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Mike's Theory of Consciousness #1
Jul. 8th, 2007 04:19 pmAll consciousnesses are thin at one end; much, much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end. That is the theory that I have and which is mine and what it is, too.
Just to prove that I can read books faster than the three months the English history took me, I've just finished Doug Hofstadter's I am a Strange Loop. It's hard to live up to having your first book win a Pulitzer, and this is no GEB. Yet, at the same time, there are many similarities, not least because Hofstadter considers Loop to be a retelling of the central story of GEB... how mind can appear from physically interacting particles. (Though I would say his best stab at answering that question comes from his dialogue "Who shoves whom around in the careenium?" which appeared in Metamagical Themas - indeed, the careenium forms a central analogy in the current book.)
Essentially, the book presents Hofstadter's ideas on what a mind is - namely, a strange loop. Since that noun phrase may not excite much recognition, the book helps to explain and expand on the idea using a host of analogies and explanations. We all understand what a feedback loop is, a microphone/speaker system produces something that it itself detects (or observes) and channels it back through the system again. A strange loop is similar, but with an attached set of symbols that react to these observations and change in response to them.
One might object that matter can't mean anything, so how can it be a symbol? Here again, the analogy with Gödel's mathematical tricks is useful. Gödel demonstrated that an integer, subject to appropriate patterning, can bear a meaning. Gödel pushed things even further by showing that such an integer can even be forced to observe itself and its meaning can be about itself. If a numerical pattern can mean something, surely a material pattern can mean something.
I'll borrow my own analogy from the Principia Discordia:
When I was 8 or 9 years old, I acquired
a split beaver magazine. You can imagine
my disappointment when, upon examination
of the photos with a microscope, I found
that all I could see was dots.
( now that I'm talking about beaver pictures, surely you will look behind the cut )
Just to prove that I can read books faster than the three months the English history took me, I've just finished Doug Hofstadter's I am a Strange Loop. It's hard to live up to having your first book win a Pulitzer, and this is no GEB. Yet, at the same time, there are many similarities, not least because Hofstadter considers Loop to be a retelling of the central story of GEB... how mind can appear from physically interacting particles. (Though I would say his best stab at answering that question comes from his dialogue "Who shoves whom around in the careenium?" which appeared in Metamagical Themas - indeed, the careenium forms a central analogy in the current book.)
Essentially, the book presents Hofstadter's ideas on what a mind is - namely, a strange loop. Since that noun phrase may not excite much recognition, the book helps to explain and expand on the idea using a host of analogies and explanations. We all understand what a feedback loop is, a microphone/speaker system produces something that it itself detects (or observes) and channels it back through the system again. A strange loop is similar, but with an attached set of symbols that react to these observations and change in response to them.
One might object that matter can't mean anything, so how can it be a symbol? Here again, the analogy with Gödel's mathematical tricks is useful. Gödel demonstrated that an integer, subject to appropriate patterning, can bear a meaning. Gödel pushed things even further by showing that such an integer can even be forced to observe itself and its meaning can be about itself. If a numerical pattern can mean something, surely a material pattern can mean something.
I'll borrow my own analogy from the Principia Discordia:
When I was 8 or 9 years old, I acquired
a split beaver magazine. You can imagine
my disappointment when, upon examination
of the photos with a microscope, I found
that all I could see was dots.
( now that I'm talking about beaver pictures, surely you will look behind the cut )
