Hofstadter, D., 2007, I am a Strange Loop, Basic Books, Cambridge, Mass.
- Author : Hofstadter, D.
- Year : 2007
- Title English : I am a Strange Loop
- Publisher : Basic Books
- Publisher's Location : Cambridge, Mass.
- ISBN : 978-0-465-03078-1
- Pages : 412
- Edition : Hardcover
- Abstract : From the 'blurb' on the book cover: "What do we mean when we say "I"? Can thought arise out of matter? 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? I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop"--a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. Deep down, a human brain is a chaotic seething 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. " The "I" is the nexus in our brain where the levels feed back into each other and flip causality upside down, with symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse. For each human being, this "I" seems to be the realest thing in the world. But how can such a mysterious abstraction be real--or is our "I" merely a convenient fiction? Does an "I" exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the all-powerful laws of physics?"
- Comments : p.43. "This is what it means to say that although what happens on the lower level is responsible for what happens on the higher level, it is nonetheless irrelevant to the higher level. The higher level can blithely ignore the processes on the lower level..."