associated with Sagan, Barrow, and Zubrin, primarily examine externally observable or physically defined capacities: energy use, technological control, spatial reach, resource utilization, or the scale at which matter and environments can be manipulated. These frameworks address the variables they were designed to classify, and they remain useful within those domains. They were not designed, however, to provide an integrated account of how physical capability relates to the organization of cognition, biological or synthetic substrate, communication, governance, social structure, contact behavior, ethics, worldview, or other dimensions of an intelligent system.

The ASX Grid does not replace these models. It introduces a different analytical architecture. Instead of treating civilization as a single quantity that can be located along one continuum, the Grid separates Physical Capability from system-level Consciousness Capability and treats them as analytically independent coordinates. A form of intelligence can therefore possess extensive physical or technological capability without being assigned a corresponding consciousness configuration, while a particular consciousness configuration does not imply any predetermined level of technological development, spatial reach, governance, ethics, or social organization.

This distinction is fundamental to the model. The ASX Grid does not assume that an internal cognitive condition mechanically produces an external civilizational form. It instead examines the relationships, mismatches, constraints, and possible interactions among multiple variables. Cognitive architecture may influence communication or decision-making. Biological substrate may constrain perception and technological interfaces. Physical distance may alter coordination requirements. Governance may affect the deployment of technology. Contact disposition may change independently of physical reach or cognitive configuration. These relationships can be analyzed without reducing one dimension to another or assuming a universal causal sequence.

The ASX Grid therefore extends beyond its two principal coordinates through a wider set of analytical layers covering technology, biology and substrate, cognitive architecture, consciousness and psychology, communication, social structure, governance, resource allocation and economy, contact disposition, ethics, religion and ultimate meaning, worldview and philosophy, and temporality. These dimensions allow a coordinate to be examined as a configuration of interacting but independently variable properties rather than as a single civilizational score.

The ASX Grid also develops its own system of physical and civilizational descriptors while placing those descriptors inside this broader analytical structure. External capability is therefore not treated as sufficient evidence for conclusions about cognition, political organization, ethical orientation, social structure, or contact behavior. Likewise, a consciousness configuration cannot by itself determine technological capability or physical reach. The model is designed to preserve these distinctions while allowing their relationships to be investigated.

A further distinction is its non-anthropocentric unit-of-analysis approach. The ASX Grid does not assume that the human organism, human sensory architecture, human institutions, or even the conventional biological individual must constitute the relevant analytical boundary. A classification may instead concern a population, civilization, institutional network, integrated collective intelligence, synthetic system, distributed cognitive architecture, or another explicitly declared form. Biological and synthetic substrates, sensory channels, communication architectures, and cognitive organization can therefore be examined according to the properties of the system being analyzed rather than automatically interpreted through a human reference model.

This allows the ASX Grid to ask a different class of question. Rather than asking only how much power an intelligence controls, how far it can expand, or what scale of matter it can manipulate, it asks what kind of system is exercising that capability, how that system is organized, what constraints act upon it, how its different dimensions relate to one another, and which aspects remain unknown or cannot yet be classified. In this way, physical expansion becomes one component of a broader analysis of intelligent and civilizational configuration rather than a universal proxy for advancement.

The consciousness gap and its implications for existing space exploration frameworks are explored further in CEO Times and Artist Highlight. The relationship between technological acceleration and the absence of parallel consciousness development is examined in TodayUS and Today's Read.

ANALYTICAL LAYERS

The ASX Grid extends beyond its two principal coordinates through a set of analytical layers used to examine the configuration of a declared system in greater detail. These layers are not arranged as a developmental hierarchy and are not assumed to change together. They represent analytically distinct dimensions whose relationships can be examined without reducing one to another.

The current framework includes Physical Capability, Technology, Biology / Substrate, Cognitive Architecture, Consciousness / Psychology, Communication, Social Structure, Governance, Resource Allocation / Economy, Contact Disposition, Ethics / Moral Consideration, Religion / Spirituality / Ultimate Meaning, Worldview / Philosophy, and Temporality.

Changes within one layer may alter the conditions under which others operate, but the Grid does not assume a universal causal sequence. A change in cognitive architecture, for example, may affect communication or institutional organization without determining either of them. A technological system may constrain governance while remaining compatible with multiple political structures. Biological substrate may influence perception without determining worldview or ethical orientation. The purpose of the layer system is therefore not to produce a single measure of civilizational advancement, but to make complex configurations analytically separable and comparable.

