--- product_id: 5069353 title: "I Am a Strange Loop" price: "₹ 3150" currency: INR in_stock: true reviews_count: 7 url: https://www.desertcart.in/products/5069353-i-am-a-strange-loop store_origin: IN region: India --- # I Am a Strange Loop **Price:** ₹ 3150 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** I Am a Strange Loop - **How much does it cost?** ₹ 3150 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.in](https://www.desertcart.in/products/5069353-i-am-a-strange-loop) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description I Am a Strange Loop [Hofstadter, Douglas R] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. I Am a Strange Loop Review: Forget the Physicalist Functionalism - I came to this book looking for a digital version of GEB, that doesn't exist at the time of this writing. Looking at some of the reviews I thought I might be getting a rehash of the concepts covered in GEB. Fortunately, that is not the case. Douglas Hofstadter starts the book with some reflections on things that influenced him in his early years. I found these stories a nice bit of insight into the mind of Douglas Hofstadter. About a quarter of the way into the book he states: "The thesis of this book is that in a non-embryonic, non-infantile human brain, there is a special type of abstract structure or pattern that plays the same role as does that precise alignment of layers of paper and glue -- an abstract pattern that gives rise to what *feels* like a self". To add a little context, the precise alignment of layers of papers and glue he is referring to is a stack of envelopes that felt like there was a marble in them..., an illusion. So, in other words, Douglas Hofstadter wants to set about to convincing us that the "self-ness" we experience as humans is an illusion. The next hundred or so pages sets forth in describing how no mathematical system is totally complete. I am not sure why Douglas went in that direction, as I took the obligatory re-read of that section when Douglas suggests, and another read for this review, yet I still can not see the reason. That is not to say it is poorly written. I felt as if I was in the hands of an expert as Douglas walked through the proof of Euclid's theorem for those who have no exposure to number theory before embarking on explaining what exactly it was that Godel did. Despite my not fully understanding the purpose of the mathematics, Douglas Hofstadter was able to convey to me that consciousness is a strange loop and it got there by self-reference. This aligns well with at least one theory I've heard before, found in Ken Wilber's "Spectrum of Consciousness", but I think goes a bit beyond that when Douglas says that in his model the "I" can be in more than one body. Later in the book he expresses with a good amount of certainty that in the future this proves to be true, just as he is certain that we will eventually refer to machines with pronoun's like "who" as they become more conscious. And they will eventually become conscious, as Douglas believes that past a certain point in neural complexity, consciousness gets thrown in as a bonus. I'm not sure how close all this is to Physical Functionalism but the research I did failed to find "Physical", "Functionalism" and "strange loops" or "self-reference" mentioned in the same paragraph anywhere. Some of the philosophers Douglas mentions, including one who was a graduate student of his, however, gets mention with just the "physical"-"functionalism" search. Douglas does mention that he is only discussing some matters at the end of the book for the "consciousness philosophers". I believe that is where the discussion of the Inverted Spectrum and Freewill comes in. My overall assessment of this book is 5 stars because it accomplishes what it sets out to do, and it does so very elegantly giving a nice bit of insight into how the author came upon his thoughts along the way. Review: Definitely buy for explanation of Godel and core ideas, but don't expect rigorous arguments - 5 stars alone for his explanation of Godel's First Incompleteness Theorem. Godel's proof itself has a lot of boilerplate that I've never been able (let alone motivated enough) to read, but I did read Professor Braithwaite's foreword to Godel's proof, and found that Hofstadter instills the same level of understanding in much simpler, more conversational language. The whole book really is worth the price for that chapter alone. Overall, I think he reaches convincing, rational conclusions. After reading the whole book and thinking a lot about the core questions, I feel like I have a solid understanding of my own sense of self and my ability to perceive. However, many of the arguments he used felt overly allegorical, or otherwise unconvincing. I often had to convince myself of his conclusions with other arguments because his didn't always address the issues that came to my mind. I met a woman who's pursuing her PhD in math at