I Am a Strange Loop - Douglas R. Hofstadter [10]
And so now I will stop talking about my book, and will let my book talk for itself. In it I hope you will discover messages imbued with interest and novelty, and even with a useful, if no longer youthful, vitality. I hope that reading this book will make you reflect in fresh ways on what being human is all about — in fact, on what just-plain being is all about. And I hope that when you put the book down, you will perhaps be able to imagine that you, too, are a strange loop. Now that would please me no end.
— Bloomington, Indiana
December, MMVI.
PROLOGUE
An Affable Locking of Horns
[As I stated in the Preface, I wrote this dialogue when I was a teen-ager, and it was my first, youthful attempt at grappling with these difficult ideas.]
Dramatis personæ:
Plato: a seeker of truth who suspects consciousness is an illusion
Socrates: a seeker of truth who believes in consciousness’ reality
PLATO: But what then do you mean by “life”, Socrates? To my mind, a living creature is a body which, after birth, grows, eats, learns how to react to various stimuli, and which is ultimately capable of reproduction.
SOCRATES: I find it interesting, Plato, that you say a living creature is a body, rather than has a body. For surely, many people today would say that there are at least some living creatures that have souls independent of their bodies.
PLATO: Yes, and with those I would agree. I should have said that living creatures have bodies.
SOCRATES: Then you would agree that fleas and mice have souls, however insignificant.
PLATO: My definition does require that, yes.
SOCRATES: And do trees have souls, and blades of grass?
PLATO: You have used words to put me in this situation, Socrates. I will revise what I said — only animals have souls.
SOCRATES: But no, I have not only used words, for there is no distinction to be found between plants and animals, if you examine small enough creatures.
PLATO: You mean there are some creatures sharing the properties of plant and animal? Yes, I guess I can imagine such a thing, myself. Now I suppose you will force me into saying that only humans have souls. SOCRATES: No, on the contrary, I will ask you, what animals do you usually consider to have souls?
PLATO: Why, all higher animals — those which are able to think. SOCRATES: Then, at least higher animals are alive. Now can you truly consider a stalk of grass to be a living creature like yourself?
PLATO: Let me put it this way, Socrates: I can only imagine true life with a soul, and so I must discard grass as true life, though I could say it has the symptoms of life.
SOCRATES: I see. So you would classify soulless creatures as only appearing alive, and creatures with souls as true life. Then am I right if I say that your question “What is true life?” depends on the understanding of the soul?
PLATO: Yes, that is right.
SOCRATES: And you have said that you consider the soul as the ability to think?
PLATO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then you are really seeking the answer to “What is thinking?” PLATO: I have followed each step of your argument, Socrates, but this conclusion makes me uneasy.
SOCRATES: It has not been my argument, Plato. You have provided all the facts, and I have only drawn logical conclusions from them. It is curious, how one often mistrusts one’s own opinions if they are stated by someone else.
PLATO: You are right, Socrates. And surely it is no simple task to explain thinking. It seems to me that the purest thought is the knowing of something; for clearly, to know something is more than just to write it down or to assert it. These can be done if one knows something; and one can learn to know something from hearing it asserted or from seeing it written. Yet knowing is more than this — it is conviction — but I am only using a synonym. I find it beyond me to understand