Douglas Hofstadter is Professor of Cognitive Science at Indiana Univefsity. In 2007 Amazon.com listed 8 books by him. [See my review of his splendid book 149 Gödel, Escher, and Bach (aka GEB).]

After the exciting ideas in GEB, particularly “strange loops” and discussion of self-reference, I was very disappointed by book 203. Perhaps I expected too much – it really let me down hard. But I can only speak for myself. [The preceding sentence is self-referential in the correct way. I’m very aware of how often people today misuse pronouns like me, myself and I – I shudder when people use the self-referential (or reflexive) pronoun “myself” when they should be using “I” or “me.” Hofstadter is not such a person.] Returning to Hofstadter’s new book, I find many reviews about it to be misleading. They quote intriguing questions, such as: Can a self, a consciousness, an “I” arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, how can you or I be here? If it can, how can we understand this baffling experience? The answers are: ‘Yes’. ‘We are (or at least I am) here.’ ‘And we don’t understand this well – not the least bit well.’

Hofstadter is more specific (and poetic) with: Deep down, a human brain is a chaotic seething soup of particles, on a higher level it is a jungle of neurons, and on a yet higher level it is a network of abstractions that we call “symbols.” The most central and complex symbol in your brain and mine is the one we call “I”. Most of the book discusses symbols and “I”, but little understanding of the “baffling experience” occurs. What is new (compared to GEB) is his question “How can we ‘mirror’ other beings inside our minds?” He discusses this in terms of his trying to ‘see’ things through the eyes (thus mind) of his dead wife, whom he misses very much. This leads him to ask if many strange loops (of different “strengths”) can inhabit one mind. If so, then our belief that one brain houses one mind is an illusion – this in new, deep food for thought. If others have examined this aspect of a mind, I’m not aware of it.

Although this book doesn’t attempt to understand the human mind, it does provide much – a blend of autobiography, wordplay and analysis – well written, if a bit too playfully. Maybe I should be content with his strange loop, reminding myself that equaling GEB was too much to expect. Douglas Hofstadter says on the last page: “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.” Although dsappointing to me, this book was an unusual experience, so be prepared if you are intrigued by the topic.