A Birth–Death Toy Model for a Measure of Consciousness

The ancient Ouroboros symbolism (one who eats oneself) is here integrated into a simple birth–death clustering process that needed nothing but itself for a transition from indistinguishable phases to a sort of higher-level “conscious” phases. Birth and death coefficients are formulated in terms of odd and even exponentials used to represent a suitable form for conscious states via the internal transfer of information. This toy model may ideally quantify conscious states having inner causes via an Ouroboros index 0 < [Formula: see text] < 1. The value [Formula: see text] = 0 lends to infinite loops and the limiting values [Formula: see text] →1 disclose transformation into awareness. Relationships with physics theories of consciousness and the use of the Ouroboros index to discern about conscious-like states in Artificial Intelligence systems are discussed. Consciousness and freedom of will may go side-by-side in the model when [Formula: see text] is extended to be a complex number modulus.