I am a Strange Loop
by Douglas Hofstadter
About the book
I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (2007) is the author’s attempt to state, more directly than in his earlier Godel, Escher, Bach, what he believes the self actually is. His central claim is that consciousness and the sense of “I” arise from a strange loop: a self-referential pattern in which a system’s symbols come to represent the system itself. The book weaves together logic, neuroscience and deeply personal reflection (including on the death of his wife) to argue that a self is a kind of pattern, or feedback loop, rather than a thing.