I am a strange loop


	I am a strange loop

wildcat

7-5-2007 6:47 AM

823 views

tags:

science, mind, book review, hofstatdter, brain, illusion, self, neurology

wildcat says:

a worthwhile read

2 Comments |

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7-5-2007 1:11 PM

Kore7

The hardcover edition is on my bed stand right now, wildcat! Hofstadter is one of my favorite writers, ever.

7-5-2007 3:00 PM

wildcat

K7 am reading it as we speak...

would love to hear your thoughts about it..

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Among this library of simulations there is naturally one of yourself, and that is where the strangeness begins. 
"You make decisions, take actions, affect the world, receive feedback from the world, incorporate it into yourself, then the updated 'you' makes more decisions, and so forth, round and round," Hofstadter writes. What blossoms from the Gödelian vortex--this symbol system with the power to represent itself--is the "anatomically invisible, terribly murky thing called I." A self, or, to use the name he favors, a soul.
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And that is what leads to the grand illusion. "In the soft, ethereal, neurology-free world of <I>these</I> players," the author writes, "the typical human brain perceives its very own 'I' as a pusher and a mover, never entertaining for a moment the idea that its star player might merely be a useful shorthand standing for a myriad infinitesimal entities and the invisible chemical transactions taking place among them."
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