{"title":"Books by Douglas Hofstadter","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780300275438","title":"Ambigrammia – Between Creation and Discovery","description":"On the history and creation of ambigrams, by a pioneer of the practice  “Spellbinding and truly one-of-a-kind. . . . This is an absolute delight.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)   In the 1960s and 1970s, a trio of imaginative individuals independently discovered that ordinary words and phrases could be given double readings by playfully distorting the letters composing them. These doubly readable words and phrases, if designed by an artistic eye and hand, could possess great visual beauty. Douglas Hofstadter named such calligraphic creations “ambigrams,” and over the decades he has designed thousands of them, as have his friends Scott Kim and John Langdon, the other main pioneers of the subtle art form he calls ambigrammia. ABCD (Hofstadter’s informal title for this book) offers a sampler of hundreds of Hofstadter’s ambigrams, along with a few dozen by Kim, Langdon, and others.      With deep links to cognitive science, ABCD exhibits ambigrams of many types and shows how ambigrammia can be extended in surprising directions. All along the way, Hofstadter discusses creativity and its alter ego, “discoverativity,” revealing how the “pocket sized creativity puzzles” that constitute the art form are pervaded by these complementary qualities. ABCD is also notably autobiographical: Hofstadter vividly recounts how his life has been intimately intertwined with the creation\/discovery of ambigrams in many countries and in many languages.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56232464253301,"sku":"9780300275438","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300275438_9d1a38fa-fa5c-4cab-9fff-3a7f47d218df.jpg?v=1786012799"},{"product_id":"9780465030910","title":"The Mind's I","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe timeless collection of philosophical writings on the nature of the mind and the self. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A\u003ci\u003e tour de force\u003c\/i\u003e of thinking around human and artificial intelligence.” –\u003ci\u003eHarvard Gazette\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With contributions from Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Dawkins, John Searle, and Robert Nozick, \u003ci\u003eThe Mind’s I\u003c\/i\u003e explores the meaning of self and consciousness through the perspectives of literature, artificial intelligence, psychology, and other disciplines. In selections that range from fiction to scientific speculations about thinking machines, artificial intelligence, and the nature of the brain, Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett present a variety of conflicting visions of the self and the soul as explored through the writings of some of the twentieth century’s most renowned thinkers.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56289944699253,"sku":"9780465030910","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780465030910_e4c83096-b322-4bdc-a0f5-4a9bdfcd5c60.jpg?v=1786013827"},{"product_id":"9780465030798","title":"I Am a Strange Loop","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks, where does the self come from -- and how our selves can exist in the minds of others.\u003c\/b\u003e Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, soul, consciousness, I arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eI Am a Strange Loop\u003c\/i\u003e argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the strange loop-a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called I. The I is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse. How can a mysterious abstraction be real-or is our I merely a convenient fiction? Does an I exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the laws of physics?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese are the mysteries tackled in \u003ci\u003eI Am a Strange Loop\u003c\/i\u003e, Douglas Hofstadter's first book-length journey into philosophy since \u003ci\u003eGödel, Escher, Bach\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCompulsively readable and endlessly thought-provoking, this is a moving and profound inquiry into the nature of mind.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56290390770037,"sku":"9780465030798","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780465030798_64dbf21b-a70c-426c-a478-6370ec93aee5.jpg?v=1786013826"},{"product_id":"9780465045662","title":"Metamagical Themas","description":"The eclectic and classic collection of essays from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eGödel, Escher, Bach\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Enormously ambitious and hugely interesting.” –\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hofstadter’s collection of quirky essays is unified by its primary concern: to examine the way people perceive and think.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56290394341749,"sku":"9780465045662","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780465045662_91e6634b-f8b6-45fa-8d7f-9bc62a596ec9.jpg?v=1786013842"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-douglas-hofstadter.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}