I Am a Strange Loop (80 page)

Cartesian Eggo

Cartesian Ego; as commonsensical view; fading of

Cartesian Ergo

Cartier-Bresson, Henri

Caspian Gemstones, allegory of

casual façade as Searlian ploy

Catcher in the Rye, The
(Salinger)

categories and symbols;
see also
repertoires

categorization mechanisms: converting complexity into simplicity; as determining size of self; efficiency of

Caulfield, Holden

causality: bottoming out in “I”; buck of, stopping at “I”; of dogmas in triggering wars; and insight; schism between two types of; stochasticity of in everyday life; tradeoffs in; upside-down;
see also
downward causality

causal potency: of ideas in brain; of meanings of
PM
strings; of patterns

“causal powers of the brain”, semantic

cell phones as universal machines

Center for Research into Consciousness and Cognetics

Central Consciousness Bank

central loop of cognition

cerulean sardine

chain of command in brain

chainium (dominos), causality in

Chaitin, Greg

Chalmers, David; zombie twin of

chameleonic nature: of integers; of universal machines

Chantal Duplessix, seeing pixel-patterns as events; missing second level of Aimable’s remarks

chaos, potential, in number theory

Chaplin twins, (Freda and Greta)

character structure of an individual

Chávez, César

chemistry: bypassed in explanation of heredity and reproduction; of carbon as supposed key to consciousness; reduced to physics; virtual, inside computers

“chemistry” (interpersonal); enabling people to live inside each other; as function of musical taste alignment; as highly real causal agent; as “hooked atoms”; lack of, between people

“chicken” (meat)
vs.
chickens

chickens as edible creatures

children: as catalysts to soul merger of parents; as having fewer hunekers than adults; self-awareness of

chimpanzees

chinchillas

Chinese people, as spread-out entity

Chinese Room

chirpy notes and deep notes interchanged

Chopin, Frédéric; étude Op. 25 no. 4 in A minor; étude Op. 25 no. 11 in A minor; nostalgia of; pieces by, as soul-shards of; survival of

chord–angle theorem

Christiansen, Winfield

church bells

Church’s theorem

cinnamon-roll aroma in airport corridor

circular reasoning, validity of, in video feedback

circumventing bans by exploiting flexible substrates

clarity as central goal

Class A
vs.
Class B prime numbers

classical view of human identity,
see
Cartesian Ego, caged-bird metaphor

clouds: interpreted in sophisticated and simple-minded ways; unconsciousness of

club: of all prime numbers; of all wff numbers

coarse-grained copies of a soul

coarse-grainedness: of others’ souls inside us; of perception; in video feedback

codons in DNA

coffee: tracked in real time by symbols in brain; turned into theorems by mathematicians

“Cogito ergo sum”

cognition, central loop of

Cohn, John H. E.

coincidences in mathematics

coin-flipping, as robust statistical phenomenon

collages, curious

collective phenomena, as valid causes

colloidal particles

color feelings as subjective inventions

colors triggering knurking or glebbing

columns in visual cortex

combustion engines

comet approaching Jupiter

communication ease between people, factors influencing

communication rate between brains: as determining number of souls present; hypothetically tweaked in thought experiments

communication rate between hemispheres as determining degree of unity of brain

communication, techniques for

compassion; etymology of the word

completeness of
PM,
hope for

complexity threshold for universality

comprehensibility as crucial for survival

compression of KG to humanly graspable size

computational universality

“computer” as merely a historic term

computer searches
vs.
proofs

computers: as computing devices; invisibility of computation within; as non-computing devices; programming of; Stanford University’s only

concepts: activation of; as brain structures; embodied in simmballs; handed to people on silver platter; nestedness of

Condition humaine, La
(Malraux)

cone: of consciousness; of souledness

conscience: close link of concept and word to consciousness; of dogs, lions, and mosquitoes

consciousness: as an add-on feature to a brain; allegedly missing from my tale; another person’s, inside one’s own head; apparent but unreal; as automatic emergent consequence of brain design; as close relative of conscience; cone representing levels of; disintegrating; distributedness of; dollops of; equated with thinking; friendships, as criterial for; as illusion; locus, absence of; measured by musical taste; as mirage; not merely acting and claiming to be, but
being
; organic chemistry as source of; physicality of; as quantum phenomenon; “right stuff ” as source of; shades of gray in; and strange loops; as thinking; threshold for;
vs.
reflexes; the very stuff of

Consciousness, Capitalized Essence of

Consciousness Explained
(Dennett)

consistency of
PM
: certainty of; hope for

consistency of rock base of KJ

content: fed into “empty” feedback loop

contingent facts in geology but not math

continua of consciousness and souledness

control of your body by my brain

cookies that all taste good, by analogy

copies of another person’s memories, fidelity of

copycats, borrowing from others

core me-ness

corona during soul eclipse; soular

corridors; helical; truncated
vs.
endless

Cosby, Bill

counterfactuals: in formation of human self; by Stanley

counting, ill-definedness of

country
vs.
people

cows: as edible beings; experience of purpleness of; sacred

creativity
vs.
rigid rules

credit card, understanding of

crimes against animals

critical mass of soul-shards needed to qualify as some kind of survival

crystal lattice of atoms, as metaphor

C-3PO (robot)

cuteness

cyclic refilling of leaky flush toilet

cynicism, potential, on reader’s part

D

Dahl, Roald

Dalí, Salvador

dance of simmballs as thought

dance of symbols: as constituting another’s soul; as constituting consciousness; perceived by yet other symbols; as thought

darts thrown at text, causing rewriting

David and Lisa

Davies, Dennis

Dawkins, Richard

dear eater

death of Carol Hofstadter

death’s sting, reduced

Debussy, Claude

decision procedures

decisions as votes

deconstructing the “I” à la Zen

dedicated: machines; music boxes

Deep Blue (chess-playing computer)

deepest beliefs of humans involve macro-level concepts

De Morgan, Augustus

Dennett, Daniel C.; email exchange between author and; on his friend’s “desperate lark”; putting motto into friend’s mouth; teleportation fantasy by; “Where Am I?” story by; on zombies

