"I am a strange loop" is the second book by Douglas Hofstadter, the author whoose name I can't pronounce, , that I've read. The first one was "Gödel, Esher, Bach" (a.k.a GEB), his classic from around the time I was born. If there can be things like sequels in the world of philosophical litterature, "I am a strange loop" would stand in exactly that relation to GEB.
Let me start by saying that even though "I am a strange loop" picks up where GEB ends, this really is a different kind of book. While GEB was very broad in its approach to Hofstanders main thesis, "I am a strange loop" narrow it down and really focus on the main question. The question of what conscioussness is. To understand Hofstanders take on this question I have to present some of his basics thoughs about the relationship between high and low level explanation and his theory about the organisation of systems capable of executing adaptive behaviours.
Hofstander encourage the reader to imagine a machine consisting of a set of spring-loaded domino bricks, arranged in such a way that they can compute if a certain number is a prime or not (The computation is in itself pretty easy. If you want to know if n is a prime (where n being any integer), just try to divide it with every number from 2 to n-1. If you find a divisor, n is not a prime. If you don't, it is). All you have to do is to line up the number of bricks that represents the number you want to test and then let all hell break loose. Watching the turbulent process that follows, with dominos falling and rising, triggering different loops in different positions of the board, eventually, if the pattern of dominos find a divisor for the input number, a certain domino strech (Hofstander call this the "divisor strech") will fall, thous signaling to an observer that the number wasn't a prime.
Now, let's say we put 641 bricks in a row and start the machine. If someone were to watch the whole thing, he or she might point to a domino brick in the middle of the divisor strech and ask: "How come that domino there is never falling?".
Hofstader imagines there's two different answer to this question. The first one is that the domino brick doesn't fall because its predecessor didn't fall. However, he points out, this just means that you have to ask the same thing about the preceding brick, beggging the question. The second answer is "Because 641 is prime". I quote:
The other basic thought Hofstadter is trying to mediate to his readers is the concept of symbols. To understand this, one must really know his distinction between perception and mere input. Imagine a toilet. The mechanism that makes it fill up after every flush is pretty simple. I encourage you to go check your toilets out right now if you're not familiar with the process. Basicly, when the tank empties, a floating part hits the bottom, pulling somekind of valve that starts the filling process. As the water adds upp, the floating part moves up, thereby stopping the onset of the water.
According to Hofstadter, this is not a perceptuall process. The toilet doesn't perceive that the water level has dropped or is rising. Its just a plain mechanical proecess.
What is an perceptuall process then? This is where the symbols make their entrence. A perceptuall process is when something in the world is being represented by a certain pattern and the representation can come about in many different ways. Take an object in your surronding that you can move. Look at it for a second and then move it so that you're seeing it from another perspective. Isn't there a feeling or experience that's reoccuring every time you look at it, no mather which perspective you're choosing? If I've understand it correct, this is what Hofstadter means with the concept of symbols.
The point is that even if I move my cup with tea around on my desk, I'll still know that I can drink from it and that I probably shouldn't push it of the edge. I have a symbol in my mind, or a pattern in my nerve cells, that somehow represents the concept of "cup".
Now, Hofstander proposes that conscioussness is something that comes about when a cetain system of symbols, a pattern of discrete parts if you will, start to have symbols of itself. When you somehow represent your own set of symbols in some kind of higher level symbols. If I seem to be a bit confused, that's because this is pretty abstract stuff.
So, what about the loopiness the title suggest? Well, if I've understood Hofstadters thoughs correctly, it comes about when the symbols of oneself are begining to be so advanced that they encompass themself. Since it infact are a part of the self, it has to include itself in itself to represent itself. But then it has to represent this representation with the representation of itself, thus beeing left one step behind again. It's like someone trying to catch her own shaddow. Or Gödel trying to say something about numbers with the use of numbers.
Let me make it absolute clear that Hofstadter is not a dualist. He firmly states that conscioussness is nothing but the physical pattern that constitues an organisms brain. That there is no distinction between me feeling something and my brain carrying out a certain process. It's only two different explanations of the same thing.
One objection to this might be that even if this is soo, why is it like that? Couldn't one think of a universe where everything looked exactly the same, but where people really were zombies, soulless creatures with no qualia? No, Hofstadter states.
To illustrate this, Hofstadter comes back to his discussion on low and high level explanation. Let's say that I reach out and pick up my cup to get a sip of tea. On the low level this could be explained by describing every single cell in my body and their changing states over time (probably we can't stop there since there's things like molecules, atoms etc.). If we on the other hand explain the behaviour in a high level fashion we can explain it by saying: "Martin was thirsty - that's why the current pattern came about". In the same way as you can't imagine a universe where the domino brick in the exact same pattern as previously descibed stood still and that 641 was a prime wasn't an explanation of this fact, Hofstadter states that you can't imagine a universe where the pattern of your brain is realised without you also feeling something.