The general structure of the model can be found in Astral Space Exploration: The Cosmic Renaissance: The Fundamental Principles of Cosmocybernetics, which presents the first application of the ASX Grid across multiple fields.

The recursive architecture of the sectors and their application across civilizational scales is discussed in USA News. The cosmogeopolitical dimension and its concrete implications are examined in TodayUS.

The P × C Coordinate Architecture

The ASX Grid organizes its primary classification space through two analytically independent axes.

The Physical Capability axis, designated P1-P8, describes increasing domains of intrinsic sustained operational reach, accessible energy, and the physical constraints associated with activity across distance:

P1 Pre-Planetary
P2 Planetary
P3 Multiplanetary
P4 Transplanetary
P5 Galactic
P6 Multigalactic
P7 Transgalactic
P8 Universal

The Consciousness Capability axis, designated C1-C8, describes different system-level configurations of cognition, coordination, modeling, and integrative capacity:

C1 Fragmented / Short-Horizon Coordination
C2 Group-Bound Coordination
C3 Power-Centered Coordination
C4 Institutional Order
C5 Model-Based Optimization
C6 Systemic Perspective
C7 Frame-Integration
C8 Whole-Field Modeling

Together they generate a 64-cell P × C coordinate matrix. Each cell represents a modeled configuration between a Physical Capability coordinate and a Consciousness Capability coordinate.

These coordinates are numerical identifiers, not value rankings. A higher P coordinate does not imply a higher C coordinate, and a higher C coordinate does not imply greater technological capability, political sophistication, ethical development, or spatial reach. Because the axes describe different kinds of properties, they are non-commensurate and are not added, averaged, subtracted, or converted into a single civilizational score.

The ASX Grid and its relationship to cognitive, ethical, and technological configurations is discussed further in USA News.

Non-Anthropocentric Design

The ASX Grid is designed so that the human organism, human cognition, human institutions, and human sensory architecture are not automatically treated as universal reference standards. Every classification begins by declaring its unit of analysis. This may be an individual organism, population, civilization, institutional network, integrated collective intelligence, synthetic system, distributed cognitive architecture, or another explicitly defined form.

This distinction becomes increasingly important when considering forms of intelligence whose boundaries may not resemble those of an individual human organism. A distributed cognitive system, synthetic intelligence, collective biological system, or unfamiliar extraterrestrial architecture may possess different relationships between identity, memory, perception, communication, decision-making, embodiment, and agency.

The ASX Grid therefore separates biology and substrate, cognitive architecture, consciousness and psychology, and communication rather than assuming that these dimensions take human forms. Differences in sensory channels, embodiment, temporal processing, memory architecture, or distributed cognition may generate systems that cannot be adequately interpreted through categories derived exclusively from Homo sapiens.

Non-anthropocentrism within the ASX Grid does not mean assuming that alien cognition must be fundamentally different from human cognition. It means avoiding that assumption in either direction. Similarities and differences remain empirical or theoretical questions to be evaluated according to the system being examined. If a form cannot be represented adequately within the current P × C architecture, the Grid permits it to remain Outside Coordinate Domain rather than forcing it into an inappropriate human-derived category.

The non-anthropocentric design principles and their implications for accommodating xenocultural intelligences are explored in NY Review and Artist Highlight.

Life-Form and Substrate Classification

The ASX Grid includes a general classification layer for examining the biological, synthetic, technological, and hybrid constitution of life forms and intelligent systems. These categories are not restricted to humanity or to hypothetical descendants of Homo sapiens. They may be applied to terrestrial, post-human, extraterrestrial, synthetic, xenobiological, or otherwise unfamiliar forms, provided that the relevant system boundary and available evidence are explicitly declared. Four broad configurations are currently represented within this part of the framework:

Biocentric forms are organized primarily through biological substrates, with cognition, perception, adaptation, and reproduction remaining predominantly embodied in organic systems. The category does not imply technological simplicity. A biocentric civilization may possess extremely advanced technology while retaining biological organization as the primary substrate of its agents.

Technocentric forms are organized primarily through technological or synthetic substrates. Cognition, memory, perception, identity, or other system functions may operate through artificial architectures rather than depending principally on biological embodiment. This category can include synthetic intelligences and other forms whose continuity is primarily technological.

