Friedman’ın “Second Big Bang” narrative argues that humanity has gained powers it never possessed before through artificial intelligence and other technologies, yet it still lacks the shared rules and institutions needed to govern those powers. The view of the human mind as a kind of software looks at this picture from the inside: Human beings do not arrive in the world as a blank slate. They come with a mind already shaped by genetic tendencies, fitrah (fundamental orientations such as the search for meaning, the capacity for attachment, and language learning), and influences from their environment. The real transformation takes place at the conscious level. Through questioning, effort, and new experiences, the existing framework of meaning and memory can be rewritten. Ibrahim’s story is the clearest example of this process. Raised in the idolatrous world of his father and his people, Ibrahim observed the celestial bodies and rejected them step by step, saying “This cannot be my Lord.” This is the reprogramming of the mind through the combination of powerful external inputs (revelation and lived events) and conscious internal questioning. Moses asking “why?” when faced with Khidr, and Joseph interpreting his experiences in the prison and the palace, follow the same logic. The prophets are the figures who most clearly show that a human being can be both a product of their environment and a partial programmer of their own mind. A person is not merely the outcome of genetics and surroundings; through patience, reflection, and effort, they can update their own software. Friedman’ın warning that “we have gained power but lack the rules” becomes clearer in this framework. Tools such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and cyberspace are new and extremely powerful external inputs entering the human mind. Which direction these inputs will take humanity depends largely on the capacity for conscious questioning and effort. Shared rules are needed; however, for those rules to work, individuals and societies must be able to question existing patterns—tribalism, polarization, and thoughts repeated as “our ancestors did it this way”—and, when necessary, overwrite them, just as Ibrahim did. Otherwise, when artificial intelligence enters every domain, only technical power increases, while old divisive and toxic thought patterns are reproduced more rapidly and more deeply. In short, the real risk of the Second Big Bang is not the powers themselves, but these powers encountering a human mind that lacks the capacity for conscious rethinking and updating. The human being is both product and partial programmer. The healthy interdependencies and shared norms that Friedman seeks become possible only if the will demonstrated by Ibrahim—who renewed his own world of meaning by saying “this cannot be”—is revived on a societal scale. Otherwise, instead of rising together, we will experience the accelerated version of old codes driven by more powerful tools. Not being ready is not merely a lack of institutions; it is the weakening of the habit of conscious questioning and effort. @DAcemogluMIT @yalinalpay @FareedZakaria @bfdellaloglu @ayayciog @jeandpardaillan