Stanford, and she said that several of her friends in the department also read the book and similarly felt that the arguments could have been improved. A lot of this is probably because his goal wasn't to write a list of theorems and proofs. I think such a list would take maybe 30 pages, but on the other hand I enjoyed the opportunity to read someone with such a unique, open voice and worldview. As for the details, Hofstadter shows how the ability of the mind to compose complex symbols and perceive itself as an actor practically necessitates the creation of a reflexive "I" symbol. I thought the connection with Turing completeness was excellent and in some sense perfectly analogous, and should have been more explicitly central to his explanation of why there doesn't need to be any evolutionary benefit to a sense of self (it's just a side-effect of symbolic processing and looking for the causes of effects). My two main logical issues were: 1. I didn't ever see the need for a "strange loop" with arbitrary levels of recursion. I think the existence of the "I" symbol to refer to ourselves (just like the "potato" symbol refers to a potato) is a sufficient explanation on its own, and when we feel like we're reflecting deeper and deeper we're actually just conjuring up our "I" symbol over and over. 2. I think he should have drawn a sharper distinction between the core, self-referential "I" concept and the set of memories that make up a personality. I got the impression that he makes that distinction in his head, but in the book it didn't feel sufficiently explicated. Specifically, I think some of his arguments would have been much cleaner or even more robust had he restricted himself to speaking of the simple "I" symbol. But I'd still 100% tell my younger self to read it! ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #35,708 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #19 in Consciousness & Thought Philosophy #106 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books) #124 in Cognitive Psychology (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars (1,034) | | Dimensions | 6 x 1.13 x 9.25 inches | | Edition | Reprint | | ISBN-10 | 0465030793 | | ISBN-13 | 978-0465030798 | | Item Weight | 2.31 pounds | | Language | English | | Print length | 436 pages | | Publication date | July 8, 2008 | | Publisher | Basic Books | ## Images ![I Am a Strange Loop - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71Nfh4u+rKL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Forget the Physicalist Functionalism *by C***N on May 15, 2013* I came to this book looking for a digital version of GEB, that doesn't exist at the time of this writing. Looking at some of the reviews I thought I might be getting a rehash of the concepts covered in GEB. Fortunately, that is not the case. Douglas Hofstadter starts the book with some reflections on things that influenced him in his early years. I found these stories a nice bit of insight into the mind of Douglas Hofstadter. About a quarter of the way into the book he states: "The thesis of this book is that in a non-embryonic, non-infantile human brain, there is a special type of abstract structure or pattern that plays the same role as does that precise alignment of layers of paper and glue -- an abstract pattern that gives rise to what *feels* like a self". To add a little context, the precise alignment of layers of papers and glue he is referring to is a stack of envelopes that felt like there was a marble in them..., an illusion. So, in other words, Douglas Hofstadter wants to set about to convincing us that the "self-ness" we experience as humans is an illusion. The next hundred or so pages sets forth in describing how no mathematical system is totally complete. I am not sure why Douglas went in that direction, as I took the obligatory re-read of that section when Douglas suggests, and another read for this review, yet I still can not see the reason. That is not to say it is poorly written. I felt as if I was in the hands of an expert as Douglas walked through the proof of Euclid's theorem for those who have no exposure to number theory before embarking on explaining what exactly it was that Godel did. Despite my not fully understanding the purpose of the mathematics, Douglas Hofstadter was able to convey to me that consciousness is a strange loop and it got there by self-reference. This aligns well with at least one theory I've heard before, found in Ken Wilber's "Spectrum of Consciousness", but I think goes a bit beyond that when Douglas says that in his model the "I" can be in more than one body. Later in the book he expresses with a good amount of certainty that in the future this proves to be true, just as he is certain that we will eventually refer to machines with pronoun's like "who" as they become more conscious. And they will eventually become conscious, as Douglas believes that past a certain point in neural complexity, consciousness