I am a Strange Loop

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I am a Strange Loop
I
by Douglas Hofstadter
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My I

• Q. What does my I call itself?
• A. Jim DeLeo
• Q. What does my I think it is professionally?
• A. Computer scientist in biomedical research and
• health care delivery
• Q. Where does my I work?
• A. NIH Clinical Center
• Q. Why does my I find this book interesting?
• A. Its about the mind and brain and ties in with
• my Is interest in artificial intelligence
• as well as my Is general interest in what
• it means to be human.

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1979 2007
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1979 2007
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O.K. Alice and all you nice BCIG people out
there. Its time to go down into my hole.
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The Books Basic Question

• Can a self, a soul, a
• consciousness an I arise out of
• mere matter?
• If yes then how does that happen?
• If no then how can we be here?

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• I Am a Strange Loop (from Wikipedia)
• Preceded by Gödel, Escher, Bach, I Am a
  Strange Loop is a 2007 book by Douglas
  Hofstadter, examining in depth the concept of a
  strange loop originally developed in his 1979
  book Gödel, Escher, Bach. In the preface to the
  twentieth-anniversary edition of GEB, Hofstadter
  laments that his book has been misperceived as a
  hodge-podge of neat things with no central theme.
  He states "GEB is a very personal attempt to say
  how it is that animate beings can come out of
  inanimate matter. What is a self, and how can a
  self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a
  stone or a puddle? He sought to remedy this
  problem in I Am a Strange Loop, by focusing on
  and expounding upon the central message of
  Gödel, Escher, Bach. He seeks to demonstrate
  how the properties of self-referential systems,
  demonstrated most famously in Gödel's
  Incompleteness Theorem, can be used to describe
  the unique properties of minds. As an
  exploration of the concept of "self", Hofstadter
  explores his own life, and those he has been
  close to.

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Hofstadters Conclusion

• In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing,
  locked-in mirages are little miracles of
  self-reference.

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Hofstadters Conclusion

• This I is an illusion, a slight of mind, a
  trick that the brain plays on itself, a
  hallucination hallucinated by a hallucination.
  We all are unconscious but we all believe we are
  conscious and we all act conscious.

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My Reaction
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My Reaction

• WHAT ???

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This cluster of signs, symptoms and findings are
typically found in highly intelligent
individuals. The cure is simple reduce the
consumption of Froot Loops.
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Ive never seen a case like this before. He is a
unique archetype of his own self.
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For once I agree with Sigmund too many Froot
Loops.
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Hey, Dougie, its me Arnold. You need to get
some animal protein in you and pump some iron.
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Hi. Im William James, a pioneering American
psychologist and philosopher. Im here to tell
you that any new theory is first attacked as
absurd, then it is admitted to be true, but
obvious and insignificant, then finally it is
seen to be so important that its adversaries
claim that they themselves discovered it.
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In your case Dougie, your ideas are absurd,
insignificant, and unworthy of adversaries.
However I will say they are cute and amusing in a
child-like way. Give up the Froot Loops and eat
some meat.
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• This book demonstrates an
• extreme misuse
• of thinking.
• Jim DeLeo

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PrefaceThe Author and His Book Jim DeLeo

• I agree with Douglas Hofstadter.
• He is a strange loop!

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PrefaceThe Author and His Book Jim DeLeo

• I agree with Douglas Hofstadter.
• He is a strange loop!

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Author's view of himself.
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My view of the author.
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PrefaceThe Author and His Book Jim DeLeo

• From an early age he pondered what minds were.
• His younger sister Molly could not understand
  language and she could not speak.
• This forced him to think about the physical
  manifestation of consciousness and being and
  having an I.
• He discovered Kurt Godel and became obsessed with
  computing and symbolic logic at that time.
• He believes that consciousness is a very
  perculur kind of mirage.

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• He wrote a dialogue between Plato and Socrates to
  express what he was thinking.
• He linked Godels miraculous manufacture of
  self-reference out of a substrate of meaningless
  symbols and the miraculous appearance of selves
  and souls in substrates consisting of inanimate
  matter.
• He sensed the secret of I was to be found by
  exploring this connection.
• People liked GEB for the wrong reasons.
• People just didnt get it.

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• Strange Loop is about the concept I.
• It explores what an I is.
• It is written for a general educated public.
• He specializes in thinking about thinking.
• Clarity, simplicity, and concreteness have
  coalesced into what he calls his religion.
• He hopes to reach philosophers.
• He says this book is a gigantic salad bowl full
  of metaphors and analogies.
• Hofstadterism Every thought is an analogy.

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• La Condition Humaine
• a novel by Andres Malrauxs
• The most noticeable theme is the existential
  one of choosing one's own meaning. This was
  exemplified by Kyo, and its alternative was shown
  in the fatality of Ch'en. Katov for example
  chooses to give his cyanide pill to two other
  prisoners and thus accepts being burned alive
  himself, having saved those two men from
  suffering. Another point presented in the book
  addresses how people interact with one another.
  Ferral and Old Gisors both believe they can
  understand and possess in a person only what they
  change. Ferral is shown this through his
  relationship with Valerie, and Old Gisors through
  his with Ch'en.

