Strangeness
The "strangeness" of a strange loop comes from our way of perception, because we categorize our input in a small number of 'symbols' (by which Hofstadter means groups of neurons standing for one thing in the outside world). So the difference between the video-feedback loop and our strange loops, our "I"s, is that while the former converts light to the same pattern on a screen, the latter categorizes a pattern and outputs its essence, so that as we get closer and closer to our essence, we get further down our strange loop (according to Hofstadter's book 'I am a Strange Loop').
Read more about this topic: Strange Loop
Famous quotes containing the word strangeness:
“I wish more and more that health were studied half as much as disease is. Why, with all the endowment of research against cancer is no study made of those who are free from cancer? Why not inquire what foods they eat, what habits of body and mind they cultivate? And why never study animals in health and natural surroundings? why always sickened and in an environment of strangeness and artificiality?”
—Sarah N. Cleghorn (1976–1959)
“But here’s a haughtier text,
The labyrinth of her days
That her own strangeness perplexed....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“On our streets it is the sight of a totally unknown face or figure which arrests the attention, rather than, as in big cities, the strangeness of occasionally seeing someone you know.”
—For the State of Vermont, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)