About this title: 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 ...
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Basic Books
Date Published: 04/2007
ISBN-13:9780465030781ISBN:0465030785
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 412 p. Contains: Illustrations. read more
Description: Good. 0465030793 Ships from PA, Return within 10 days for any reasons. Leaves warehouse within 2 Business days or less. The book is cocked or Twisted. read more
Description: Good. 0465030785 Fast Shipping. Book torn, creased, missing dust jacket or otherwise damaged. Customer Service is our #1 priority. read more
Description: Good. 0465030793 Fast Shipping. Book torn, creased, missing dust jacket or otherwise damaged. Customer Service is our #1 priority. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Basic Books
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780465030781ISBN:0465030785
Description: Good. Used item may show library stamps, stickers and marks. Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
"Very slow moving book compared to the Feynman memoir that I just read. I never quite finish GEB but had the impression that GEB was more fun to read due to its close association to the formal computer science I was deeply involved with at that time.
The body of the book, which I believe I am in now, is starting to show some promise though.
The following part of the review was written after I finished the book.
On hindsight, I think GEB was interesting because the idea of formal logic based on axioms is interesting for the mathematically inclined. On the other hand, explaining consciousness, while with potential to be interesting, is never going to leave the reader completely satisfied. Throwing in incompleteness theorem to substantiate the story frankly adds very little to the material. I know some statements are true and cannot be proven but so what.
Some time was spent on the meme concept without explicitly refering to it, which I thought was unfortunate. It is hard to imagine he had not seen the works of Dawkins and Blackmore(?).
The only saving grace is that there is some interesting thought experiments that stimulate some thinking, which if I am harsh, could really be expressed in a more succint way. The frequent use of analogy and character dialogues which works so well in GEB does not appear to sustain much of my interest."
"Still reading through this one, but a bit disappointed with it. I wasn't at first and read the first 1/2 every chance I could get. His take on consciousness and the nature of "I" is fascinating and sheds a lot of light on how we grapple with identity, motivation, relationships, history, self-reflection, etc.
But, in the end, Hofstadter's world is still full of mystery & wonder & life, but he has constructed an incredibly beautiful world where there is nothing in it but the physicality of the world and the amazing patterns & consciousnesses that ride on top of it.
To him, the self is an illusion (a view which I share but from a very different perspective) born out of the emergent & self-reflective properties of the brain. The "I" may arise out of the physicality of the brain, but it then pulls a paradoxical switcheroo and starts directing the physicality out of which it arose (downward-causality he calls it).
I was saddened reading the chapter about how his wife died and the intense personal reflections that arose from it, but in his world he has no space for a non-physical reality. His notions about how human personality "patterns" live on in the reflections and reverberations of others that "knew" them is a fascinating read but is ultimately without Spirit.
I can get into his world and see things from a different view. In fact, it shed a lot of personal insight on my own inner-workings and how the ego is formed and ultimately tries to rule the world.
I will dutifully finish the book and follow his line of reasoning to the end, but I feel like I've lost a friend I had discovered long ago in Gödel, Escher, Bach, one of the first books that woke me up to a deeper quest for understanding myself."
"The meat of this book, which uses an analogy with Godel's critique of the Principia Mathematica to explain how the concept of an "I" might be an emergent phenomenon of self referential loops in the brain, is interesting. I had a lot of issues with the structure of the argument, which was too dependent on the analogy. I think there are much better ways to make this point than by talking about math. Like, I don't know, maybe talking about BIOLOGY.
The last hundred pages or so of the book annoyed me so much that I did a lot of skimming. It is basically an argument against dualism through a celebration of how we can still have souls or greatness or whatever even though we are only made of particles. Hofstadter accepts materialism but isn't comfortable in its embrace, so he ends up sounding ridiculous."
"A good introduction to Hofstadter's ideas about consciousness, in a considerably shorter package than Godel, Escher, Bach.
Hofstadter is at his best in the first half of the book, when he's outlining his idea of the "strange loop" and discussing how it connects to his other ideas about the mind. His discussion of Godel and incompleteness is also excellent-- I'd read another book on the same subject, but Hofstadter did a much better job of getting the ideas across. After that, the book goes off on a little bit of a tangent about the degree to which one person's consciousness can spread (at lower levels of resolution and fidelity) to another person's mind. He really believes in the strong form of this idea, which implies that another person's consciousness can run in some degree on a different brain, with all that implies (a sense of interiority, etc.) It's a hard thing to swallow without scientific evidence, and you get the sense that the author might have been unduly influenced in his views by the tragic early death of his wife-- and is engaging in a little bit of wishful philosophizing about her soul's survival. The book returns to form in a rousing deconstruction and refutation of dualism, and concludes nicely with the author applying his ideas to the phenomenons of empathy and friendship.
All in all, definitely a nice place to start in your investigation of Philosophy of Mind."
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