Douglas R. Hofstadter quotes are thought-provoking, memorable and inspiring. From views on society and politics to thoughts on love and life, Douglas R. Hofstadter has a lot to say. In this list we present the 9 best Douglas R. Hofstadter quotes, in no particular order. Let yourself get inspired!
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Douglas R. Hofstadter quotes
It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order – and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order.
— Douglas R. Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern
Sometimes it seems as though each new step towards AI, rather than producing something which everyone agrees is real intelligence, merely reveals what real intelligence is not.
— Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
And one of my firmest conclusions is that we always think by seeking and drawing parallels to things we know from our past, and that we therefore communicate best when we exploit examples, analogies, and metaphors galore, when we avoid abstract generalities, when we use very down-to-earth, concrete, and simple language, and when we talk directly about our own experience.
— Douglas R. Hofstadter
I am a lifelong lover of form–content interplay, and this book is no exception. As with several of my previous books, I have had the chance to typeset it down to the finest level of detail, and my quest for visual elegance on each page has had countless repercussions on how I phrase my ideas. To some this may sound like the tail wagging the dog, but I think that attention to form improves anyone’s writing. I hope that reading this book not only is stimulating intellectually but also is a pleasant visual experience.
— Douglas R. Hofstadter
Saying that studying the brain is limited to the study of physical entities would be like saying that literary criticism must focus on paper and bookbinding, ink and its chemistry, page sizes and margin widths, typefaces and paragraph lengths, and so forth.
— Douglas R. Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop
No, no – I think about thinking
— Douglas R. Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop
Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law
— Douglas R. Hofstadter
It now becomes clear that consistency is not a property of a formal system per se, but depends on the interpretation which is proposed for it. By the same token, inconsistency is not an intrinsic property of any formal system.
— Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
A term meant to convey a person’s inability to make sense of the numbers that run their lives.
— Douglas R. Hofstadter
We don’t want to focus on the trees (or their leaves) at the expense of the forest.
— Douglas R. Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop
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