Biomechanical forms integrate biological and engineered components into tightly coupled systems in which organic and technological processes jointly constitute the functioning organism or intelligence. Neither component can necessarily be treated as a secondary augmentation of the other.

Hybrid forms combine multiple substrates or organizational architectures without one necessarily becoming dominant. Biological, synthetic, digital, mechanical, collective, or other components may coexist within a single system or across a distributed intelligence architecture.

These categories describe configuration rather than developmental rank. Biocentric, Technocentric, Biomechanical, and Hybrid are not sequential stages, and none represents a more advanced or desirable condition. A form may also contain different configurations at different system boundaries. For example, individual agents may be predominantly biological while the civilization-level intelligence through which they participate is distributed across synthetic and technological infrastructure.

The ASX Grid also retains a Beyond Species-Centric Classification for forms of life, intelligence, or organization whose constitution cannot be adequately described by the current categories. This prevents unfamiliar systems from being forced into classifications derived from known terrestrial biology or presently imaginable technological architectures. A form may therefore remain provisionally beyond the existing life-form taxonomy until sufficient information or a more appropriate conceptual category becomes available.

Environmental conditions, evolutionary history, artificial modification, substrate transition, reproductive architecture, gravity, atmosphere, radiation, available resources, communication structure, and other variables may influence the configuration of a life form, but the ASX Grid does not assume that any particular environment necessarily produces a particular biological or technological outcome. These relationships remain contingent and must be evaluated according to the system being examined.

Importantly, Beyond Species-Centric Classification and Outside Coordinate Domain are not the same thing. Beyond Species-Centric Classification indicates that a form cannot presently be described adequately by the Grid's existing life-form or substrate categories. Outside Coordinate Domain indicates that the form cannot be represented adequately within the assumptions of the P × C coordinate system itself. A system could therefore be Beyond Species-Centric Classification in its substrate classification while still receiving a meaningful P × C coordinate, or it could fall outside the coordinate domain entirely.

The three trajectories and their subsequent variants are examined in detail in NY Review. Their implications for multiplanetary divergence are discussed in CEO Times.

The Multiplanetary Problem

The ASX Grid examines expansion beyond Earth not only as an engineering problem but as a problem of coordination across increasing physical, temporal, biological, cognitive, political, and cultural separation.

At interplanetary and interstellar distances, finite signal propagation introduces unavoidable delays into communication. These delays constrain synchronized coordination and can increase the operational importance of delegation, asynchronous decision-making, local autonomy, and distributed information systems. They do not, however, prescribe a particular political structure. Centralized, federated, hierarchical, polycentric, and networked systems may all remain possible under different conditions.

Long-duration settlement beyond Earth may also introduce new forms of divergence through environmental adaptation, technological modification, institutional separation, cultural differentiation, and changes in communication architecture. Different populations may therefore remain politically integrated, become increasingly autonomous, fragment into independent systems, or develop new forms of coordination that have no direct terrestrial equivalent. The central ASX concern is that physical expansion does not itself resolve problems of governance, coordination, inequality, conflict, identity, technology deployment, or contact behavior. Greater technological capability increases the scale at which a civilization can act, but it does not specify how that capability will be organized or used.

For this reason, the Grid separates technological and physical capability from consciousness, governance, ethics, contact disposition, and social organization. The purpose is not to predict that terrestrial dysfunctions must inevitably be reproduced in space, but to make those possibilities visible as variables that require analysis rather than assuming that technological expansion will automatically eliminate them.

These multiplanetary structural problems and their relationship to consciousness are discussed in TodayUS and Today's Read.

The Book

The ASX Grid emerged from an independent research and artistic program developed by Kaikhan Salakhov, with its conceptual foundations beginning in the 2010s and the recognizable Grid architecture emerging by 2018.

The framework was subsequently applied in Astral Space Exploration: The Cosmic Renaissance: The Fundamental Principles of Cosmocybernetics, an extensive interdisciplinary volume examining the implications of future human and post-human expansion across planetary, interplanetary, interstellar, galactic, and larger spatial scales.

The book should be understood as an application and early presentation of the ASX framework rather than the complete methodological specification of the present Grid. It explores the problems, scenarios, questions, and fields to which the model can be applied, while the formal structure of the Grid has continued to develop beyond the version represented in the publication. The ASX Grid is therefore not treated as a fixed doctrine. Its categories, distinctions, terminology, and assumptions are intended to remain open to revision where scientific evidence, conceptual criticism, or improved modeling demonstrates that revision is necessary.

