Erowid
 
 
Plants - Drugs Mind - Spirit Freedom - Law Arts - Culture Library  
Follow @Erowid on Instagram!
cover image
The Mind's I
Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
Rating :
rating
Author(s) :
Douglas R. Hofstadter
 
Daniel C. Dennett
Pages :
501
Pub Date :
1981
Edition(s) at Erowid :
---(---)
Publisher :
Basic Books
ISBN :
0553345842
BACK COVER #
Brillian, shattering, mind-jolting, The Mind's I is a searching, probing book -- a cosmic journey of the mind--that goes as deeply into the problem of self and self-consciousness as anything written in our time. From verbalizing chimpanzees to scientific speculations involving machines with souls, from the mesmerizing, mazelike fiction of Borges to the tantalizing, dreamlike fiction of Lem and his Princess Ineffabelle, her circuits glowing red and gold, The Mind's I opens the mind to the Black Box of fantasy, to the windfalls of reflection, to new dimensions of exciting possibilities.

BLURBS #
"Ever since David Hume declared in the 18th century that the Self is only a heap of perceptions, the poor Ego has been in a shaky condition indeed....Mind and consciousnes become dispensable items in our accounts of reality, ghosts in the bodily machine....Yet there are indications here and there that the tide may be turning...and the appearance of The Mind's I, edited by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, seems a welcome sign of change."
--William Barrett, The New York Times Book Review

"Invigorating...A Heavy set of tennis for the brain."
-- Village Voice

"Exhilarating"
-- The Washington Post

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S) / EDITOR(S) #
Computer scientist Douglas R. Hofstadter won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction with Godel, Escher, Back, a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines. Now he and philosopher Daniel C. Dennett have collaborated on an anthology of stories, essays and their own thoughts about human and artificial intelligence.