Clarke, 2010, and "Hofstadter-Moebius loop"
Harry E. Foundalis
A few weeks ago, Brooks Moses brought up the issue of Clarke's
mentioning of an alleged "Hofstadter-Moebius loop", in 2010.
Brooks Moses wrote:
> "As a result, Hal developed what would be called, in human terms, a
> psychosis -- specifically, schizophrenia. Dr. C. informs me that, in
> technical terminology, Hal became trapped in a Hofstadter-Moebius
loop,
> a situation apparently not uncommon among advanced computers with
> autonomous goal-seeking programs. He suggests that for further
> information you contact Professor Hofstadter himself." (Clarke,
_2010_)
>
> Now, that's a significantly more interesting reference to
> self-referentiality. (And I must admit a great fondness for the
> "Hofstadter-Moebius loop" terminology!) Incidentally, anyone have any
> knowledge of Doug's opinions on this rather blatant reference? Is
there
> an interesting back-story behind this?
I answered to that that I wasn't aware of any back-story, but we could
"contact Professor Hofstadter" to find out. Which I did, last Monday.
I verified that he is indeed aware of Clarke's reference to his name. I
don't know if he ever found the time to read the whole book, but
certainly he knows about that paragraph.
Doug has no particularly strong reaction about this. He finds it amusing
to have a real and living person referenced in a sci-fi story such as
2010, but other than that, he sees no deep meaning in this idea. In
particular, he told me that he finds it a bit disturbing that of all
things he has been concerned with and written about, people associate
his name with 1-2 specific "labels", devoid of all other accompanying
meaning, such as "self-reference", or "Goedel-number". It's not that he
is not interested in these issues, but feels as if what has remained in
most people's minds is, so to speak, a bare "link" starting from the
"node" labeled "Hofstadter" and arriving to the node "self-reference"
(and, maybe also, vice-versa). Apparently Clarke does not stand out of
the crowd in this respect. Since the subject is self-trapping and
strange loops, this might invoke "Hofstadter" in one's mind, for whoever
is vaguely familiar with the association. And let's throw in some
"Moebius" as well, since everybody is familiar with his one-sided strip,
to make the idea more catchy. (I'm transferring in my own words what he
told me because I didn't have a tape recorder! But I'm doing my best to
be accurate.) He would feel more comfortable if it was more than bare
labels that existed in people's minds, including Clarke's.
That's what he told me before the discussion drifted to more
research-specific matters. Sorry if I (or rather, he) disappointed any
Clarke fans out there! :-)
Cheers from Bloomington, Indiana,
-Harry Foundalis.
John Rehling
[DRH]
> finds it a bit disturbing that of all things he has been concerned
> with and written about, people associate his name with 1-2 specific
> "labels", devoid of all other accompanying meaning, such as
> "self-reference", or "Goedel-number"
It would be funny if Doug's consternation in this regard became public
knowledge, and then the thing he was primarily known for, so that
people, upon hearing his name thought, "Oh, yeah -- that's the guy who
didn't like being associated just with self-reference."
There's a self-reference ABOUT self-reference for you. And because
(coming up in this forum) it associates DRH with self-reference, it is
an example of its own subject matter. And...
-JAR
--
Neurotic means he's not as sensible as I am, and psychotic means he's
even worse than my brother-in-law.
-Karl Menninger