One of the most bissare consequenses of Hofstadters theory is that a person isn't his or hers brain. A person is a specific pattern and the brain is just one of many mediums that can realize it. Just as it doesn't matter if a novels letters are printed in a book or illuminated on a computer screen when it comes to the meaing of those words. Josef K. gets procecuted no mather what (by the way, that book is horrible...there, I said it). This also means that we aren't bound to other bodies, and in one sence, not even our own patterns.
Hofstadter means that we construct symbols that represents others inside our own pattern. When I get to know a person, I start to build up a concept of what that person is like. I can store what she likes, what she doesn't like, how she responds in different situations, what she feels about other people and so on. In one sense I make a copy of that other persons pattern, but since the person isn't anything else then her pattern, what I really do is realising part of her pattern in another medium. She inhibits me. So if I die tomorrow, I'll partly live on in the people I know. It's not a full realisation of me, but it's still me. Sort of.
What I don't really understand with this position is this. Let's say that I'm out for a stroll in downtown Stockholm when a person comes up to me, put a gun to my head and says: "Do you want me to pull the trigger? I give a hundred bucks to charity if you say yes". I'll have to say that my answer would be no. Why? Well, I want to live on, that's why. Charity or not.
Let's say this person comply with my wish and walks away. The next day I walk down the same street and the same person comes up to me, put a gun to my head and says: "Do you want me to pull the trigger? I give a hundred bucks to charity if you say yes...and by the way. I've built an exact replica of you who's standing behind the corner.". If I would agree with Hofstadters ideas, what reason would there be for me to say "no"? Think about it. The perpitrator would give a hundred bucks to charity which would make me glad, and I would still live on in the body behind the corner. Why should I favourise a certain set of atoms that realizes my pattern rather than another? But would I say "yes"? Err...no. Why is that?
Hofstadter never explains how someone, in some sense, can be an explanation and I don't think he thinks that can be done either. To give a meta physical explanation on what the heck is going on is beyond our reach. But this also makes it hard to see why his thesis should be considered at all. Hofstadter himself considers this to be a good and consistant outline for an identity theory, but his main argument is really just him reciting a list of problems with the dualistic viewpoint, more or less ignoring all the problem that arise with the opposit view. However, that's an enormous discussion, something I won't go into now.
In sum, Hofstadter has written a quite ambitious book but somehow it feels that you already, in part, have to agree with him to fully understand it. It just feels that he constantly begs the question. I think GEB was better in the sense that even if you didn't agree with Hofstadters main idea, you could still learn a great deal from it. For example I learned many new things about the foundations of mathematics by reading that book. In "I am a strange loop" Hoefstadter really gets down to buisniess. Really esoteric buisniess.
But I guess someones got to do it.
Let me start by saying that even though "I am a strange loop" picks up where GEB ends, this really is a different kind of book. While GEB was very broad in its approach to Hofstanders main thesis, "I am a strange loop" narrow it down and really focus on the main question. The question of what conscioussness is. To understand Hofstanders take on this question I have to present some of his basics thoughs about the relationship between high and low level explanation and his theory about the organisation of systems capable of executing adaptive behaviours.
Hofstander encourage the reader to imagine a machine consisting of a set of spring-loaded domino bricks, arranged in such a way that they can compute if a certain number is a prime or not (The computation is in itself pretty easy. If you want to know if n is a prime (where n being any integer), just try to divide it with every number from 2 to n-1. If you find a divisor, n is not a prime. If you don't, it is). All you have to do is to line up the number of bricks that represents the number you want to test and then let all hell break loose. Watching the turbulent process that follows, with dominos falling and rising, triggering different loops in different positions of the board, eventually, if the pattern of dominos find a divisor for the input number, a certain domino strech (Hofstander call this the "divisor strech") will fall, thous signaling to an observer that the number wasn't a prime.
Now, let's say we put 641 bricks in a row and start the machine. If someone were to watch the whole thing, he or she might point to a domino brick in the middle of the divisor strech and ask: "How come that domino there is never falling?".
Hofstader imagines there's two different answer to this question. The first one is that the domino brick doesn't fall because its predecessor didn't fall. However, he points out, this just means that you have to ask the same thing about the preceding brick, beggging the question. The second answer is "Because 641 is prime". I quote:
The point of this example is that 641's primality is the best explanation, perhaps even the only explanation, for why certain dominos did fall and certain other ones did not fall. In a word, 641 is the prime mover (p. 39).Here Hofstadter is trying to concive an idea that even though a process can be given a low level explanation, the higher level alternative may be the only thing that really can explain what's going on.
The other basic thought Hofstadter is trying to mediate to his readers is the concept of symbols. To understand this, one must really know his distinction between perception and mere input. Imagine a toilet. The mechanism that makes it fill up after every flush is pretty simple. I encourage you to go check your toilets out right now if you're not familiar with the process. Basicly, when the tank empties, a floating part hits the bottom, pulling somekind of valve that starts the filling process. As the water adds upp, the floating part moves up, thereby stopping the onset of the water.According to Hofstadter, this is not a perceptuall process. The toilet doesn't perceive that the water level has dropped or is rising. Its just a plain mechanical proecess.
