53 pages • 1 hour read
Douglas HofstadterGödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 18-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “EGB”
Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary: “Artificial Intelligence: Retrospects”
The Turing Test is an evaluation computation developed by scientist Alan Turing in 1950. In his article, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Turing began with a question: “Can machines think?” (595). In his designed test, an evaluator engages in a text conversation with a human and machine and attempts to tell which is artificial intelligence (AI). If the evaluator cannot tell, then AI has reached a tier on par with a human’s cognitive ability. Hofstadter explores the history of AI to the point of the book’s publication and argues that there is a difference between being able to produce a result (such as that constructed by AI computation) and understanding the result.
Contrafactus
Achilles and the Tortoise watch a football game at the Crab’s house with another friend, the Sloth. The Tortoise and Achilles arrive at the same time, having ridden together on a tandem unicycle, leaving from the same point. The characters watch the football game on television. The Crab tells his guests that if they do not like the outcomes of the game, they can fiddle with the television dials and change the results. The Sloth argues that being able to change the outcome of the game renders the entire activity pointless. The Crab, however, insists it makes the experience more interesting.
Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary: “Artificial Intelligence: Prospects”
Hofstadter explains that “Contrafactus” is an allegory for how human intelligence engages in a constant reconfiguration of data. Contrafactus deals in counterfactuals, meaning statements which contradict one another, forming a paradox. Formal systems are halted by self-referential, paradoxical statements. Human intelligence can consider possibilities through counterfactuals. A person driving down a road may see a swarm of bees and wonder what might have happened if the car windows were down. In this way, humans nest contexts and variables like Russian dolls to consider a variety of factors and outcomes. For artificial intelligence to exhibit the same level of intelligence as humans, it must have this type of flexibility: “There should be a large amount of flexibility in the program; it should not be doomed if, malaphorically speaking, it ‘barks up the wrong alley’” (657).
Sloth Canon
Achilles and the Tortoise visit the Sloth at his home. Achilles recounts his footrace with the Tortoise, which illustrated Zeno’s Theorem. Achilles sits down to play a simple piece of music, but the notes sound wrong. He tells his listeners that the keys of the piano are reversed, like a mirror.
Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary: “Strange Loops, or Tangled Hierarchies”
In this final chapter, Hofstadter raises questions about artificial intelligence and creativity. He recognizes that newer models are self-referential and can operate outside the need for humans to tell them what to do through hardware or software. Hofstadter proposes that machines will, like humans, one day exhibit a sense of free will, because thought emerges from how pieces are brought together and organized. However, Hofstadter distinguishes between self-modifiable software, which can alter its own rules, and inviolate hardware, which cannot be changed or damaged. He asserts that all loops or hierarchies have inviolate levels which cannot be altered.
Six-Part Ricercar
Achilles visits the Crab and the Tortoise to play music together. This final dialogue incorporates pieces of all of Hofstadter’s ideas as the characters discuss free will and consciousness. The dialogue intensifies as Hofstadter enters the text to talk to the animal characters, breaking the fourth wall. The final dialogue recalls the initial footrace and Zeno’s Theorem.
Part 2, Chapters 18-20 Analysis
In 2007, Hofstadter published a follow-up book to Gödel, Escher, Bach called I Am a Strange Loop. The scientist hoped to address strange loops further, which he believed were largely ignored for other aspects of the work. In I Am a Strange Loop, Hofstadter argues that meaningful intelligence is derived from meaningless symbols, and that the same is true for how a sense of self is created. This final section of Gödel, Escher, Bach contextualizes Hofstadter’s ideas about strange loops and consciousness while evaluating recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI).
Self-Reference and Strange Loops are the foundation of consciousness. Hofstadter claims that thoughts work like symbols in an algorithm: “In our thoughts, symbols activate other symbols, and all interact heterarchically” (691). As thoughts are configured along a tiered system, they become more complex. Through self-referential statements, the human mind forms meaning and discovers truth. These systems are recursive and form loops that return to the initial symbol. This corresponds with an earlier concept of figure-ground perspective. Humans can seamlessly toggle between basic thoughts, critical thinking, application, and transfer. Their minds work rapidly and cyclically through these different processing modes.
Humans also transcend the restrictions of a formal system by embracing contradiction and practicing what-if models. What separates human intelligence from AI is this emergent property. Humans can jump outside of a formal system and find meaning by using isomorphic or partially isomorphic mapping. This is partially attributed to humans’ powerful ability to use self-reference through reflection: “The self comes into being at the moment it has the power to reflect itself” (709). Hofstadter proposes that developing AI models that use the same set of skills as human intelligence requires a blending of hard and soft concepts by incorporating Connection and Openness Through Interdisciplinary Approach. Hofstadter closes by mapping how the works of Gödel, Escher, and Bach create strange loops of their own, cycling through complex configurations and simple symbols to create rich, layered textures of meaning. To further contextualize his point, Hofstadter closes with a dialogue that bookends the dialogue at the end of Chapter 1 by referencing Zeno’s Theorem and the footrace between Achilles and the Tortoise, creating one giant formatted loop within the text.
