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.
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.
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