Dennis the Menace, on leg that’s asleep

Descartes, René

descriptions of integers: long and short; vague

desires: as causal agents; in conflict with each other; imputed to flush toilet; imputed to soccer ball; imputed to sunflowers and vines; on meta-level; as prime movers; thwarted by obstacles; unanalyzability of

Desperate Lark

destructive-teleportation scenarios

detailed knowledge as blocking understanding

dialogues

diamond found in the Caspian sea

dichotomy: between the animate and the inanimate; between the physical and the nonphysical

die, unpredictability of tosses of

Dirac, P. A. M.

direct feeding: of brain solely by hard-wired perceptual system; of screen A solely by camera A

direct
vs.
indirect: motor control, shades of gray in; perception, shades of gray in

disease, microscopic causes of

dislodging: “I”-myth; “sun moves” myth

distance function in personality space

distorted image of self, in self-symbol

distributedness of human souls; butterfly metaphor for; easy to forget

dividuals, in Twinwirld

divine perversity

DNA

“dog”, category of

dog breeds, as proper level of discourse for dog breeders

doggie cam at kennel

dogmas, religious, as causing wars

dogs: compassion of; episodic memories of; as food; friends of; in heat; limited symbol repertoires of; magnanimity of; non-universality of; not entering into other dogs’ minds; as people; reverberant barking of; self-awareness of; size of strange loops in; as smaller-souled than humans; straining at the leash; as “who”, not “which”

dollops of Consciousness; fractional

domino chainium

Domino, Fats

domino theory of Cold War era

“doorways” in corridor

dots on a line, human souls likened to

doubts about “I”-ness

downloading virtual machines

downward causality; in brains; in careenium; in chainium; in combustion engines; disintegration of; in everyday life; in mathematics; in traffic jam

downwards reasoning: in mathematics; in mountaineering

dramaturgical conventions for pennable lines

Drawing Hands
(Escher), as strange-loop candidate; with one hand erasing

drawn
vs.
drawer, as upwards level-shift

dreads and dreams of sunflowers

dressing styles, tested out

droning, as telltale zombie behavior

Droste’s hot chocolate

du
(second-person singular pronoun) addressed to married couple

dualism: espoused by some neuroscientists; ever so gently parodied; giving up on; grazed by Sperry; implied by inverted spectrum; murkiness of; mystical terms of; pulls and pitfalls of; rejected by SL # 642; riddles evoked by

E

Eakins, Thomas, portrait of

“easy” and “hard” meanings of pixel patterns

eavesdropping, visual

eclipse of soul

ecstasy, unfelt

Edson, Russell

efficiency and survival

effortless decoding of isomorphism

egalitarian tendencies

ego, id, and superego

8, lonely cube in Fibonacci sequence

Einstein, Albert

élan mental
; sliding scale

élan vital

election as metaphor for decision-making

electromagnetic spectrum, as giving rise to visual sensations

electromagnetism: as fundamental force; as having unquestionably precise properties

electron spin, as unquestionably precise fact

electrons in non-conductors and in metals

elephant: squeezing into matchbox; squeezing DNA of, into matchbox

email exchange with Dan Dennett; act of compressing

embassies of a country, opposing caged-bird metaphor

emergent forces as patterns

emergent phenomena: in brain; in complex plane; in everyday world, coming from quantum-mechanical substrate; in minerals; resulting from
Principia Mathematica
pointing at itself; in video feedback

Eminem

emotional forces, as coloring one’s opinions

empathy as by-product of representational universality

empirical evidence
vs.
proofs

emptiness

emulation by one machine of another

English language, imprecision of

English translation of Bach aria words

Enrustle, Y. Ted

entelechy

entrenchedness of “I”: in main brain; in other brains

entwinement: of feedback loops; of human souls

envelopes in box; not perceivable individually

Epi (apparent marble in envelope box); parameters determining reality of; poem about; possible explanatory power of; seeming reality of

Epimenides

epiphenomena: in brain; in careenium; in envelope box; in minerals; in video feedback

episodes as concepts

episodic memory: central role of, in “I”-ness; containing precedents for new situations; of dogs; of human beings

episodic projectory

episodic subjunctory

Erdös, Paul

Ernst, Tom

errors, study of

Escher, Maurits Cornelis

essence: extraction of, in brain; pinpointing of, as the goal of thought

essential incompleteness

essentially self-referential quality required to make an “I”

esthetic pressures as affecting content

études (Chopin)

etymologies of words

Euclid’s
Elements

Euclid’s proof of infinitude of primes

Eugene Onegin
(Pushkin)

Euler, Leonhard

Everest, Mount

everyday concepts defining human reality; blurriness of

evolution: of brain complexity; of careenium; and efficiency; of hearts; producing meanings in brains as accidental by-product; producing universality in brains as accidental by-product; throwing consciousness in as a bonus feature

existence: blurriness of, of “I”

experiences, as co-present with “I”-ness; as determining “I”, not vice versa; “pure”, as unrelated to physics

experiencers
vs.
non-experiencers

explanations, proper level of

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