From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I Am a Strange Loop is a 2007 book by
Douglas
Hofstadter, examining in depth the concept of a strange loop
originally developed in his 1979 book Gödel,
Escher, Bach.
|
“ |
In the end, we
self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little
miracles of self-reference. |
” |
| |
— Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange
Loop p.363
|
Hofstadter had previously expressed disappointment with how
Gödel, Escher, Bach, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979
for general nonfiction, was received. In the preface to the
twentieth-anniversary edition, Hofstadter laments that his book has
been misperceived as a hodge-podge of neat things with no central
theme. He states: "GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is
that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter. What is a
self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a
stone or a puddle?"[1]
He sought to remedy this problem in I Am a Strange
Loop, by focusing on and expounding upon the central message
of Gödel, Escher, Bach. He seeks to demonstrate how the
properties of self-referential systems, demonstrated most
famously in Gödel's
Incompleteness Theorem, can be used to describe the unique
properties of minds.[2][3]
As an exploration of the concept of "self", Hofstadter explores
his own life, and those he has been close to.[4][5][6][7][8][9]
External
links
See also
References
- ^
Hofstadter,
Douglas R. (1999). Gödel, Escher, Bach. Basic
Books. pp. P–2 (Twentieth-anniversary preface). ISBN
0465026567.
- ^
The Year of Mathemagical
Thinking March 15, 2007
- ^
Hofstadter pages at
Megite/Discover
- ^
A New Journey into
Hofstadter's Mind - book review by George Johnson in Scientific
American, March 2007
- ^ "Me, My Soul, and I".
Wired. March 2007. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=3. Retrieved
2007-12-10.
- ^
Author Interview by Greg
Ross, American Scientist Online, March 22, 2007
- ^
The I's Have It - book
review by John Derbyshire, The Wall Street Journal, March
23, 2007
- ^ The Mind Reader New York
Times Magazine, April 1, 2007
- ^
Gardner, Martin (august 2007). "Do Loops Explain
Consciousness? Review of I Am a Strange Loop" (pdf).
Notices of the American Mathematical Society
54 (7): 853. http://www.ams.org/notices/200707/tx070700852p.pdf. Retrieved
2007-12-10.
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