a remarkably long-winded explanation that boils down to “inside your mind there exists a self and your model of other’s selves”. don’t get me wrong, hofstadter is an enjoyable enough teacher. and perhaps, because i haven’t read gödel, escher, bach by him, i’m missing out on some deeper salience. but this could’ve been (as the kids say) an email, or at least a research paper.

at any rate, i find myself thinking about the concepts in this book semi-frequently. the notion that any sufficiently advanced system will monitor its environment so well it includes itself is very important in the fields i’m interested in. and his general zeal in explaining these otherwise heady concepts brings them down to earth; i don’t think i could ever will an understanding of gödel otherwise.