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I Am A Strange Loop

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  • I Am A Strange Loop

    Douglas Hofstadter

    http://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loo.../dp/0465030785

    http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/bas...sbn=0465030785

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop

    It's a really, really dense book and it's slow reading but I picked it up and it's been very, very, VERY interesting. Hofstadter basically tries to find out what exactly constitutes the "I", or self. I know that the topic is very cliche, but Hofstadter's done alot of analysis and presents alot of incredibly fresh views and insightful ideas on how and what makes us, "us".

    I was wandering around a Barnes and Noble the day after I tripped, and so "loops" and "circles" were fresh on my mind which is why it caught my mind. Everyone had that "acid loop" thought process, if you've tripped - and, pleasantly enough, Hofstadter's conceptualizations are very, very in-line with the "acid loop".

    From what I've gathered so far, Hofstadter is showing how the "self" arised - as well as proposing that perhaps what is commonly referred to as the "self" or "soul" is not as static and universal as we thought - and that souls can actually differ in "size" or "soul"-ness. The examples he shows are higher-thinking animals like chimpanzees and orangutangs, as well as alot of rhetorical questions ("does a new-born infant have the same depth and breadth of soul as, say, Chopin?).

    He then goes to the "psychological" level of the brain to seek the "self". He argues that things on the "micro" level - ie neurons firing, cells bundling together - act in a complex and perhaps un-traceable way, and the aggregate of all these interactions creates the things we then see on the "psychological" level - ie feelings, ideas, et cetera. Above all he follows modern psychology in the proposition that we think in "symbols" that we create in our minds.

    From this, he shows the odd "loop" effect of one of the most central symbols - the symbol of "self". Before the "self", the symbols floating around in the brain follow relatively routine and logical, if not predictable, actions. For instance, chimpanzees have recently been observed fashioning weapons - not just using a rock to bash something, but actually carving and sharpening a wooden stick, to be used as a javelin.

    But the "I" symbol causes all sorts of weird feedback which might give rise to our individuality. The "I" symbol is, in effect, a loop - through which all of our other "symbols" are filtered. When they feed into the loop, causality itself is turned upside down, and the symbols seem to gain free will. Up until this point, symbols have been merely a reaction to particles moving around in different ways - which is why even though a dog might recognize you (ie, have a symbol representing you, etc etc), it still acts more or less along routine ways (ie being happy, jumping around, etc). But the human "I" symbol has, psychologically, developed to such a complexity that symbols eventually wind up controlling the movement of particles - just look around you, and see just how our minds have changed the world from its original state.

    He also goes in depth about what exactly the "I" symbol is. Though we all recognize "I" as perhaps the most "real" thing we can imagine, does "I" even exist at all - or is the "I" symbol merely a collection of an infinite amount of other symbols?

    All in all, very entertaining reading, if nothing else. I recommend it.
    NOSTALGIA IN THE WORST FASHION

    internet de la jerome

    because the internet | hazardous

  • #2
    "See, I think drugs have done some *good* things for us, I really do. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a Favor: go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your cd’s and burn em’. 'Cause you know what? The musicians who’ve made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years...
    Rrrrrrrrrrrrreal ------ high on drugs."
    --Bill Hicks


    "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather."

    "It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom, it´s what it is ok?. Keep that in mind at all times. Thank you!"
    -- Bill Hicks


    Dreaming of that face again.
    It's bright and blue and shimmering.
    Grinning wide
    And comforting me with it's three warm and wild eyes.

    On my back and tumbling
    Down that hole and back again
    Rising up
    And wiping the webs and the dew from my withered eye.

    In... Out... In... Out... In... Out...

    A child's rhyme stuck in my head.
    It said that life is but a dream.
    I've spent so many years in question
    to find I've known this all along.

    "So good to see you.
    I've missed you so much.
    So glad it's over.
    I've missed you so much
    Came out to watch you play.
    Why are you running away?
    Came out to watch you play.
    Why are you running away?"

    Shroud-ing all the ground around me
    Is this holy crow above me.
    Black as holes within a memory
    And blue as our new second sun.
    I stick my hand into his shadow
    To pull the pieces from the sand.
    Which I attempt to reassemble
    To see just who I might have been.
    I do not recognize the vessel,
    But the eyes seem so familiar.
    Like phosphorescent desert buttons
    Singing one familiar song...

    "So good to see you.
    I've missed you so much.
    So glad it's over.
    I've missed you so much.
    Came out to watch you play.
    Why are you running away?
    Came out to watch you play.
    Why are you running away?"

    Prying open my third eye.
    Prying open my third eye.
    Prying open my third eye.
    Prying open my third eye.

    So good to see you once again.
    I thought that you were hiding.
    And you thought that I had run away.
    Chasing the tail of dogma.
    I opened my eye and there we were.

    So good to see you once again
    I thought that you were hiding from me.
    And you thought that I had run away.
    Chasing a trail of smoke and reason.

    Prying open my third eye.
    sigpic
    All good things must come to an end.

    Comment


    • #3
      trippy shit, i just might after I'm done with Toll the Hounds, Return of the Crimson Guard, and A Dance with Dragons
      7:Knockers> how'd you do it Paul?
      7:Knockers> sex? money? power?
      7:PaulOakenfold> *puts on sunglasses* *flies away*

      1:vys> I EVEN TOLD MY MUM I WON A PIZZA

      7:Knockers> the suns not yellow, its chicken
      7:Salu> that's drug addict talk if i ever saw it

      1:chuckle> im tired of seeing people get killed and other people just watching simply saying "MURDER. RACISM. BAD"
      1:chuckle> ive watched the video twice now

      Comment

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