On selves and I’s – A lecture apropos of Douglas Hofstadter’s "I am a strange loop"
Résumé
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: the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, who was indeed so wise and wrote such good books, Gotthard Günther, who happens to be one of the greatest 20th century logicians to ever walk this earth, Heinz von Foerster, a man of many disciplines and father of 2nd order cybernetics and, finally, two leading figures in the domain of neuro-phenomenology, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. The lecture was delivered on Tuesday 17th March 2015, before an audience of third-year Digital Design undergraduate students and faculty members of OCADU and ASFA, as part of the “Future of Storytelling and Open Worlds Masterclass”, led by the chair of the Digital Futures Initiative at OCAD University, professor Tom Barker. The Masterclass (15-20th March 2015) was organized by the Digital Futures Program of the OCAD University (Toronto-Canada) in collaboration with ASFA’s “Digital Arts” Postgraduate Studies Program and was held at ASFA’s annex in Hydra, Greece.