

An Interview with Douglas R. Hofstadter - msg
http://tal.forum2.org/hofstadter_interview

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jackchristopher
Hofstadter is a usually great.

But he takes distasteful shots at AI researchers who disagree with him, here.

He embraces protecting animals and other semi-conscious beings, but doesn't
extend that sympathy to AIs, or other potentially conscious beings. That's a
bioelitist stance; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-
progressivism#Contrastin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-
progressivism#Contrasting_stance)

He even celebrates slow developments in computing, as a good thing.

~~~
LPTS
His critique of Kurzweil as exceptionally afraid of dying and that distorting
his scientific validity is spot on. Kurzweil is rigid in exactly the same way
as a religious person who believes his body literally will live forever. He
just identifies his experiential body as information processes instead of
flesh, and has a mythic-technical, instead of mythic-poetic, or mythic-
conventional, approach to the details of his eternal life. He's a priest, not
a scientist, at least when he speaks about singularity.

He needs to find a buddhist teacher and an LSD dealer to get over his fear of
death. He's going to die, his body is going to rot and his greying, decayed,
stinking flesh is going to be churned into worm poop, his memory and
personality will dissolve, as the thing that observes all that (an is the same
behind my eyes as yours, that you can see by considering your self image for a
long time, and then asking "if I'm looking at me, what is doing the looking?")
discards the used up vehicle and suits up for the next adventure as a
different one of these trippy humans, which will have a different set of
ultimately illusory relationships with this fact through waking, dreaming, and
dreamless sleep, all before the sun supernovas and destroys every single hint
of anything he did with his life, all of which is not only going to happen,
but already happening because time is an illusory construct perceived by an
illusory ego. The sooner he spends 2 or 3 weeks in a psych word processing
that after eating a quarter sheet of acid and screaming about it for twelve
hours while burning his retinas out staring at the sun and directly perceiving
it, the better off and closer to the truth his community will be.

This critique of AI was a highlight for me. People who think they can mimic
consciousness on computers have more in common with magical thinking then with
science because they have absolutely no deep understanding of consciousness.

~~~
coffeeaddicted
On the other hand the dead but immortal No.1 LSD Dealer and life long
consciousness pioneer Timothy Leary did switch to teachings similar to those
of Kurzweil for example in is book "CHAOS & Cyber Culture" written in '94. So
maybe you need to get past acid to understand that Kurzweil is a lot closer to
the source of consciousness than any drug will ever get you.

~~~
mojuba
LSD solves everyone's individual problems but it's definitely not the carrier
of some ultimate truth. LSD can bring some buddhism into someone's life and it
can free from buddhism some other person.

~~~
LPTS
Yeah.

I remember way back in the day being on psychedelic mushrooms once, walking
through the woods, and talking to Buddha, who had appeared in a rock wall in a
tunnel I walked past. Then I was like "I just saw Buddha, I should say hi and
talk to him." I turned back said "hi" and he was like "Dont be a Buddhist,
figure it out for yourself." So I know exactly what you mean.

------
jsomers
I feel a special kind of levity whenever I read something Hofstadter's
written, or when I listen to Feynman speak.

Is there anyone else who does that?

~~~
hugh
Just two days ago I decided to read one of Feynman's papers (the one on the
Hellman-Feynman theorem). His style is amazingly readable and almost
conversational, even in dense scientific work, and yet it's still sufficiently
precise and formal to seem perfectly in place in a journal. I've been trying
ever since to figure out how he does it.

------
LPTS
What a crappy interviewer. The first question reveals the interviewer doesn't
know Hofstadter from a hole in the ground.

Such a shame a great mind like Hofstadter is subjected to these awful
questions. Here's an idea. If you haven't read Hofstadter's GEB and I Am a
Strange Loop, don't try to interview him about it. Especially don't open with
a question that reveals this in the first breath Hofstadter responds with.

I love Bill Moyers, don't get me wrong here, but this reminds me a little of
Bill Moyers talking to Joseph Campbell. Campbell was so much more evolved in
his understanding then Moyers, that Moyers (who is excellent) seemed like a
dog trying to understand a card trick. The interviewer seems like that.

It's well worth reading anyway, because Hofstadter is so damn brilliant.

~~~
brfox
I've never read GEB or even heard of I Am a Strange Loop. I've heard that
reading GEB takes quite a commitment... Can I cheat and just read I Am a
Strange Loop? (The original post says that GEB is basically reviewed in the
first part of this newer book).

~~~
LPTS
I recall reading that Hofstadter said (loosely) GEB was taken more as a
collection of neat things, than the coherent thesis about identity.

I would personally recommend reading I Am A Strange Loop, and then GEB if
intrigued. This way, you will interpret GEB according to Hofstader's more
explicit formulations of his deeper ideas, instead of in the more shallow way
GEB can be interpreted, without following the thread about identity.

I think I Am A Strange Loop is classic and cannot say too much about how great
Hofstadter is. He gets consciousness. He gets it. And he has good ways of
communicating it. One of the most brilliant minds I have read.

~~~
hugh
I've read all his books except Strange Loop. I skimmed it in the bookstore,
but it seemed like more of a rehash of ideas presented more interestingly in
his other books. Personally I'd recommend starting with GEB.

~~~
LPTS
I'd say it's a distillation, rather then a rehash, but I see what you mean.

