Douglas R. Hofstadter

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Douglas R. Hofstadter

• 1980 NBA–Science winner
• 1980 Pulitzer–Nonfiction winner
• Score: 20.3

Linking together the music of Bach, the graphic art of Escher and the mathematical theorems of Godel, as well as ideas drawn from logic, biology, psyhcology, physics and linguistics, Hofstadter illumnintaes one of the greatest mysteries of modern science: the nature of the human thought process.

I Am a Strange Loop

Douglas R. Hofstadter

• 2007 LATimes–Sci/Tech winner
• Score: 10.57

Douglas R. Hofstadter’s long-awaited return to the themes of Gödel, Escher, Bach—an original and controversial view of the nature of consciousness and identity

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,…