On Selves and I's A Lecture Apropos of Douglas Hofstadter's 'I Am a Strange Loop'

Abstract

How does a “self” come into being and in what ways does that relate to the concept of “strange loop”, as developed in Douglas Hofstadter’s I am a strange loop? To put the point in perhaps more properly Hofstadterian terms: how is it that self-reflecting beings come out of inanimate matter? How can a self come out of things (carbon, molecules, atoms, proteins and so on) “as selfless as a stone or a puddle”? How does all that “meaningless” stuff that makes us up in the physical universe, grow into an entity that can refer “meaningfully” to itself, perceive itself, talk about itself, become “self-aware”? The aim of this lecture is to provide an insight into Hofstadter’s core idea, by recostructing a general introduction to a philosophy of the so-called “consciousness”, with a little help from some key figures in the development of western rationality: Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gotthard Gunther, Heinz von Foerster and, finally, two leading figures in the domain of neuro-phenomenology, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Lecture (13.000 words) delivered on Tuesday 17th March 2015, before an audience of faculty members and digital arts & design undergraduate and postgraduate students of the Athens School of Fine Arts (Athens-Greece) and OCAD University (Toronto-Canada), as part of the “Future of Storytelling and Open Worlds Masterclass”, organized by the Digital Futures Program of the OCADU in collaboration with ASFA. The Masterclass was held at ASFA’s annex in Hydra, Greece (15th-20th March 2015).