[Platt] I see in this morning's news that Douglas Hofstadter, author of "Godel, Escher, Bach" has a new book out whose title is the same as the subject of this post.
[Ian] "The thing that represents itself" ... the stange loop that is I ... the answer to the question posed. [Arlo] My "connection" between Hofstadter and Pirsig derived from their view that "analysis", when turned on itself, seems to destroy the very foundation of itself. Specifically, in Pirsig, when you subject "scientific methodology" TO "scientific methodology", or "dialectic method" TO "dialectic method", when you hypothesize ABOUT hypotheses, there is a breakdown, an unavoidable incompleteness to where you can go. "Phædrus’ break occurred when, as a result of laboratory experience, he became interested in hypotheses as entities in themselves. ... He coined a law intended to have the humor of a Parkinson’s law that "The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite." ... If true, that law is not a minor flaw in scientific reasoning. The law is completely nihilistic. It is a catastrophic logical disproof of the general validity of all scientific method!" (ZMM) "Once it’s stated that "the dialectic comes before anything else," this statement itself becomes a dialectical entity, subject to dialectical question. ... Here is this dialectic, like Newton’s law of gravity, just sitting by itself in the middle of nowhere, giving birth to the universe, hey? It’s asinine." (ZMM) Hofstadter examines this from the standpoint of self-referentiality in mathematics, and is able to extend this to language (as it is a symbol system) in general. That is, symbol systems are great for pointing outside themselves, but when you introduce self-referentiality you begin creating recusion, paradox and "strange loops". Cases in point, Epimenides Paradox, "This statement is false" and the Star Trek robot-frying "Everything I say is a lie". Paradox, recursion, self-referentiality, "strange loops" reveal the Esherian landscape around us. They are our friends, we shouldn't ignore them, we should invite them in for tea (white, red or green). Thanks for brining this new book to our attention, Platt! moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
