I just read The. Self Aware Univers by Dr. Amit Goswami. That book gives a theory of consciousness and posits that the "I" of consciousness arises from tangled heirarchies. Goswami mentions Godel,Escher,Bach. That's why I want to read this book.
Ansuman Sanju If you don’t mind skipping over the math stuff you may like the book. It’s kind of old now though. It was written in the early 1990’s and some of the content has aged poorly.
This book was loaned to me by a nice man who disappeared from my life shortly after he gave it to me. I haven't actually read it yet. That said, it's a fascinating read, the parts I have read. I was married to a philosopher for a couple of years (ended in disaster that marriage did) and I lived on the fringes of the Objectivist movement for much of my life having been introduced to Rand's work when I was all of 10 years old (that was a trial to say the least). As I glance over this book, I learn more and more about my mysterious friend. And yet, I know nothing about him as well. I guess that's rather the point of the book, isn't it?
_Anthem_ was a cute book. It helped to jump-start my young mind into thinking with autonomy. Coloring books also served as similar springboards for my creative side. As for taking those tools with me into a realistic adulthood, calling the preservation of such a me-first mindset a "trial" would be an understatement; Randians are at the very apex of ideological irrationality. Thank goodness I didn't look at _Atlas..._ until I was already somewhat critical. Objectivism isn't just skewed or fringe as a philosophy, it's fundamentally flawed. It assumes far too many certainties. You have my sympathy for having endured its culture, and you have my respect for having extracted yourself from it. I wonder if the mysterious friend wasn't offering you a subtle piece of leverage: there's nothing quite as uncertain as self-referential questioning-it's sort of antithetical to the ideals of radical individualism. Is that the point of the book, that we can't have certainty? It seems that the closer I look at the case of my own conscious experience, the less I trust what I think I understand. And with each new examination, around every looping recursion, I feel even less certain. Good luck out there.
Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is the core/impetus of the whole idea of I Am A Strange Loop. Without grasping that, and the ultimate disproving of Principia Mathematica, Hofstadter's work makes *less* sense.
Yeah, there are answers to these objections like that of panpsychism. But I believe Hofstadter prefers to stay in the domain of knowledge and analogy instead of conjecture when discussing consciousness. But it very well could be that consciousness isn't just inherent to "Beings" but to reality itself.
@@pulse2781 It is undoubtedly a fascinating object of discourse, and even what little you've mentioned opens up so many avenues of thought. Even the idea that maybe the study and discussion of consciousness can only be applied BY analogy is interesting, as it isnt really nestled within any relative or known jurisdiction, a "thing" unto itself and without evidence of an opposite. And as far as consciousness being inherent in reality itself rather than the product of certain conditions, biological or otherwise, I mean what a profound assessment. If we give immediate credence and integrity to logical structure as a veritable reflection of the inner workings of reality, it almost presents itself as self-evident, wherein "consciousness", whatever it may be, and whatever ties to noumena it may have, is of the "first layers" of existence. What is also interesting, and perhaps more telling, is that in our current understanding of physics, there are only two or three absolute "things" (i.e forces/energies) in the universe, such as charge. The pertinent question begging to be asked is "how is this perceptual reality constructed from these few base and unlike materials?" I think this further demonstrates not only that consciousness is "something else", in the way, at the very least, as an agent of translation, but also further solidifies the supposition that consciousness is a first-born principle of reality, where at minimum it is as a hallucination resulted from fundamental machinations.
@@cornerstone2449 You really took that one and ran. Are we then maintaining that "perceptual reality" is direct evidence of itself? You don't have to work hard to convince me that Panpsychism is the most plausible explanation for this, my apparent qualia, assuming that the buzz I feel really is real. Where you _will_ have to work is on the verification part. See, if I'm here as a result of many mathematical processes, one of which being natural selection, then it stands to reason that my perceptions will reflect those that have been best suited to my overall environmental fitness. As such, I am probably a truncated simulation of something external-like, and I do this simulating in order to maximize my ability to accurately predict future environmental events and thus survive, establishing some 'fitness' for myself, at least tentatively. Here's the confound: nothing about running such a program requires the necessity that it be 'real' in the sense that we conscious creatures have to be anything more than simply _convinced_ we are real. It's probably not that consciousness is an illusion, as the cliche goes; it's more like we conscious things are cases of successful fake-it-till-you-make-its. We think it's real enough-that it is. It's not either/or. It seems that there are cases of more or less conscious than I am. Panpsychism is one solid explanatory model for this scenario. But if parsimony is of any significance, the far, far, simpler explanation for our Hard problem is that the fundamental has only been assumed by us to be so, uncomfortable to admit or not. And why not, I say! I've already been forced to give up my free will, not to mention confront the illusory nature of the self. Why do I have to have some stamp of legitimization in order to enjoy my 'experience' here? Trust me, a Real margarita won't taste any nicer.
I just read The. Self Aware Univers by Dr. Amit Goswami. That book gives a theory of consciousness and posits that the "I" of consciousness arises from tangled heirarchies. Goswami mentions Godel,Escher,Bach. That's why I want to read this book.
Thank you for the review. Very brave to put yourself out there, I respect it. Please, keep it up.
