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(0)Douglas R. Hofstadter
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Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of "maps' or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a...
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Hofstadter's long-awaited return to the themes of Gödel, Escher, Bach--an original and controversial view of the nature of consciousness and identity. What do we mean when we say "I"? Can a self, a soul, a consciousness, an "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? This book argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. Deep down, a...
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With contributions from Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Dawkins, John Searle and Robert Nozick, 'The Mind's I' explores the meaning of self and consciousness through the perspectives of literature, artificial intelligence, psychology and other disciplines. In selections that range from fiction to scientific speculations about thinking machines, artificial intelligence and the nature of the brain, Hofstadter and Dennett present a variety of conflicting...
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Astonishing creations by masters of the art, such as Escher, Dali, and Archimbolo; amazing visual trickery; and an illuminating foreword by the Pulitzer Prize--winning author Douglas R. Hofstadter make this 320-page, breathtaking collection the definitive book of optical illusions. Rings of seahorses that seem to rotate on the page. Butterflies that transform right before your eyes into two warriors with their horses. A mosaic portrait of oceanographer...
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In post-World War I Vienna, some of the most brilliant minds of that generation came together to prove true or false the ideas that had supported math, physics, and philosophy since antiquity, but which were essentially assumptions. Inspired by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and Bertrand Russell's search for the foundations of mathematics, these young intellectuals sought to develop and propagate a worldview entirely based on science. They...