A thing of beauty in a strange, loopy kind of way

Ah, Doug, what have you crafted in your spare time? So rich, thoughtful, thought provoking, a book as complex as its subject.

I have just finished Hofstadter's 'I am a strange loop' and it is, as all his books are, a lovingly made manifestation of the often silent musings on the nature of consciousness, mind, self, I. To argue, so eloquently, for the inevitable, emergent quality of consciousness from just a sufficently complex rag bag of neurons. To so subtly fuel my recent, inexpert ramblings. You may go peacefully and content from this life, Doug, whenever that may be, and, at last together with Carole once more, you may stand with Jorge Luis and feel no shame, only contentment that you matched his skill. To take the reader so far down untrodden paths, forever forking, with mere words, symbols, splodges of black on white. I think Borges will be proud to stand at your side.

Not only did the book stimulate my neurons but it also reminded me of other books which I now need to re-read to enrich my own musings on emergent phenomena, 'The extended phenotype' (Dawkins and definitely worth a post of its own), 'The quark and the jaguar' (Gell-Mann and tricky), 'Consciousness explained' (Dennett and, as always, simply brilliant. How can such an incisive mind work at 'Tufts University', which always sounds to this penguin like a campus for cuddly, red squirrels? The penguin should perhaps explain. In Britland, they used to have this road safety campaign for children, which was 'fronted' by a red squirrel. It was called the 'Tufty Club', Tufty being the name of the squirrel. Sorry Dan, I just can't help it :)

You see, what Doug has done, for this penguin, is to encapsulate in a single book (say 400 pages) a hugely diverse range of thinking on a lot of the things that this blog has been about. Evolution. The absence of (a need for) God. Who, or what, we are. Why we do what we do. Empathy. Cartesian dualism and why it is so misguided. John Searle and why he is such an arsehole. And from any one of the things listed, a veritable host of other things spring. That is truly a Borges-like quality and is to be admired, lauded in this poor, humble penguin's opinion.

And no, Doug doesn't pay me to write this stuff! Although if he ever does 'google' himself and comes across this blog, then US dollars will be perfectly acceptable, brown envelope addressed to 'The Penguin, Antarctica' should reach me. I know the postman :)