I Am a Strange Loop

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Douglas R. Hofstadter: I Am a Strange Loop (2007, Basic Books)

412 pages

English language

Published March 26, 2007 by Basic Books.

ISBN:
978-0-465-03078-1
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4 stars (1 review)

1 edition

Review of 'I Am a Strange Loop' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

The author's key strength is his ability to effectively explain complex topics in layman's terms using analogies. That helps a lot in this book, considering its complex topic - Consciousness. I found myself almost always agreeing with the author's idea about the existence/non-existence of the 'self'. Since I am not well-read on this topic, I will reserve from commenting too much on the topic of the 'self'. Instead, I will say that the author does a decent job of presenting the arguments objectively. And this is quite hard to achieve for a complex philosophical topic while keeping the text light and understandable.
The only minor complaint I have was that towards the end there are some sections - talking about musical tastes and their relation to the idea of self - that I found a bit out of place. I would not hold this against the author as the rest …