gets thrown in as a bonus. I'm not sure how close all this is to Physical Functionalism but the research I did failed to find "Physical", "Functionalism" and "strange loops" or "self-reference" mentioned in the same paragraph anywhere. Some of the philosophers Douglas mentions, including one who was a graduate student of his, however, gets mention with just the "physical"-"functionalism" search. Douglas does mention that he is only discussing some matters at the end of the book for the "consciousness philosophers". I believe that is where the discussion of the Inverted Spectrum and Freewill comes in. My overall assessment of this book is 5 stars because it accomplishes what it sets out to do, and it does so very elegantly giving a nice bit of insight into how the author came upon his thoughts along the way. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Definitely buy for explanation of Godel and core ideas, but don't expect rigorous arguments *by G***C on October 18, 2018* 5 stars alone for his explanation of Godel's First Incompleteness Theorem. Godel's proof itself has a lot of boilerplate that I've never been able (let alone motivated enough) to read, but I did read Professor Braithwaite's foreword to Godel's proof, and found that Hofstadter instills the same level of understanding in much simpler, more conversational language. The whole book really is worth the price for that chapter alone. Overall, I think he reaches convincing, rational conclusions. After reading the whole book and thinking a lot about the core questions, I feel like I have a solid understanding of my own sense of self and my ability to perceive. However, many of the arguments he used felt overly allegorical, or otherwise unconvincing. I often had to convince myself of his conclusions with other arguments because his didn't always address the issues that came to my mind. I met a woman who's pursuing her PhD in math at Stanford, and she said that several of her friends in the department also read the book and similarly felt that the arguments could have been improved. A lot of this is probably because his goal wasn't to write a list of theorems and proofs. I think such a list would take maybe 30 pages, but on the other hand I enjoyed the opportunity to read someone with such a unique, open voice and worldview. As for the details, Hofstadter shows how the ability of the mind to compose complex symbols and perceive itself as an actor practically necessitates the creation of a reflexive "I" symbol. I thought the connection with Turing completeness was excellent and in some sense perfectly analogous, and should have been more explicitly central to his explanation of why there doesn't need to be any evolutionary benefit to a sense of self (it's just a side-effect of symbolic processing and looking for the causes of effects). My two main logical issues were: 1. I didn't ever see the need for a "strange loop" with arbitrary levels of recursion. I think the existence of the "I" symbol to refer to ourselves (just like the "potato" symbol refers to a potato) is a sufficient explanation on its own, and when we feel like we're reflecting deeper and deeper we're actually just conjuring up our "I" symbol over and over. 2. I think he should have drawn a sharper distinction between the core, self-referential "I" concept and the set of memories that make up a personality. I got the impression that he makes that distinction in his head, but in the book it didn't feel sufficiently explicated. Specifically, I think some of his arguments would have been much cleaner or even more robust had he restricted himself to speaking of the simple "I" symbol. But I'd still 100% tell my younger self to read it! ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review *by A***ー on March 29, 2024* Touretzky, D.S. "COMMOM LISP: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation." で演習的学習を進めていたところ，Chapter 8: Recursionの8.15の項で，再帰的プログラミングの理解を促進するための参考資料として，Hofstadter, D. R.の "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid." が紹介されており，Amazonで検索したところ，近作である本書もあることを知り，両方を購入して，Lisp の再帰的プログラミングの学習を進める際の参考資料として，面白そうなところをチラチラと眺めるような形で利用している。そんな皮層を撫で回すような利用法ではあるのだが，再帰（recursion）とは，Lisp のみならず，音楽，絵画・美術，数学，さらにはさまざまな日常場面において，それらの根底に，類似のあるいは相似の構造性を秘めている「精神活動枠組み」なのだ，という著者の主張に触れ，その「間口」と「奥行き」の深さに，改めて気付かされたように感じる。ただし，著者の記述展開は，筆者の読み取りの不十分さに起因するものかもしれないが，「間口」の広さの強調の方にかなり偏しているような印象を持った。それでも，あまり哲学的に深いことを考えないで，紹介されているトピックスや，さまざまなジャンルの図や画像を眺めるだけでも，Lispにおける再帰的プログラミングの理解の深化には有用であるように感じている。ただし，以上は，門外漢による斜め読みの途中報告であるということをお断りしておく。念の為。 ## Frequently Bought Together - I Am a Strange Loop - Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - The Mind's I: Fantasies And Reflections On Self & Soul --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.in/products/5069353-i-am-a-strange-loop](https://www.desertcart.in/products/5069353-i-am-a-strange-loop) --- *Product available on Desertcart India* *Store origin: IN* *Last updated: 2026-04-30*