I Am a Strange Loop

Page 326 What is this nutty Capitalized Essence all about? I concocted the phrase “Capitalized Essences” when I wrote the dialogue “Three-Part Invention” in [Hofstadter 1979].

Page 333 for all you know, what I am experiencing as redness… The most penetrating discussion of the inverted-spectrum riddle that I have read is that in [Dennett 1991].

Page 333 Bleu Blanc Rouge… The colors of the French flag are red, white, and blue, but the French always recite them in the order “blue, white, red”. This makes for a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that their color experiences are “just like ours, but flipped”.

Page 339 the so-called problem of “free will”… There had to be some arena in which Dan Dennett and I do not quite see eye to eye, and at this late point in my book we have finally hit it. It is the question of free will. I agree with most of Dan’s arguments in [Dennett 1984], and yet I can’t go along with him that we have free will, of any sort. One day, Dan and I will thrash this out between ourselves.

Page 340 the analogy to our electoral process is such a blatant elephant… This idea of “votes” in the brain is discussed in Chapter 33 of [Hofstadter 1985], as well as in the Careenium dialogue, which is Chapter 25 of the same book.

Page 345 gentle people such as…César Chávez… In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, deeply depressed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, I worked intensely for the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (later known as the “United Farm Workers of America”) for a couple of years, first as a frequent volunteer and then for several months as a boycott organizer (first for grapes, then for lettuce). In this capacity I had the chance to meet with César Chávez a few times, although to my great regret I never truly got to know him as a person.

Page 346 As far as I can peer back… The translation is my own.

Page 347 This was an abhorrent proposal… The translation is my own.

Page 347 a book entitled ‘Le Cerveau et la conscience’… This was [Chauchard].

Page 351 Many performers have been performing… The translation is my own.

Page 361 Riposte: A Soft Poem… There is a method to my madness in this section. In particular, both paragraphs were written to an ancient kind of meter called “paeonic”. What this means is that three syllables go by without a stress, but on the fourth a stress is placed, without its seeming (so I hope) to have been forced: “And yet to you, my faithful reader who has plowed all through this book up to its nearly final page…” One last constraint upon both paragraphs is simply on their length in terms of “feet” (which means stressed syllables). The number of these “paeons” must be forty, and the reason is, I’m mimicking two paragraphs of forty paeons each on page 5a of Le Ton beau.

Page 376 There is a method to my madness… There is a method to my madness in this footnote. In particular, the footnote both describes and represents an ancient meter called “paeonic”. What this means is that three syllables go by without a stress, but on the fourth a stress is placed, without its seeming (so I hope) to have been forced. I now will offer one small sample for your pleasure, and respectfully suggest that you try reading it aloud: “There is a method to my madness in this footnote…” In particular, I’ve got to use exactly forty feet because I’m mimicking two paragraphs of forty paeons each on page three hundred six-and-seventy of I Am a Strange Loop.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aitchison, Jean. Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon (second edition). Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1994.

Andersen, Peter B. et al. (eds.). Downward Causation: Minds, Bodies, and Matter. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2000.

Anderson, Alan Ross. Minds and Machines. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964.

Applewhite, Philip B. Molecular Gods: How Molecules Determine Our Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1981.

Ash, Avner and Robert Gross. Fearless Symmetry: Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Atlan, Henri. Entre le cristal et la fumée: Essai sur l’organisation du vivant. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1979.