Overview

Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, soul, consciousness, 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. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called I. The I is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse. How can 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 laws of physics? These are the mysteries tackled in I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter's first book-length journey into philosophy since Godel, Escher, Bach. Compulsively readable and endlessly thought-provoking, this is a moving and profound inquiry into the nature of mind.

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9781549172625

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The book is all Hofstadter-part theory, some of it difficult; part affecting memoir; part inventive thought experiment-presented for the most part with an incorrigible playfulness. And whatever readers' reaction to the underlying arguments for this unique view of consciousness, they will find the model provocative and heroically humane. -- Publishers Weekly

Author Information

Douglas Hofstadter is a distinguished professor of cognitive science and comparative literature at Indiana University. His previous books include Godel, Escher, Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, and Bach, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1980. Greg Baglia is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.

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