Hofstadter's Latest Book Makes Use of Kurt Godel's Ideas

April 3, 2007

Douglas Hofstadter's newest book, "I Am a Strange Loop," posits a new theory of consciousness. The basis for human consciousness, argues Hofstadter in his 400-page book, rests on a complex hierarchical system's ability to "turn back" on itself. That is, says Hofstadter, the conscious mind must be able to refer to and observe itself.

And the suggestion of a system turning back on itself — employing a "strange loop" — comes from a famous mathematician.

In a 1931 paper, the logician Kurt Godel suggested the idea of "strange loop" by way of debunking the central tenets of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell's "Principia Mathematicia". Godel demonstrated that their efforts to establish all of arithmetic through the use of only a few logical symbols, which they outlined in their book, was impossible.

In effect, Godel, says Hofstadter, made their book "twist around and look at itself," which created their own unproveable strange-loop theorems. Similarly, the mind, says Hofstadter, is a complex strange-loop system, always referring to and observing itself.

Source: "I Am a Strange Loop," by Douglas Hofstadter, Basic Books, 2007