Home » Opinion » Book review
A loopy idea: human self resembles 'strange loop'
By Wan Lixin |
October 17, 2009, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN "I Am a Strange Loop," Douglas Hofstadter explains how the human self resembles a "strange loop."
To illustrate this cumbersome concept, Hofstadter cites an anecdote in the 1970s, while he was a teenager shopping with his family for a video camera.
After training the camera on his parents and himself, he was tempted to point it at the TV screen that displayed the camera's video output.
He was hesitating, fearing that creating a feedback loop might have some strange consequences, and he was admonished by the salesperson, who also felt loopiness to be vaguely threatening.
The author believes you are a loop. Not just any loop, but a "strange loop" -- an abstract loop that connects one level of abstraction to another and yet returns, ultimately, to where it began.
The self is an illusion or, as he says, "a hallucination hallucinated by a hallucination."
This observation, while esoteric, may have significant implications for how we regard ourselves, other people, other animals, and the world around us.
"We are all egocentric, and what is realest to each of us, in the end, is ourself," Hofstadter says.
This illusion is also very useful.
"The human condition is, by its very nature, one of believing in a myth. And we're permanently trapped in that condition, which makes life rather interesting," the author asserts.
Just reflect on how hard it is to charge our views of ourself, even when they are clearly wrong.
Our ego is most of the time oversized and overstated, as our assessment of ourself is a self-referential representational structure.
This insight could help cure us of our megalomaniac tendencies, and take a balanced view of our niche in the universe.
"We are macroscopic creatures, and so our perception and our categories are enormously coarse-grained relative to the fabric at which the true causality of the universe resides," the book observes.
The notion of how we regard ourself is of primary importance in any culture and belief system, informing our outlook and attitudes towards our life, or afterlife.
One of the principal preoccupations of any inquisitive mind is about conditions after death.
Christians believe in resurrection. The saviour is expected to return to judge all humans, living and dead, and grant eternal life to believers.
Buddhists believe in transmigration of the soul, but the Buddha will help sentient beings achieve nirvana, and escape the cycle of suffering and rebirth.
By comparison, Confucian belief is very focused on this world.
Confucius rarely spoke of death and spirits, for he believed the priority should be firmly on this life and the living people.
Although most Chinese people have a very vague concept of the afterlife, they are consoled in the knowledge that, when one is physically terminated, one's blood is still flowing in one's offspring.
Hence our strong sense of family values.
Another Chinese sage Chuang Tzu also discussed in great detail how our perception of our self is often illusionary and restrictive.
Chuang Tzu once dreamed he was a butterfly, and when he woke up he couldn't be sure whether he was a butterfly or Chuang Tzu.
Similarly our perception of other people is totally dependent on our likes and dislikes.
"Men claim that Mao-ch'iang and Lady Li were beautiful, but if fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the stream, if birds saw them they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run. Of these four, which knows how to fix the standard of beauty for the world?" Chuang Tzu wondered (in Burton Watson's translation).
As Hofstadter observes, "The pressures of daily life require us, force us, to talk about events at the level on which we directly perceive them."
But understanding the limitations of our self can induce largeness of mind and soul.
Let's conclude with an interesting exchange that occurred more than two thousand years ago between two clever people.
While strolling along a river, Chuang Tzu said to Hui Tzu, "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"
Hui Tzu said, "You're not a fish -- how do you know what fish enjoy?"
Chuang Tzu said, "You're not I, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"
To illustrate this cumbersome concept, Hofstadter cites an anecdote in the 1970s, while he was a teenager shopping with his family for a video camera.
After training the camera on his parents and himself, he was tempted to point it at the TV screen that displayed the camera's video output.
He was hesitating, fearing that creating a feedback loop might have some strange consequences, and he was admonished by the salesperson, who also felt loopiness to be vaguely threatening.
The author believes you are a loop. Not just any loop, but a "strange loop" -- an abstract loop that connects one level of abstraction to another and yet returns, ultimately, to where it began.
The self is an illusion or, as he says, "a hallucination hallucinated by a hallucination."
This observation, while esoteric, may have significant implications for how we regard ourselves, other people, other animals, and the world around us.
"We are all egocentric, and what is realest to each of us, in the end, is ourself," Hofstadter says.
This illusion is also very useful.
"The human condition is, by its very nature, one of believing in a myth. And we're permanently trapped in that condition, which makes life rather interesting," the author asserts.
Just reflect on how hard it is to charge our views of ourself, even when they are clearly wrong.
Our ego is most of the time oversized and overstated, as our assessment of ourself is a self-referential representational structure.
This insight could help cure us of our megalomaniac tendencies, and take a balanced view of our niche in the universe.
"We are macroscopic creatures, and so our perception and our categories are enormously coarse-grained relative to the fabric at which the true causality of the universe resides," the book observes.
The notion of how we regard ourself is of primary importance in any culture and belief system, informing our outlook and attitudes towards our life, or afterlife.
One of the principal preoccupations of any inquisitive mind is about conditions after death.
Christians believe in resurrection. The saviour is expected to return to judge all humans, living and dead, and grant eternal life to believers.
Buddhists believe in transmigration of the soul, but the Buddha will help sentient beings achieve nirvana, and escape the cycle of suffering and rebirth.
By comparison, Confucian belief is very focused on this world.
Confucius rarely spoke of death and spirits, for he believed the priority should be firmly on this life and the living people.
Although most Chinese people have a very vague concept of the afterlife, they are consoled in the knowledge that, when one is physically terminated, one's blood is still flowing in one's offspring.
Hence our strong sense of family values.
Another Chinese sage Chuang Tzu also discussed in great detail how our perception of our self is often illusionary and restrictive.
Chuang Tzu once dreamed he was a butterfly, and when he woke up he couldn't be sure whether he was a butterfly or Chuang Tzu.
Similarly our perception of other people is totally dependent on our likes and dislikes.
"Men claim that Mao-ch'iang and Lady Li were beautiful, but if fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the stream, if birds saw them they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run. Of these four, which knows how to fix the standard of beauty for the world?" Chuang Tzu wondered (in Burton Watson's translation).
As Hofstadter observes, "The pressures of daily life require us, force us, to talk about events at the level on which we directly perceive them."
But understanding the limitations of our self can induce largeness of mind and soul.
Let's conclude with an interesting exchange that occurred more than two thousand years ago between two clever people.
While strolling along a river, Chuang Tzu said to Hui Tzu, "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"
Hui Tzu said, "You're not a fish -- how do you know what fish enjoy?"
Chuang Tzu said, "You're not I, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"
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