I Am a Strange Loop
by Douglas R. Hofstadter
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Hofstadter's long-awaited return to the themes of Gödel, Escher, Bach--an original and controversial view of the nature of consciousness and identity. What do we mean when we say "I"? Can a self, a soul, a consciousness, an "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? This book argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. Deep down, a human brain is a chaotic soup of particles, on a higher level it is a jungle of neurons, and on a yet higher level it is a network of abstractions that we call "symbols." The most central and complex symbol in your brain or mine is the one we both call "I." But how can such a mysterious abstraction be real--or is our "I" merely a convenient fiction?--From publisher description.
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I Am a Strange Loop
Sep 25, 2018, Hachette Book Group and Blackstone Audio
audio cd
1549172654 9781549172656
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I Am a Strange Loop
2007, Basic Books, BasicBooks, Perseus Running [distributor]
in English
0465030785 9780465030781
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Book Details
Published in
New York
Table of Contents
| Preface: an author and his book | ||
| An affable locking of horns | ||
| On souls and their sizes | ||
| This teetering bulb of dread and dream | ||
| The causal potency of patterns | ||
| Loops, goals, and loopholes | ||
| On video feedback | ||
| Of selves and symbols | ||
| The epi phenomenon | ||
| Embarking on a strange-loop safari | ||
| Pattern and provability | ||
| Gödel's quintessential strange loop | ||
| How analogy makes meaning | ||
| On downward causality | ||
| The elusive apple of my "I" | ||
| Strangeness in the "I" of the beholder | ||
| Entwinement | ||
| Grappling with the deepest mystery | ||
| How we live in each other | ||
| The blurry glow of human identity | ||
| Consciousness = thinking | ||
| A courteous crossing of words | ||
| A brief brush with Cartesian egos | ||
| A tango with zombies and dualism | ||
| Killing a couple of sacred cows | ||
| On magnanimity and friendship | ||
| Epilogue: the quandary. |
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. [377]-382) and index.
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