Mind is its own cause

ouroboros loop

Following on from the previous article on the repeated failures to produce mind from machines (Artificial Intelligence or AI), Paul Kieniewicz at the Scientific and Medical Network  offers an additional explanation why AI is bound to fail.  It is because the mind is self-causing:  

'...Another curiosity about consciousness is that it is its own cause. Koch provides a metaphor to explain this. In Plato’s dialogue with the ‘stranger from Elea’, the argument is made that for something to exist, it must affect something else, or be affected by something else.

But consciousness is not like this (paranormal powers excepted). We feel sure it exists but it doesn’t appear to cause anything, nor can anyone else observe it. Unless it is its own cause — consciousness arises from and ends in consciousness, like an ouroboros loop.

According to Koch, the basic circuitry of computers and AI systems do not have this feature. This suggests that machines, unlike the human mind,  cannot create a whole picture and therefore can never be conscious. The conclusion is similar to Penrose’s in The Emperor’s New Mind, where he points out that the feature of self-reference of the mind poses an insurmountable problem for computer algorithms...'
 
This is very similar to the Kadampa Buddhist teaching that the main cause of mind is the previous moment of mind:  'A non-material phenomenon with the power to cognize objects cannot arise from insentient matter, nor can it arise from no cause; the only thing it can arise from is another non-material phenomenon with the power to cognize objects – i.e. a previous moment of mind.' from http://www.aboutreincarnation.org/consciousness.php/

See also

https://kadampalife.org/2014/11/23/are-you-a-traveler-where-are-you-bound-rebirth-part-1/