atharva's internet place

I am a strange loop is perhaps the best book I’ve ever read; a masterpiece and a flagship example of what the written word is capable of achieving.

I felt like there was a me before I read this book and a me after I read it, and I feel like I have unlocked a new way of perceiving the world.

• The book proposes a coherent model to explain the fundamental nature of consciousness and connects the most unexpected things together to get there.
• The author does a fantastic job at explaining extremely hard-to-explain concepts—it’s a miracle that he was able to put his ideas to words at all, and yet, he does this with impressive clarity. A tiny example—I am now able to intuit the distributedness of consciousness and identity, which is crazy.
• This book ignited in me an interest in mathematics, and I finally “get” why it is considered beautiful.
• This book explained the essence of abstraction better than any Computer Science textbook or media that I have come across, and now I have a deeper appreciation for it than ever before.
• There's a lot of recursion of the strangest kinds, paradoxes, analogies and Escher-esque illustrations.
• The author has tamed the written word. He can make sentences sing however he wishes, much like the elaborate patterns he talks about. The book is witty. Hofstadter doesn't hesitate to put his own life and experiences into the book to explain his point. Some of the most passionate writing I have read.
• It also happens to have a chapter which is probably the most deeply moving thing I have read in a long time, if not ever.

I hope my message is coming across to you. This book is fantastic. Go read it!

PS: I am aware that his other book, Gödel, Escher, Bach is the more well-known work with the Pulitzer prize and all—and I own a copy too. But I never really dug into it because it looked really dense and esoteric from the outside. I am a strange loop on the other hand looked a lot more focused and approachable. I will eventually read GEB as well down the line, given my great experience with I am a strange loop.