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').
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Famous quotes containing the word strangeness:
““There is no exquisite beauty,” says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the forms and genera of beauty, “without some strangeness in the proportion.””
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“But here’s a haughtier text,
The labyrinth of her days
That her own strangeness perplexed....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“They had never had one in the house before.
The strangeness of it all. Like unleashing
A lion, really. Poised
To pounce. A puma. A panther. A black
Bear.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)