CeJ <[email protected]> wrote: > The pure concentrated thesis that he never got around to stating very > clearly in GEB is: we are conscious because we are strange loops.
CB: OK Yeah. Self-reference seems to be the culprit in generating insoluable paradoxes in mathematics. The set of all sets that don't contain _themselves_ (Russell). The liar's paradox entails referring to one_self_ as a liar (Goedel) The self _is_ riddles Or any reference to self leads to riddles,or strange loops. Although I'm not sure how there is self-reference in Bach's strange loops or Escher's. That would be interesting to look for that. I think I will. > > As an aside here, maybe my take on human consciousness has no value > whatsoever, but my perspective is one that most people can not get: > I'm an identical twin. And I always used to think that, even if I'm an > exact genetic copy, we are not physically identical, not really. But > what separated me from my brother is simply that I can not experience > his being, his body, his life (unless ESP were possible, and nothing I > ever thought or did made me think it was). That doesn't mean I thought > that he and I have different souls. Rather, I always thought that even > the simplest physical differences in the two copies helped bring this > about. But later I thought --and still do--that even if the genes were > the same and even if we were completely the same physically, we still > couldn't experience each other's lives. Even if we were side by side, > we weren't occupying the same space. ^^^^^^^ CB: This sounds like a Merleau-Ponty type of observation. ^^^^^^^ > > But maybe this is attempting to contemplate an impossiblity. In the > real world, we will always be different realizations, and different > lived experiences, and different memories of those lived experiences > adding to those lived experiences so long as life goes on. Oh, and > even if DH is a significant thinker about such matters, I never did > find his writing very interesting to read. Perhaps GEB really needed > an editor that understood the author more? Or perhaps I ought to delve > into his later stuff, now that he no longer sells hundreds of > thousands of unread copies and he has stuck with 'cognitive science'. CB: I happened to have had a personal intellectual history of studying paradoxes, going back to when I heard of Russell's paradox as a college freshman. This was before I studied dialectics , wherein paradoxical contradiction is central. So, I was interested in the focus on strange loops. By and large, I don't read for the writing style of the writer. I'm not much of a reacreational reader of books. > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter > > Hofstadter's thesis about consciousness, first expressed in GEB but > also present in several of his later books, is that it is an emergent > consequence of seething lower-level activity in the brain. In GEB he > draws an analogy between the social organization of a colony of ants > and the mind seen as a coherent "colony" of neurons. In particular, > Hofstadter claims that our sense of having (or being) an "I" comes > from the abstract pattern he terms a "strange loop", which is an > abstract cousin of such concrete phenomena as audio and video > feedback, and which Hofstadter has defined as "a level-crossing > feedback loop". The prototypical example of this abstract notion is > the self-referential structure at the core of Gödel's incompleteness > theorems. Hofstadter's 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop carries his > vision of consciousness considerably further, including the idea that > each human "I" is distributed over numerous brains, rather than being > limited to precisely one brain.[20] > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop > > I Am a Strange Loop > From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia > Jump to: navigation, search > I Am A Strange Loop > Strageloop.jpg > Author Douglas Hofstadter > Country USA > Language English > Subject(s) Consciousness, strange loops, intelligence > Publisher Basic Books > Publication date March 26th, 2007 > Media type Hardback > Pages 412 pages > ISBN 978-0465030781 > OCLC Number 64554976 > LC Classification BD438.5 .H64 2007 > 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 end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages > are little miracles of self-reference. ” > > — Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop p.363 > > Hofstadter had previously expressed disappointment with how Gödel, > Escher, Bach, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for general > nonfiction, was received. In the preface to the twentieth-anniversary > edition, 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?"[1] > > 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.[2][3] > > As an exploration of the concept of "self", Hofstadter explores his > own life, and those he has been close to.[4 > > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=3 > > WIRED: How is your new book different from Gödel, which touched on > physics, genetics, mathematics, and computer science? > > HOFSTADTER: This time I’m only trying to figure out “What am I?” > > Well, given the book’s title, you seem to have found out. But what is > a strange loop? > > One good prototype is the Escher drawing of two hands sketching each > other. A more abstract one is the sentence I am lying. Such loops are, > I think anyone would agree, strange. They seem paradoxical and even > strike some people as dangerous. I argue that such a strange loop, > paradoxical or not, is at the core of each human being. It is an > abstract pattern that gives each of us an “I,” or, if you don’t mind > the term, a soul. > > Does this insight increase your understanding of yourself? > > Of course. I believe that a soul is an abstract pattern, and we can > therefore internalize in our brain the souls of other people. > > You have a great line: “I am a mirage that perceives itself.” If our > fundamental sense of what is real — our own existence — is merely a > self-reinforcing mirage, does that call into question the reality of > the universe itself? > > I don’t think so. Even though subatomic particles engage in a deeply > recursive process called renormalization, they don’t contain a > self-model, and everything I talk about in this book — consciousness — > derives from a self-model. > > Strange Loop describes the soul as a self-model that is very weak in > insects and stronger in mammals. What happens when machines have very > large souls? > > It’s a continuum, and a strange loop can arise in any substrate. > > Thinking about different sizes of souls led you to vegetarianism. > Would you hesitate to turn off the small soul of Stanley, the > autonomous robot that found its way across the desert during the Darpa > Grand Challenge? > > Why not? Stanley doesn’t have a model of itself of any significance, > let alone a persistent self-image built up over time. Unlike you and > I, Stanley is no strange loop. > > What if Stanley had as much self-awareness as a chicken? > > Then I wouldn’t eat it, just as I wouldn’t eat a chicken. > > In Loop, you shy away from speculating about the souls or the > intelligence of computers, yet you’ve been working in AI for 30 years. > > I avoid speculating about futuristic sci-fi AI scenarios, because I > don’t think they respect the complexity of what we are thanks to > evolution. > > But isn’t your research all about trying to bring about such scenarios? > > Thirty years ago, I didn’t distinguish between modeling the human mind > and making smarter machines. After I realized this crucial difference, > I focused exclusively on using computer models to try to understand > the human mind. I no longer think of myself as an AI researcher but as > a cognitive scientist. > > One of the attractions of your writing is the wordplay, a fascination > with the kind of recursions that appeal to programmers and nerds. > > It is ironic because my whole life I have felt uncomfortable with the > nerd culture that centers on computers. I always hope my writings will > resonate with people who love literature, art, and music. But instead, > a large fraction of my audience seems to be those who are fascinated > by technology and who assume that I am, too. > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > [email protected] > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