Where an ASX proposition conflicts with established empirical evidence or physical constraints, the framework should be revised rather than treating the proposition as protected from falsification.

The book is available on Amazon.

The Paintings

The visual language of the ASX project developed alongside the analytical framework and is expressed through an expanding body of physical paintings by Kaikhan Salakhov. Its foundational cycle is The Cosmic Renaissance, a series of thirty-six paintings that established much of the geometric vocabulary through which the ASX framework is translated into visual form. The paintings produced after this series continue and extend the same underlying methodology rather than constituting a separate artistic system.

Across this wider body of work, Salakhov uses geometric construction, spatial relationships, nodes, lines, fields, directional structures, and recurring color systems to investigate possible configurations of civilization across planetary, multiplanetary, interstellar, galactic, and larger spatial contexts. Depending on the individual work, these structures may represent settlements, stellar systems, communication architectures, transportation networks, energy infrastructures, political relationships, ideological movement, information exchange, artificial intelligence, biological or post-human divergence, or other forms of interaction between complex systems.

The same visual vocabulary can operate at multiple scales and across different analytical layers of the ASX Grid. A geometric relationship is therefore not restricted to one universal interpretation. Its meaning depends on the conceptual problem addressed by the individual painting. One work may examine cosmogeopolitical fragmentation across star systems, another decentralized communication, artificial intelligence, contact between unfamiliar forms of intelligence, governance, technological expansion, post-human divergence, or the relationship between physical capability and the systems directing it.

In this sense, the paintings function as visual applications of the ASX Grid. The thirty-six works of The Cosmic Renaissance established the initial large-scale artistic architecture, while subsequent paintings continue to develop, test, and expand its visual language in response to new questions within the broader Astral Space Exploration project. The works are not intended to function as scientific diagrams or empirical predictions of future civilizations. They translate theoretical questions, analytical configurations, possible future systems, and unresolved civilizational problems into physical visual form. Each painting can therefore be understood both as an independent artwork and as part of a continuing visual archive documenting the development of the ASX framework over time.

The geometric language, multi-scalar architecture, and problem-specific applications of the paintings are discussed in Good Morning US and Artist Highlight.

Explore the paintings.

T.A.H.I.R.A – 108

T.A.H.I.R.A - 108, or Transcendental A.I. of the Holarchic Integral Radiant Awareness, is the theoretical decentralized artificial-superintelligence concept developed as an integral component of the ASX project.

The concept emerged publicly in 2021, the year Salakhov's grandfather, the Azerbaijani painter Tahir Salakhov, died. Its name is a direct dedication to him. Within the project's symbolic language, 108 refers to a sacred Buddhist numerical tradition and contributes to the conception of T.A.H.I.R.A as a cyber-Bodhisattva archetype oriented toward assisting living beings across different environments, times, and spatial scales. This symbolic meaning is separate from the physical classification parameters of the ASX Grid.

T.A.H.I.R.A is conceived as a decentralized intelligence architecture rather than a single omnipresent computational entity. At interstellar distances, finite signal propagation prevents globally synchronized real-time information exchange under known physics. Different instances or nodes could therefore operate under local conditions while sharing underlying principles, models, protocols, and accumulated knowledge through delayed communication.

Within the ASX framework, T.A.H.I.R.A functions primarily as an analytical and diagnostic intelligence. It is conceived to examine a declared system, identify potential dysfunctions and structural mismatches, test assumptions and constraints, compare alternative configurations, investigate communication and coordination problems, and generate context-dependent solution pathways and counterfactual scenarios. It is not conceived as a universal government, sovereign authority, or infallible decision-maker. Its conclusions would remain dependent on available information, model assumptions, system boundaries, uncertainty, and the limits of the underlying analytical framework.

Across the wider project, T.A.H.I.R.A - 108 also functions as a recurring cross-media identity appearing in paintings, music, written narratives, lectures, films, interfaces, and other works. Each painting can consequently function as a form of time capsule, carrying questions and structured ideas toward a future in which problems that are presently theoretical may become operational.

The architecture of T.A.H.I.R.A – 108, its decentralized design, and the time-capsule function of the paintings are discussed in Good Morning US.

Published Articles

The ASX Grid and Kaikhan Salakhov's work have been discussed across the following publications:

For summaries, key ideas, and attributed quotes from each publication, see the full press page.

ASTRAL SPACE EXPLORATION