12: Intelligence, Art, Music, and Life are a Strange Loop: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

The strange loop phenomenon occurs whenever by moving upwards or downwards through the levels of some hierarchical system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back where we started.

Godel Escher Bach is one of the most complex books Neil and I have ever read. It will have you thinking about minds, intelligence, AI, and reality in an entirely new way. It weaves together insights from music, art, mathematics, ant colonies, Lewis Carroll stories, and more unexpected places into a new understanding of how our minds work and how we might program computers to emulate them. You don’t want to miss it.

We covered a wide range of topics, including:

• What strange loops are and their presence in reality
• Unique perspectives on the strange loops of the mind, intelligence, and artificial intelligence
• The possibility of living in a simulation
• Defining intelligence and artificial intelligence
• Collective consciousness systems
• How art, music, and math relate with these strange loops
• Extra-sensory perception

And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Godel Escher Bach and to check out Nat’s notes on the book!

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on The Way of Zen by Alan Watts, to learn about Zen Buddhism and improving your life with it, and our episode on Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, to learn ancient wisdom for a better life.

Mentioned in the show:

• E-Mu systems [4:03]
• Principia Mathematica [4:58]
• Constant of recursion [5:50]
• Pulitzer Prize [7:35]
• American Mathematical Monthly [7:59]
• Godel Incompleteness Theorem [9:36]
• M.C. Escher paintings [15:15]
• The Never Ending Staircase [15:25]
• Inception movie [15:42]
• Man in an art gallery white space painting [16:20]
• Hands drawing hands [16:30]
• Turing test [39:06]
• Microsoft Twitter AI experiment [40:00]
• GoAI [41:03]
• Deep Blue program [42:03]
• Jung’s collective consciousness [58:18]
• Epimenides Paradox [1:09:24]

Books mentioned:

• Godel, Escher, Bach (Nat’s Notes)
• Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence [2:08]
• The Way of Zen [3:15] (Nat’s Notes) (Neil’s Notes) (MYT episode)
• Atlas Shrugged [7:30]
• In Praise of Idleness [9:49] (Nat’s Notes) (MYT episode)
• Sapiens [51:14] (Nat’s Notes)
• The Power of Habit [54:16] (Nat’s Notes)
• Antifragile [55:00] (Nat’s Notes) (MYT episode)
• The Red Book [59:16]
• The Power of Myth [1:00:28] (Nat’s Notes) (MYT episode)
• Emergency [1:02:26] (Nat’s Notes) (MYT episode)
• Amusing Ourselves to Death [1:16:58] (Nat’s Notes) (MYT episode)

People mentioned:

• Douglas Hofstadter
• Godel
• Escher
• Bach
• Elon Musk [2:05]
• Nick Bostrom [2:08]
• Lewis Carroll [6:06]
• Jeremy Bernstein [8:09]
• Bertrand Russell [9:49]
• Leonhard Euler [10:55]
• Isaac Newton [10:56]
• Charles Duhigg [54:16]
• Carl Jung [58:18]
• Dr. Jordan Peterson [59:54]
• Alan Turing [1:02:35]

0:00 - Introductory quote from the book, some information on the book, and some connections that the book makes.

3:24 - Some thoughts on the book, the logic and mathematics in the book, how it is constructed, and the exercises in the book.

7:49 - A couple of the quotes found on the back of the book and an in-depth discussion about the first section on Godel’s incompleteness theorem. Also, discussion on the strange loops with this theorem.

14:09 - The strange loop idea on making decisions, the incompleteness of all systems, and the strange loop from Escher with the never-ending staircase. Also, some other examples by Escher regarding loops.

18:18 - What defines an incomplete system, an example of this, paradoxes, and the multiple layers that define things.

20:19 - The strange loops within our own consciousness and relating these to death. Also, thoughts on the extreme complexity of the world.

22:28 - Discussion about creating artificial intelligence and how strange loops relate to that. Some discussion on a collective intelligence and some thoughts on us being a part of a collective intelligence, as well.

25:40 - Some examples of us being a collective system, like ant colonies or cells. Also, thoughts on our memory, data storage, and how it relates to constructing intelligence and consciousness.

30:25 - The idea of what intelligence exactly is, evolutionary pressures, and thoughts on whether technology will ever be able to experience emotion and gratitude. Some discussion on intelligence versus consciousness, as well.

33:20 - Thoughts on artificial intelligence and programming in intelligence and emotion into these artificial intelligence systems.

35:02 - How the book is more about a series of essays on these various topics, and how the author is just presenting his ideas and concepts for people to discuss.

35:39 - A quote from the book on recognizing another intelligence and the limiting perspective we each have. How we can never exactly know what another thing is experiencing or thinking.

37:22 - Thoughts on us living in a simulation and how we may never know since we cannot step out of the system and observe it as a third-party.

39:06 - Thoughts on the Turing test and it relating to intelligence in technology. Also, whether conversation and chess can be a suitable measure of intelligence, and thoughts on artificial intelligence beating us at certain things.

43:13 - How the Deep Blue program works and how excellent chess players don’t even see bad moves, they just know. Thoughts on intuition and intuition in artificial intelligence.

45:31 - Thinking computers and processing power, and lower level processes. Also, what core lessons can be learned from this book and some more thoughts on the simulation theory.

49:15 - Discussion on the sense of self, the evolution of artificial intelligence, the huge power of the internet, and how we’ve domesticated wheat.

53:27 - More thoughts on the collective consciousness and the correlation between termite mounds and us. Also, how many structures may exist that we can’t perceive due to not having the ability to, similar to termites and ants with their structures.

57:21 - How just creating the binary system isn’t enough due to cause intelligence and the strange loops with this. Also, the collective symbols that exist between one another and thoughts on these exist.

1:00:27 - How our fears may affect what mythological stories stick and persist.

1:02:32 - Alan Turing and extra-sensory perception, and thoughts on ESP being real.

1:06:10 - The strange loop of questioning our own sanity and how questioning our sanity creates this tighter and tighter vortex of uncertainty. Also, this relating to questioning living in a simulation. Thoughts on solipsism, as well.

1:09:09 - The necessity of strange loops and if a system is self-referential, it has strange loops. The Epimenides paradox and self-referential paradoxes. Also, discussion on our symbol pattern recognizing system.

1:15:15 - Stoicism’s perspective on thinking about death versus Zen Buddhism’s perspective on thinking about death.

1:16:30 - Wrap-up and some closing thoughts on the book.

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