Metamagical Themas

by Douglas R Hofstadter

• ISBN13: 9780465045402
• ISBN10: 0465045405
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2008-08-04
• Publisher: Hachette

Summary

The distinguished mathematician offers meditations on mind, creativity, artificial intelligence, and other tops, fusing humor, hard thought, and analysis and ranging from Rubik's cube to the genetic code

Table of Contents

Long Contents	ix
List of Illustrations	xiii
Notes on the Cover	xviii
Introduction	xxii
Section I: Snags and Snarls
On Self-Referential Sentences	5	(20)
Self-Referential Sentences: A Follow-Up	25	(24)
On Viral Sentences and Self-Replicating Structures	49	(21)
Nomic: A Self-Modifying Game Based on Reflexivity in Law	70	(21)
Section II: Sense and Society
World Views in Collision: The Skeptical Inquirer versus the National Enquirer	91	(24)
On Number Numbness	115	(21)
Changes in Default Words and Images, Engendered by Rising Consciousness	136	(23)
A Person Paper on Purity in Language	159	(14)
Section III: Sparking and Slipping
Pattern, Poetry, and Power in the Music of Frederic Chopin	173	(18)
Parquet Deformations: A Subtle, Intricate Art Form	191	(22)
Stuff and Nonsense	213	(19)
Variations on a Theme as the Crux of Creativity	232	(28)
Metafont, Metamathematics, and Metaphysics	260	(41)
Section IV: Structure and Strangeness
Magic Cubology	301	(28)
On Crossing the Rubicon	329	(35)
Mathematical Chaos and Strange Attractors	364	(32)
Lisp: Atoms and Lists	396	(14)
Lisp: Lists and Recursion	410	(15)
Lisp: Recursion and Generality	425	(30)
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics	455	(28)
Section V: Spirit and Substrate
Review of Alan Turing: The Enigma	483	(9)
A Coffeehouse Conversation on the Turing Test	492	(34)
On the Seeming Paradox of Mechanizing Creativity	526	(21)
Analogies and Roles in Human and Machine Thinking	547	(57)
Who Shoves Whom Around Inside the Careenium?	604	(27)
Waking Up from the Boolean Dream, or, Subcognition as Computation	631	(40)
Section VI: Selection and Stability
The Genetic Code: Arbitrary?	671	(29)
Undercut, Flaunt, Pounce, and Mediocrity: Psychological Games with Numbers	700	(15)
The Prisoner's Dilemma Computer Tournaments and the Evolution of Cooperation	715	(24)
Section VII: Sanity and Survival
Dilemmas for Superrational Thinkers, Leading Up to a Luring Lottery	739	(17)
Irrationality Is the Square Root of All Evil	756	(11)
The Tale of Happiton	767	(14)
The Tumult of Inner Voices, or, What is the Meaning of the Word ``I''?	781	(16)
Epilogue	797	(5)
Bibliography	802	(19)
Acknowledgments	821	(3)
Index	824