Douglas Hofstadter - I Am a Strange Loop

self-referential sentences; failed attempts at constructing; in Principia Mathematica ; without indexicals

self-reproduction, Gödelian mechanisms of

self-stabilizing structures

self-symbol: accreting over time; of careenium; coarse-grained copies of, in others; of dog; initial emptiness of; locking-in of; seen as strange loop, reasons for; self-delusions in

self-undermining words and phrases

Sellers, Peter

“semantic juice”, as underwriting meaning and “aboutness”

semantics: and machinery; possession of, as criterial for consciousness; quibbling over as serious; transplantable to other brains

semiclassical view: of quantum phenomena; of self and soul

sense of humor as brain structure

sensual experiences, as basis for consciousness

sentences that inventory each other

serial numbers, as determining human identity

Seuss, Dr.

Seven Year Itch, The

1729, as interesting number

72900 (code number for “0=0”)

777,777, short descriptions of

sewing machines, as indistinguishable zombies

sex of child, determined by microscopic factors

sexist language and sexist thinking; exemplified

sexuality: as bedrock cause for humans; in Twinwirld

shades of gray: of consciousness; for mentalistic verbs; for perception; in personality space; for quotation marks; for reality; for souledness; for where one is

Shahn, Ben

Shakespeare, William

shared goals leading to shared identity

shared yearnings

Shell sign, reality of top side of

shopping cart, reliability of

shorthands, as necessary for survival

Shostakovich, Dmitri

shout into chasm

Shultz, Charles

Siamese Twinwirld

signals, as triggering symbols

signature done via hard-wired motor control vs. via linguistic instructions

Siksek, Samir

simballic “logic”

simmballs (in careenium); imbued with meaning

simms (“small interacting magnetic marbles”); as blurry soup

simms vs. simmballs

simplification as human glory

simultaneous presence in multiple places

sincere belief as experienced by a zombie

singing in unison

singletons and pairs in sequence of primes

62, as boring integer

641, primality of, as cause; role of, in history of mathematics

skeptics, voice of

skiing: unpredictability of; vacation in California

Skinnner, B. F., on self-referential sentences

skivaganzas

slaughterhouse, tour of

slavery

sleazeball, as familiar but blurry pattern

slider on wire determining identity

sliding scale: of consciousness; of élan mental ; of symbol repertoire

slingshots

slippery slope of teleological language

slow vs. fast: controlling of bodies by brains; feeding of brains by perceptual systems;

Sluggo, daydreaming about himself

smallest uninteresting integer

“small-souled men”

small-souled vs. large-souled beings

smiling like Hopalong Cassidy

snippets of other people’s talk and inner worlds

“snow”, elusiveness of concept

“s0 + s0 = ss0”

“soap digest rack” explained in Sanskrit

“soap opera”: causality attached to the concept of; as deeply nested concept; as very real pattern

soaring up to into the sky

soaring up to into this guy

soccer ball, as goal-seeker

social hierarchies, position in, in self-symbol

Socrates, as dialogue character

software beings inside us

soil of novels and of souls

Solar System, vagueness of the notion

solid-state physics

Sommerfeld, Arnold

“Song of Myself ” (Whitman)

Sophie’s Choice

soul: and ability to think; architecture of; as dot located on a line; as efficient shorthand; expressed on face; of flea; floating up into heaven; higher-level, forged in marriage; as illusion; lacking in animals, dogma of; lacking in women, dogma of; likened to butterfly swarms; living in brains of other souls; of mosquito; of mouse; as pattern; as region along a line; serial number of; sizes of; slow growth of; sudden extinction of; traditional immortality of; in Twinwirld; value of; as wispy aura

soul merger: speculated about before Carol’s death; wedding ceremony as

soular corona

soular eclipse

souledness: correlation with musical taste; degrees of; increasing with age; not limited to 100 hunekers

soulless creatures

souls: deep vs. shallow alignment of; hierarchy of values of

soul-shards, survival of

soul-soil

sound transmission, predictability of

soup can in cart, reliability of behavior of

speaking in unison

spectrum of mentalistic verbs

speech, unpredictability of one’s own

sperms

Sperry, Roger

splashtacular scuba specials

splits in oneself (or in one self ) as suggesting presence of two or more selves

spotting the gist

spouse, death of, as trauma

spying on dog in kennel via webcam

squabbles among subselves for dominance in brain

squares; sums of two

squirting chemicals, in brain

“ss0 + ss0 = sssss0”, as conceivable PM theorem

stable volume of audio feedback

Stanford Elementary School

Stanford University

Stanley (robot vehicle); claimed to be “thinking”; counterfactual version of; episodic memory of; episodic projectory of; episodic subjunctory of; hopes and fears of; irrelevance of location of computer; self-image of; supposedly having “algorithmic equivalent of self-awareness”; what is lacking for an “I” to exist in it

Star Wars

statistical mechanics

statistical mentalics

statistical robustness of coin flips

steam-engine governor

steering wheels, reliability of

Stephen, the stoning of

sticking a formula’s Gödel number inside the formula itself

storytelling technique, efficacy of

strange loop: as core of “I”-ness; definition of; enhanced by élan mental ; essence of; existence of; flavorings of; Gödel’s discovery of; growth of; illusory, in Drawing Hands ; lack of, in mosquito; less than one per neonate brain; as level-crossing feedback loop; many per brain; nonphysicality of; one per brain; one privileged one, per brain; as paradoxical; in Principia Mathematica ; seeming lack of identity; of selfhood, as trap; small size, in dog; as soul-less; as ungraspably elusive; “vanilla”; various “sizes” of; and video feedback

Strange Loops #641 and #642: dialogue between; names of; rift between

strangeness (of loops), essence of

strength of PM is its doom

strings of symbols; edible vs. inedible

strong force in physics

stuff of consciousness; see also feelium, élan mental

subjectless formula fragment by Gödel

subjectless sentence fragments

subjunctive replays of episodes

subjunctory, see episodic

subselves; see also “i”

substrate of thought: improbability of a mind postulating it; invisibility of; irrelevance of details of

subsymbolic frenzy, imperceptibility of

subwoofers producing rumbles

“suffer along with”, meaning of “compassion”

suffrage inside brain, at desire level

Sullivan, Maxine

sunflowers as desire-possessing systems

Super-PM, just as incomplete as PM

super-prim numbers

Suppes, Patrick C.

survival: double; as function of transportability of one’s psychic point of view; as goal of living beings; key role of perception in; partial, in other brains; shades of gray in; via teleported clones

SUV’s