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: Utterly superfluous
Summary: 2 Stars
Thirty years ago I was blown away by the cleverness of GEB. Twenty-nine years ago I started pondering, "ok, but what's his point" and I had a hard time pinpointing that. Now, 30 years after GEB I pick up Strange Loop and wonder what Hofstadter has learned in the meantime, and I'm disappointed to say that I can't find anything new in this book.
Again, here we have a very smart man thinking aloud, and clearly having thought about matters of "self" and entangledness much longer than the rest of us. And what does it get him?
I read the first couple of chapters, started skipping sections when I was a quarter of the way through this book, and by the halfway point I was just leafing through it, when I got to this. On page 188 there is the crucial question "But Am I Real", and in answer he can not do better than "I think we need some good old-fashioned analogies here to help out". I think this is a cop-out.
Neurology is increasingly showing us that our sense of self is not at all what we think (pretend? hope?) it is. We think our perception of the world is continuous, but it's not: we take pictures and extrapolate between them. Hofstadter is still of the old school, with a sense of the "self" that is almost 19th century. And not only is he stuck where he was 30 years ago, experimental psychology and neurology is about to pass him by, making his observations irrelevant.
His approach to all things meta might be vindicated if he had been able to formalize it somehow, for instance in an AI program that somehow is convincingly "like us". No achievements of this kind are in the book either.
I was really hoping to find some new insights in this book, and I've been disappointed.
Book Review: chatty and personal, rather disappointing
Summary: 3 Stars
Once again, Hofstadter brings his unusual and very personal style to a serious subject. As with the title, "I" is a major player here, with stories, ruminations and specifics on what he thinks as a conscious human and a researcher. In many cases, I felt like we were almost in a dialog together.
The book is too long and repetitious, with its essence only a few key points. There is a complex thread on KG, incompleteness, Russell and how all that applies to looks and being inside and outside the system. It's a tough subject and the author makes a solid shot.
The other main topic is the degree of consciousness from humans to insects, with the lowly mosquito making many appearances. Hofstadter believes that consciousness gradually appears as you go up the chain, with no concrete dividing line. Fair enough.
Given that premise, he doesn't get into how that applies to different abilities and perceptions within humans, either as fully grown adults or as developing humans in the womb. A serious assessment of when humans become conscious and how consciousness evolves as we age (to be fair, he does use Ronald Reagan as a proxy for late-state decline) would have been welcome. Perhaps his highly-visible liberal views would have made that too dangerous, with a simple example being his brief mention of "The Bell Curve" that could have been more seriously assessed.
The riff on consciousness at a distance and replication was one of the highlights. A segue into science fiction concepts could have been a treat in his hands, such as Star Trek's "Borg" and so many other ideas of collective intelligence. How much technology could I insert into the brain and still be a conscious human, especially one who is still "me"?
Finally, computer science and artificial intelligence, one of Hofstadter's own fields, has quite the history of debate on what is intelligence. He is quite clear that many systems are far from conscious, such as chess players and feedback systems, without pushing the envelope for future possibilities. Do some pushing.
The book has its moments, and what a fertile mind he has. On this subject, I prefer Steven Pinker and more traditional writers.
Book Review: should have cashed out while he was ahead
Summary: 1 Stars
If this were written by any other author it would be dismissed as more inane crank-speak. Unfortunately, it was written by the author of a prior, stunning work (GEB) - which somehow earns it immunity against ridicule.
Let me summarize:
1. Take the cutesy, at times tedious, analogies and dialogues from GEB.
2. Construct new analogies by combining last night's dream with a childrens' cartoon, and crank the folksy up to 11.
3. Replace all of the informative / insightful components from GEB (who needs them anyway?) with the results of 2.
4. Publish.
Everyone has pet theories about consciousness. Most of us have the decency not to publish books about it.