Currently reading this and I just realised I am your 1000th subscriber. Congratulations
What other books do you recommend besides Daniel D Dennett’s books? Thank you ! :)
I just Like this video , I also have read GEB + I'm strange Loop so anyone who read those books will have something good to said
Should i read the golden braid if i don't like maths
Ansuman Sanju If you don’t mind skipping over the math stuff you may like the book. It’s kind of old now though. It was written in the early 1990’s and some of the content has aged poorly.
@@danielpatton583 GEB was actually written in 1979, if I’m not mistaken?
@@danielpatton583 what strikes you as having aged more poorly in the book?
This book was loaned to me by a nice man who disappeared from my life shortly after he gave it to me. I haven't actually read it yet. That said, it's a fascinating read, the parts I have read. I was married to a philosopher for a couple of years (ended in disaster that marriage did) and I lived on the fringes of the Objectivist movement for much of my life having been introduced to Rand's work when I was all of 10 years old (that was a trial to say the least). As I glance over this book, I learn more and more about my mysterious friend. And yet, I know nothing about him as well. I guess that's rather the point of the book, isn't it?
_Anthem_ was a cute book. It helped to jump-start my young mind into thinking with autonomy. Coloring books also served as similar springboards for my creative side. As for taking those tools with me into a realistic adulthood, calling the preservation of such a me-first mindset a "trial" would be an understatement; Randians are at the very apex of ideological irrationality. Thank goodness I didn't look at _Atlas..._ until I was already somewhat critical.
Objectivism isn't just skewed or fringe as a philosophy, it's fundamentally flawed. It assumes far too many certainties. You have my sympathy for having endured its culture, and you have my respect for having extracted yourself from it. I wonder if the mysterious friend wasn't offering you a subtle piece of leverage: there's nothing quite as uncertain as self-referential questioning-it's sort of antithetical to the ideals of radical individualism.
Is that the point of the book, that we can't have certainty? It seems that the closer I look at the case of my own conscious experience, the less I trust what I think I understand. And with each new examination, around every looping recursion, I feel even less certain.
Good luck out there.
Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is the core/impetus of the whole idea of I Am A Strange Loop. Without grasping that, and the ultimate disproving of Principia Mathematica, Hofstadter's work makes *less* sense.
I am lost while listening to u , I don’t know how it’s goes when i read the book
Great review
Nice review!
Really poor commentary
Yeah, there are answers to these objections like that of panpsychism. But I believe Hofstadter prefers to stay in the domain of knowledge and analogy instead of conjecture when discussing consciousness. But it very well could be that consciousness isn't just inherent to "Beings" but to reality itself.
@@pulse2781 It is undoubtedly a fascinating object of discourse, and even what little you've mentioned opens up so many avenues of thought. Even the idea that maybe the study and discussion of consciousness can only be applied BY analogy is interesting, as it isnt really nestled within any relative or known jurisdiction, a "thing" unto itself and without evidence of an opposite. And as far as consciousness being inherent in reality itself rather than the product of certain conditions, biological or otherwise, I mean what a profound assessment. If we give immediate credence and integrity to logical structure as a veritable reflection of the inner workings of reality, it almost presents itself as self-evident, wherein "consciousness", whatever it may be, and whatever ties to noumena it may have, is of the "first layers" of existence. What is also interesting, and perhaps more telling, is that in our current understanding of physics, there are only two or three absolute "things" (i.e forces/energies) in the universe, such as charge. The pertinent question begging to be asked is "how is this perceptual reality constructed from these few base and unlike materials?" I think this further demonstrates not only that consciousness is "something else", in the way, at the very least, as an agent of translation, but also further solidifies the supposition that consciousness is a first-born principle of reality, where at minimum it is as a hallucination resulted from fundamental machinations.
@@cornerstone2449 Wow cool comment. I love Hofstadter's work
@@cornerstone2449 You really took that one and ran. Are we then maintaining that "perceptual reality" is direct evidence of itself?
You don't have to work hard to convince me that Panpsychism is the most plausible explanation for this, my apparent qualia, assuming that the buzz I feel really is real. Where you _will_ have to work is on the verification part. See, if I'm here as a result of many mathematical processes, one of which being natural selection, then it stands to reason that my perceptions will reflect those that have been best suited to my overall environmental fitness. As such, I am probably a truncated simulation of something external-like, and I do this simulating in order to maximize my ability to accurately predict future environmental events and thus survive, establishing some 'fitness' for myself, at least tentatively.
Here's the confound: nothing about running such a program requires the necessity that it be 'real' in the sense that we conscious creatures have to be anything more than simply _convinced_ we are real. It's probably not that consciousness is an illusion, as the cliche goes; it's more like we conscious things are cases of successful fake-it-till-you-make-its. We think it's real enough-that it is.
It's not either/or. It seems that there are cases of more or less conscious than I am. Panpsychism is one solid explanatory model for this scenario. But if parsimony is of any significance, the far, far, simpler explanation for our Hard problem is that the fundamental has only been assumed by us to be so, uncomfortable to admit or not. And why not, I say! I've already been forced to give up my free will, not to mention confront the illusory nature of the self. Why do I have to have some stamp of legitimization in order to enjoy my 'experience' here?
Trust me, a Real margarita won't taste any nicer.