What is an perceptuall process then? This is where the symbols make their entrence. A perceptuall process is when something in the world is being represented by a certain pattern and the representation can come about in many different ways. Take an object in your surronding that you can move. Look at it for a second and then move it so that you're seeing it from another perspective. Isn't there a feeling or experience that's reoccuring every time you look at it, no mather which perspective you're choosing? If I've understand it correct, this is what Hofstadter means with the concept of symbols.
The point is that even if I move my cup with tea around on my desk, I'll still know that I can drink from it and that I probably shouldn't push it of the edge. I have a symbol in my mind, or a pattern in my nerve cells, that somehow represents the concept of "cup".
Now, Hofstander proposes that conscioussness is something that comes about when a cetain system of symbols, a pattern of discrete parts if you will, start to have symbols of itself. When you somehow represent your own set of symbols in some kind of higher level symbols. If I seem to be a bit confused, that's because this is pretty abstract stuff.
So, what about the loopiness the title suggest? Well, if I've understood Hofstadters thoughs correctly, it comes about when the symbols of oneself are begining to be so advanced that they encompass themself. Since it infact are a part of the self, it has to include itself in itself to represent itself. But then it has to represent this representation with the representation of itself, thus beeing left one step behind again. It's like someone trying to catch her own shaddow. Or Gödel trying to say something about numbers with the use of numbers.
Let me make it absolute clear that Hofstadter is not a dualist. He firmly states that conscioussness is nothing but the physical pattern that constitues an organisms brain. That there is no distinction between me feeling something and my brain carrying out a certain process. It's only two different explanations of the same thing.
One objection to this might be that even if this is soo, why is it like that? Couldn't one think of a universe where everything looked exactly the same, but where people really were zombies, soulless creatures with no qualia? No, Hofstadter states.
To illustrate this, Hofstadter comes back to his discussion on low and high level explanation. Let's say that I reach out and pick up my cup to get a sip of tea. On the low level this could be explained by describing every single cell in my body and their changing states over time (probably we can't stop there since there's things like molecules, atoms etc.). If we on the other hand explain the behaviour in a high level fashion we can explain it by saying: "Martin was thirsty - that's why the current pattern came about". In the same way as you can't imagine a universe where the domino brick in the exact same pattern as previously descibed stood still and that 641 was a prime wasn't an explanation of this fact, Hofstadter states that you can't imagine a universe where the pattern of your brain is realised without you also feeling something.
One of the most bissare consequenses of Hofstadters theory is that a person isn't his or hers brain. A person is a specific pattern and the brain is just one of many mediums that can realize it. Just as it doesn't matter if a novels letters are printed in a book or illuminated on a computer screen when it comes to the meaing of those words. Josef K. gets procecuted no mather what (by the way, that book is horrible...there, I said it). This also means that we aren't bound to other bodies, and in one sence, not even our own patterns.
Hofstadter means that we construct symbols that represents others inside our own pattern. When I get to know a person, I start to build up a concept of what that person is like. I can store what she likes, what she doesn't like, how she responds in different situations, what she feels about other people and so on. In one sense I make a copy of that other persons pattern, but since the person isn't anything else then her pattern, what I really do is realising part of her pattern in another medium. She inhibits me. So if I die tomorrow, I'll partly live on in the people I know. It's not a full realisation of me, but it's still me. Sort of.
What I don't really understand with this position is this. Let's say that I'm out for a stroll in downtown Stockholm when a person comes up to me, put a gun to my head and says: "Do you want me to pull the trigger? I give a hundred bucks to charity if you say yes". I'll have to say that my answer would be no. Why? Well, I want to live on, that's why. Charity or not.
Let's say this person comply with my wish and walks away. The next day I walk down the same street and the same person comes up to me, put a gun to my head and says: "Do you want me to pull the trigger? I give a hundred bucks to charity if you say yes...and by the way. I've built an exact replica of you who's standing behind the corner.". If I would agree with Hofstadters ideas, what reason would there be for me to say "no"? Think about it. The perpitrator would give a hundred bucks to charity which would make me glad, and I would still live on in the body behind the corner. Why should I favourise a certain set of atoms that realizes my pattern rather than another? But would I say "yes"? Err...no. Why is that?
Hofstadter never explains how someone, in some sense, can be an explanation and I don't think he thinks that can be done either. To give a meta physical explanation on what the heck is going on is beyond our reach. But this also makes it hard to see why his thesis should be considered at all. Hofstadter himself considers this to be a good and consistant outline for an identity theory, but his main argument is really just him reciting a list of problems with the dualistic viewpoint, more or less ignoring all the problem that arise with the opposit view. However, that's an enormous discussion, something I won't go into now.
In sum, Hofstadter has written a quite ambitious book but somehow it feels that you already, in part, have to agree with him to fully understand it. It just feels that he constantly begs the question. I think GEB was better in the sense that even if you didn't agree with Hofstadters main idea, you could still learn a great deal from it. For example I learned many new things about the foundations of mathematics by reading that book. In "I am a strange loop" Hoefstadter really gets down to buisniess. Really esoteric buisniess.
But I guess someones got to do it.
