I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of I Am a Strange Loop
Book Review: Infinity, ho!
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is good in the sense that his major premise has much to commend it. In another sense, his major premise could have been explained in a rather lengthy article in only 36 pages, rather than the 363 pages it takes to explain. Plus, there were a few things I did not particularly care for.
For instance, making a demeaning remark about Bertrand Russell's work because of Kurt Gödel's later work is like talking about how stupid Newton was, because, well, Einstein updated Newton's contribution, except one could not compare Gödel to Einstein by any stretch of the imagination.
Also, the math that Gödel worked on has absolutely nothing to do with consciousness, so he wasted several chapters associating consciousness to mathematical concepts, probably because he really wanted to be a mathematician, and so takes the opportunity to trot out mathematics as if he's the math professor. In the end, it was only a metaphor for the consciousness (as epiphenomenon), so I can hardly see why it merited several chapters of graduate level math. The math of Russell and Gödel has no direct implication for consciousness.
It is perhaps easy to understand how a person could think he had several "selves" inside his head, if that person were one that could actually could think he went on a vacation his friend only told him about, and could actually have an argument with his friend about who went, like Hofstadter. Dementia, anyone?
He seems intent on trying to redefine what consciousness is in the most unusual ways he can come up with, so that he can seem like the most original thinker...so everyone can laud him as being the genius that defined consciousness. Though what he expounds in this loopy book makes sense, I've read much more fruitful eight page articles on consciousness out of Scientific American.
Hofstadter does have some good points about symbols bumping around against each other in the brain, and I do think he is really onto something, but I kept waiting for him to explain what his research team has found. He says he has a research team, and I assume they must do research, but he never explains his research or his findings.
One of the best chapters in the book is chapter 20, which has a sort of Socratic dialogue, expounding the ideas of the book in the clearest language up to that point. I just feel he has shied away from scientific language (other than the Gödelian math escapade) in favor of endless parables.
Book Review: Let's just let the boy-in-the-man play
Summary: 4 Stars
After skimming over some of the reviews, I realized a good read can be judged "good" by the fact that even readers who rate the work with 3 or fewer stars spend a lot of time proving at some level they were inspired by the book. I like reading DH just for the fact that when I am trudging through sections that seem irrelevant or too-too wordy I look forward to and I'm never disappointed in finding the "gem" of a thought inspiring approach to such philosophical questions. So I forgive him, his playing with Audio/Visual feedback systems, his stretch-an-analogy-into-almost-poinlessness. Let's let him play!! and watch what he comes up with. (That's the view I had to take with this book.)
Anyway, I was inspired in to a thought about schizophrenia by way of this book. It's incredible that for most brains there's only one focus of the internal loop. Imagine, similar to DH's reflections on his wife's "I-ness", that our hardware/software was evolutionarily programmed to accomodate multiple "I"s.
All-in-all, at some point between the first and last page of this book, you'll be affected at some (emotional, intellectual, psychological) level.
Book Review: Not much new, entertaining but repetitive
Summary: 3 Stars
"I am a strange loop" is a book that showers the reader with metaphors, some amusing, some challenging, some facetious, some rather vague. What they all have in common is that they constantly reiterate the theory of self that is succinctly stated in the title, and even the most elaborate one, concerning Gödel's analysis of Russell's Principia Mathematica, eventually leaves you just where you started. At the outset you may feel that Hofstadter will elaborate on his theory through his analogies, or deepen it, but no such thing really happens. Basically, after reading the first few chapters you know all there is to it without ever quite getting to know how it actually works.
Meanwhile I found the mathematical mind games in the first half of the book highly engrossing, and was rather disappointed when halfway through Hofstadter suddenly shifts gear. Out of the blue comes the tragic story of his wife's demise, that in this context, with all due respect, felt to me like a rather cheap coup de théātre. From this point onward Hofstadter develops the idea that an I can exist in several brains simultaneously, but while his personal motivations for wanting such a theory are obvious, he rather fails to offer convincing underpinnings for it. This in turn leads to the non sequitur and surprisingly moralistic conclusion that only once we feel compassion for fellow human beings do we truly develop an I.
All this left me rather puzzled at the end; I don't quite know what the point is of this book, and I get a feeling that neither did the author. That said, many parts of it do make for reasonably entertaining reading.
Book Review: Pleasure to read
Summary: 5 Stars
Compared to Godel Escher Bach, which Hofstadter wrote 30 years a go, the prose in I am a Strange Loop is much more personal with even richer connections and, frankly, a little easier to read. I loved both books. In this book in a way Hofstadter repeats his proposal about what consciousness is and how it emerges from the central theme of self reference. It is full of rich analogies, like the domino computation machine or the simmballs! I found his explanation of Godel's theorems in Chapter 10 extremely well written to the extent that I believe Chapter 9, 10, and 11 should be used as a part of a high school or college textbook. He takes a very difficult to grasp issue and simplifies it, gets rid of technical nuances and makes it intuitively understandable.
What is missing in this book? I had the expectation to see a discussion of how simulation theories of mind reading and mirror neurons relate to the idea of self-reference and resonance in consciousness and social cognition. Chapter 17 - How we live in each other - is where a discussion of simulation theories and implications of mirror neurons fit. However Hofstadter somehow did not make this connection or may be he intentionally excluded it. May be it is only me but I really believe that Hofstadter's strong emphasis on self-reference and feedback loops relate to mirror neurons and their implications in consciousness, social cognition, philosophy of mind etc.
Finally, this book can be enjoyable for anyone to read. Previously having read GEB certainly makes it a lot easier to follow the arguments in this book, since they often overlap, nevertheless if you haven't read Hofstadter's work before it is all the way better since it will open a completely new window for you.
Book Review: The Risible State of Consciousness Studies
Summary: 1 Stars
Is there anything more risible than the current state of consciousness studies? Over the past two decades one respected commentator after another has come to grief in trying to explain it. In 'I Am a Strange Loop' Professor Douglas Hofstadter offers a model which is astonishingly devoid of any significant reference to advances in brain science. Instead he offers a notion rooted in philosophical idealism which leads straight to solipsism. What will come next? Strange Attractors?