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La Condition Humaine - a painting by René
Magritte 1933 Oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm.
The National Gallery of Art Washington, DC,
USA.
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La Condition Humaine - a painting by René
Magritte 1933 Oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm.
The National Gallery of Art Washington, DC,
USA.
We experience whats out there through mind
filters
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La Condition Humaine - a painting by René
Magritte 1933 Oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm.
The National Gallery of Art Washington, DC,
USA.
We experience whats out there through mind
filters
and not directly.
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La Condition Humaine - a painting by René
Magritte 1933 Oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm.
The National Gallery of Art Washington, DC,
USA.
We experience whats out there through mind
filters
and not directly.
easel/ canvas analogous to
brain/mind/consciousness
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• You can understand and possess in a person only
  what you can change.

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Look into my eyes. In order for me to understand
and posses you I must have you eat Froot Loops
too!
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Warning! Dougie Boy is unabashadly
seeking converts to his new religion!
I cant sleep. Strange loops will eat me.
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• He hopes we gain new insights regarding what
  being human and just being are all about.
• He says it would please him to no end if we
  discover that we too are strange loops like him.

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• He hopes we gain new insights regarding what
  being human and just being are all about.
• He says it would please him to no end if we
  discover that we too are strange loops like him.

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Prologue An Affable Locking of Horns Jim DeLeo

• As a teenager DH wrote a dialogue between Plato
  and Socrates.
• Plato Consciousness is an Illusion.
• Socrates Consciousness is real.
• Socrates convinces Plato that he does not know
  what he is talking about even when he (Plato)
  says he (Plato) is alive.

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Founders of Western Philosophy
Socrates Plato Aristotle
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You are charged with corrupting the youth and
disbelieving in the ancestral gods. Have a cup of
hemlock.
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• What is meant by life?
• Living creatures have souls and bodies.
• Only animals have souls.
• Only higher animals that can think have souls.
• Only higher animals that can think have true
  life.
• Soulless creatures only appear alive.
• What is true life depends on understanding of
  soul.
• Soul is the ability to think.
• What is thinking?
• Plato is uneasy.
• Socrates points out It is curious how often one
  mistakes ones opinions if they are stated by
  someone else.
• It is hard to explain thinking.

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• What is meant by life?
• Living creatures have souls and bodies.
• Only animals have souls.
• Only higher animals that can think have souls.
• Only higher animals that can think have true
  life.
• Soulless creatures only appear alive.
• What is true life depends on understanding of
  soul.
• Soul is the ability to think.
• What is thinking?
• Plato is uneasy.
• Socrates points out It is curious how often one
  mistakes ones opinions if they are stated by
  someone else.
• It is hard to explain thinking.

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• Pure thought is known.
• Knowing is conviction.
• Knowing is not so familiar as we think it is.
• Are you alive? Yes.
• How do you know?
• I feel and I know I am alive. Isnt that being
  alive?
• A machine can be built to act like you here.
• You dont know what knowing is.
• The utterance I know I am alive is just a
  reflexive brain. response and not a product of
  conscious thought.
• Habit guides thought.
• I dont see how I can know I am conscious and
  alive.

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Platos Conclusion

• Then feeling one is alive is merely an
• illusion propagated by a reflex that urges
• one to utter, without understanding such
• a sentence, and a truly living creature
• is reduced to a collection of complex
• reflexes. Then you have told me
• Socrates what you think life is.

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Prologue An Affable Locking of Horns Jim DeLeo

• As a teenager DH wrote a dialogue between Plato
  and Socrates.
• Plato Consciousness is an Illusion.
• Socrates Consciousness is real.
• Socrates convinces Plato that he does not know
  what he is talking about when he says he (Plato)
  is alive.

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• The idea that the human brain is a physical
  structure obeying physical laws threw him into a
  loop.
• Is consciousness an outcome of physical laws?
• Either answer leads to disturbing unacceptable
  consequences.
• Dualism posits consciousness an divisible,
  immeasurable, undetectable aspect of the universe
  possessed by certain entities.
• Dualism gives rise to notions of self and
  others.

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• His wife, Carol died recently.
• He played Serge Prokofievs 1st violin concerto
  at her funeral.
• Carol adored this music.
• It provoked ascending soul imagery.
• He can fall for such imagery yet in rational
  moments it makes no sense
• Dualism leads to a long list of unanswerable
  questions (Chapter 22)
• The belief that consciousness obeys physical laws
  is simpler and appeals to scientific minds.

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My Is Commentary

• There is a subtle implied distinction here
  between
• thought as a reflex and thought as a
  conscious act.
• This is suggested in zen as emotional mind
• intelligence (reactive) and enlightened
  intelligence
• (conscious, awake, fresh, new, sontaneous,
  creative
• thought).
• Enlightened intelligence arises out of nowhere,
  passes
• through immobilized (still, meditative, calm)
  mind and
• is expressed through emotional mind in order to
  be
• communicated. What is communicated is not
  reality
• but rather conceptual pointers to underlying non-
• conceptual, nonverbal underlying reality.

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Dont even think about what my I just said.
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I think I thought too much.