Douglas R. Hofstadter
eerie chaos facade order inside
“It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order - and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
Hofstadter's Law longer time
“Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
meaning mind reader haiku
“Meaning lies as much
in the mind of the reader
as in the Haiku.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
gullible gullibility center neurosurgeon operation
“How gullible are you? Is your gullibility located in some "gullibility center" in your brain? Could a neurosurgeon reach in and perform some delicate operation to lower your gullibility, otherwise leaving you alone? If you believe this, you are pretty gullible, and should perhaps consider such an operation.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
tep AI Artificial intelligence reveal real
“Sometimes it seems as though each new step towards AI, rather than producing something which everyone agrees is real intelligence, merely reveals what real intelligence is not.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
mirror mirroring self-image
“A mirror mirroring a mirror”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
study brain physical literary criicism paper bookbind paper
“Saying that studying the brain is limited to the study of physical entities would be like saying that literary criticism must focus on paper and bookbinding, ink and its chemistry, page sizes and margin widths, typefaces and paragraph lengths, and so forth.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
legitimate kill enemy soldier war shrink soul
“Some of us, perhaps all of us, believe that it is legitimate to kill enemy soldiers in a war, as if war were a special circumstance that shrinks the sizes of enemy souls.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
recursive acronym RACRECIR
“I enjoy acronyms. Recursive Acronyms Crablike "RACRECIR" Especially Create Infinite Regress”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
egocentric realest ourself
“We are all egocentric, and what is realest to each of us, in the end, is ourself.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
computer program modify violate instruction obey AI
“A computer program can modify itself but it cannot violate its own instructions — it can at best change some parts of itself by *obeying* its own instructions.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
important answer find looking for
“For now, what is important is not finding the answer, but looking for it.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
god help themselves devil himself
“Since, as is well know, God helps those who help themselves, presumably the Devil helps all those, and only those, who don't help themselves. Does the Devil help himself?”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
consciousness Godelian loop level-crossing feedback
“I personally cannot imagine that consciousness will be fully understood without reference to Godelian loops or level-crossing feedback loops.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
mistrust own opinion stated someone
“It is curious, how one often mistrusts one’s own opinions if they are stated by someone else.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
words nuts bolts surrealistic painting language fluid grain
“If words were nuts and bolts, people could make any bolt fit into any nut: they'd just squish the one into the other, as in some surrealistic painting where everything goes soft. Language, in human hands, becomes almost like a fluid, despite the coarse grain of its components.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
intelligence inherent property jump task pattern
“It is an inherent property of intelligence that it can jump out of the task which it is performing, and survey what it has done; it is always looking for, and often finding, patterns.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
following sentence false preceding true
"The following sentence is false. The preceding sentence is true."
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
fact sense essence effect
"In fact, a sense of essence is, in essence, the essence of sense, in effect."
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
sentence contradict itself actually doesn't
"This sentence contradicts itself - no actually it doesn't."
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
meaning analogy
" … all meaning comes from analogies."
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
brain learn ignorance knowledge
"The nice thing about having a brain is that one can learn, that ignorance can be supplanted by knowledge, and that small bits of knowledge can gradually pile up into substantial heaps."
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
AI Artificial intelligence fight computer rigidity
"The entire effort of artificial intelligence is essentially a fight against computers’ rigidity."
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
reference direct coding scheme
"No reference is truly direct — every reference depends on some kind of coding scheme. It's just a question of how implicit it is."
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
generality specifoic idea important universalia particularia
"This idea that there is generality in the specific is of far-reaching importance."
― Douglas R. Hofstadter
AI strict formalism inflexible machine computer rigidity
"The strange flavour of AI work is that people try to put together long sets of rules in strict formalisms which tell inflexible machines how to be flexible."
― Douglas R. Hofstadter