Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics.
He grew up on the campus of Stanford University, where his father was a professor, and attended the International School of Geneva in 1958–59.
In the foreword, Hofstadter explains that the book (originally published in 1958) exerted a profound influence on him when he was young.
He graduated with Distinction in mathematics from Stanford University in 1965, and received his Ph.D.
He was initially appointed to the Indiana University's Computer Science Department faculty in 1977, and at that time he launched his research program in computer modeling of mental processes (which he called "artificial intelligence research", a label he has since dropped in favor of "cognitive science research").
His 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid won both the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and a National Book Award (at that time called The American Book Award) for Science.
It includes interviews with Hofstadter about his work. == Columnist == When Martin Gardner retired from writing his "Mathematical Games" column for Scientific American magazine, Hofstadter succeeded him in 1981–83 with a column titled Metamagical Themas (an anagram of "Mathematical Games").
(, ) and () The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, 1983.
In 1984, he moved to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he was hired as a professor of psychology and was also appointed to the Walgreen Chair for the Study of Human Understanding.
They met in Bloomington, and married in Ann Arbor in 1985.
Teaneck, NJ: World Scientific, 1987. "To Err is Human; To Study Error-making is Cognitive Science" (co-authored by David J.
In 1988 he returned to Bloomington as "College of Arts and Sciences Professor" in both cognitive science and computer science.
In 1988 Hofstadter received the In Praise of Reason award, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's highest honor.
Hofstadter expressed doubt that the singularity will occur in the foreseeable future. In 1988 Dutch director Piet Hoenderdos created a docudrama about Hofstadter and his ideas, Victim of the Brain, based on The Mind's I.
(Preface) Sparse Distributed Memory by Pentti Kanerva, Bradford Books/MIT Press, 1988.
2, 1989, pp. 185–215. "Speechstuff and thoughtstuff: Musings on the resonances created by words and phrases via the subliminal perception of their buried parts", in Sture Allen (ed.), Of Thoughts and Words: The Relation between Language and Mind.
Jauch, Indiana University Press, 1989.
Carol died in 1993 from the sudden onset of a brain tumor — glioblastoma multiforme — when their children were 5 and 2.
Proceedings of the Nobel Symposium 92, London/New Jersey: World Scientific Publ., 1995, 217–267. "On seeing A's and seeing As", Stanford Humanities Review Vol.
The Carol Ann Brush Hofstadter Memorial Scholarship for Bologna-bound Indiana University students was established in 1996 in her name.
In this book, Hofstadter jokingly describes himself as "pilingual" (meaning that the sum total of the varying degrees of mastery of all the languages that he has studied comes to 3.14159 ...), as well as an "oligoglot" (someone who speaks "a few" languages). In 1999, the bicentennial year of the Russian poet and writer Alexander Pushkin, Hofstadter published a verse translation of Pushkin's classic novel-in-verse Eugene Onegin.
At Indiana University in 1999 he organized such a symposium, and in April 2000, he organized a larger symposium titled "Spiritual Robots" at Stanford University, in which he moderated a panel consisting of Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, Kevin Kelly, Ralph Merkle, Bill Joy, Frank Drake, John Holland and John Koza.
Hofstadter wrote the foreword and helped with the translation. ===Translations=== Eugene Onegin: A Novel Versification from the Russian original of Alexander Pushkin), 1999.
At Indiana University in 1999 he organized such a symposium, and in April 2000, he organized a larger symposium titled "Spiritual Robots" at Stanford University, in which he moderated a panel consisting of Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, Kevin Kelly, Ralph Merkle, Bill Joy, Frank Drake, John Holland and John Koza.
Clarke's first sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL 9000 is described by Dr.
() Who Invented the Computer? The Legal Battle That Changed Computing History by Alice Rowe Burks, 2003.
(Foreword) Alan Turing: Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker by Christof Teuscher, 2003.
(editor) Brainstem Still Life by Jason Salavon, 2004.
(Introduction) () Masters of Deception: Escher, Dalí & the Artists of Optical Illusion by Al Seckel, 2004.
Hofstadter was also an invited panelist at the first Singularity Summit, held at Stanford in May 2006.
(Foreword) King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry by Siobhan Roberts, Walker and Company, 2006.
His 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology. == Early life and education == Hofstadter was born in New York City to Jewish parents: Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert Hofstadter and Nancy Givan Hofstadter.
Hofstadter's 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop carries his vision of consciousness considerably further, including the idea that each human "I" is distributed over numerous brains, rather than being limited to one. Hofstadter's writing is characterized by an intense interaction between form and content, as exemplified by the 20 dialogues in GEB, many of which simultaneously discuss and imitate strict musical forms used by Bach, such as canons and fugues.
The Discovery of Dawn was published in 2007, and That Mad Ache was published in 2009, bound together with Hofstadter's essay Translator, Trader: An Essay on the Pleasantly Pervasive Paradoxes of Translation. === Hofstadter's Law === Hofstadter's Law is "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." The law is stated in GEB. === Students === Hofstadter's former Ph.D.
() The Discovery of Dawn from the Italian original of Walter Veltroni, 2007.
In April 2009 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society.
The Discovery of Dawn was published in 2007, and That Mad Ache was published in 2009, bound together with Hofstadter's essay Translator, Trader: An Essay on the Pleasantly Pervasive Paradoxes of Translation. === Hofstadter's Law === Hofstadter's Law is "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." The law is stated in GEB. === Students === Hofstadter's former Ph.D.
() That Mad Ache, co-bound with Translator, Trader: An Essay on the Pleasantly Pervasive Paradoxes of Translation from the French original of Francoise Sagan), 2009.
In 2010 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden. Hofstadter's many interests include music, visual art, the mind, creativity, consciousness, self-reference, translation and mathematics. At the University of Michigan and Indiana University, he and Melanie Mitchell coauthored a computational model of "high-level perception"—Copycat—and several other models of analogy-making and cognition, including the Tabletop project, co-developed with Robert M.
& D., living sparks of their Mommy's soul". In the fall of 2010, Hofstadter met Baofen Lin in a cha-cha-cha class, and they married in Bloomington in September 2012. Hofstadter has composed numerous pieces for piano and a few for piano and voice.
& D., living sparks of their Mommy's soul". In the fall of 2010, Hofstadter met Baofen Lin in a cha-cha-cha class, and they married in Bloomington in September 2012. Hofstadter has composed numerous pieces for piano and a few for piano and voice.
in April 2013) === Papers === Hofstadter has written, among many others, the following papers: "Energy levels and wave functions of Bloch electrons in rational and irrational magnetic fields", Phys.
(Foreword) Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science by Karl Sigmund, Basic Books, 2017.
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