Douglas Hofstadter

See also: Hofstadter

Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born on February 15th 1945) is an American academic. He is known especially for his work Gödel, Escher, Bach, the bits of an eternal garland , published in 1979, and which obtained the Prix Pulitzer in 1980. This book, whose title is often shortened in “GEB”, inspired by the thousands of students to launch out in a career in the fields of data processing and the artificial intelligence.

Wire of the Nobel Prize of physics Robert Hofstadter, it obtained its doctorate in physics of the university of Oregon in 1975. He is currently (2005) professor of cognitive sciences and data processing, assistant professor of history and philosophy of sciences, philosophy, comparative literature and psychology with the university of Indiana with Bloomington, where he directs the Research center on the Concepts and Cognition ( Center for Research one Concepts and Cognition Web site).

Hofstadter is Multilingue, having spent one year with Geneva in its youth. He lived in Sweden in the middle of the years 1960 and includes/understands Swedish. He speaks Italian, English, French, German and partially Russian - he translated itself certain parts of GEB into Russian. In its work the beautiful Tone of Marot (written in memory of feue its Carol wife), it is described as being “pi - ling” (knowing to speak 3.14159 languages) and “oligoglot” (speaking little about language).

Its fields of interests include/understand the subjects relating to the spirit, the creativity, the Conscience, the reference to oneself, the translation and the mathematical plays. At the university of Indiana with Bloomington, he was joint author, with Melanie Mitchell and others, of a model of “cognitive perception of higher level”, Copycat, as well as several other cognitive maps and of recognition of analogies.

Hofstadter seems not to publish much in academic periodicals (except for the publications of the beginning of its career of physicist, to see low); he indeed prefers the freedom of expression offered by greater works gathering his ideas. Consequently, its influence on data processing is more subtle and difficult to recall - its work inspired several research projects, but are not always quoted and are not referred formally.

When Martin Gardner ceased writing its chronicle Mathematical Jeux ( Mathematical Games ) in the review Scientific American , Hoftstadter took the changing with a chronicle entitled Thèmes Métamagiques , whose english language version “Metamagical Themas” is a Anagramme of “Mathematical Games”.

Hofstadter invented the concept of Critiques of this book ( Reviews off This Book ), a book containing only criticisms of the work itself referring one to the other. It presented its idea in its chronicle Thèmes Métamagiques :

“acts only of one personal imagination. I would like to see a book which would consist only of one collection of criticisms on book having appeared (after its publication, of course) in major newspapers and magazines. That seems paradoxical, but one could arrange it with much planning and difficult work. Initially, a group of major newspapers should all be intended to publish critics of the book by the various contributors with the work. Then all criticisms would start to write. But they should send their various drafts to all the others critical very regularly, so that all criticisms can evolve/move together, and thus finally to reach a state of a type known in physics under the name of “self-coherent solution of Hartree-Fock”. The book could then be published, after which its criticisms would appear in their respective newspapers, like agreed.”

Work of Hofstadter

Publications

All the publications are in English, except mention, and numbers ISBN refer to the editions with covers paper, if they exist:

Gödel, Escher, Bach, bits of an eternal garland (ISBN 0465026567) Translation in French of Jacqueline Henry and Robert French.
My Thémagie. In search of the gasoline of the spirit and direction ( Metamagical Themas in English) (ISBN 0465045669) (a collection of its chronicles in the Scientific American )
Ambigrammi: a microcosmo ideal per lo studio beyond creatività (in Italian only)
Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies (ISBN 0465024750)
Rhapsody one has Theme by Clement Marot. The Grace A. Tanner Reading in Human Been worth, 1995. (published in 1996)
the beautiful Tone of Marot: In Praise off the Music off Language (ISBN 0465086454)
a verse translation of Eugene Onegin by Aleksandr Pushkin (ISBN 0465020941)
Seen spirit. Imaginations and reflections on the being and the heart (ISBN 2729601767)
I Am has Strange Loop (appeared in 2007)

Hofstadter wrote the following scientific articles, among others.

Energy levels and wave functions off Bloch electrons in rational and irrational magnetic fields , Phys. rev. B 14 (1976) 2239. - Written during its stay at the university of Oregon, this article had a great influence on the direction which took subsequent research. Hofstadter predicted there that the values of the energy levels of an electron in this lattice, as a function of the magnetic field applied to the system, form a fractal unit. This means that the distribution of the energy levels for changes of large scales of the magnetic field applied to the system reproduces reasons observed in the structure with small scales. This structure fractale is generally known under the name of “Butterfly of Hofstadter”, and recently was confirmed by measures to two-dimensional systems of electrons with a lattice nano-manufactured superposé.
" With non-deterministic approach to analogy, involving the Ising model off ferromagnetism" , in E. Caianiello (ED.), The Physics off Cognitive Processes . Teaneck, NJ: World Scientific, 1987.
" Speechstuff and thoughtstuff: Subliminal Musings one the resonances created by words and sentences via the perception off to their buried parts" , in Sture Allen (ED.), Off Thoughts and Words: The Relation between Language and Mind. Proceedings off the Nobel Symposium 92 , London/New Jersey: World Scientific Publ., 1995,217-267.
" One seeing A' S and seeing As." , Stanford Humanities Review 4,2 (1995) pp. 109-121.
Analogy ace the Core off Cognition , in Dedre Gentner, Keith J. Holyoak, and Boicho NR. Kokinov (eds.) The Analogical Mind: Prospects from Cognitive Science , Cambridge, MY: The MIT Close/Bradford Book, 2001, pp. 499-538.
Hofstadter moreover wrote more than 50 articles published within the framework of its work to the Center for Research one Concepts and Cognition . See.

Hofstadter wrote the forewords, or collaborated in the following works as an editor:

The Mind' S I (Co-published with Daniel Dennett) (ISBN 0465030912)
Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. (foreword)
Gödel' S Proof (re-examined edition of 2002) by Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman, published by Hofstadter (ISBN 0814758169). Hofstadter mentioned this book like having had a great influence on its thought lasting its youth.
Who invented the computer? Legal The battle that changed computing history. (2003) by Alice Rowe Burks.
Alan Turing: Life and Legacy off has Great Thinker by Christof Teuscher (editor)

The film Virus of the Brain ( Virus off the Brain ) is based on work of Hofstadter, and he is the joint author with the philosopher Daniel Dennett, who also wrote The Mind' S I with him.

Hofstadter also published a compact disk of music which it published, interpreted by Janet Jackson, Brian Jones, Dafna Barenboim, Gitanjali Mathur in addition to itself.

Students

Some of the students of Hofstadter became famous:

David Chalmers
Melanie Mitchell
Robert French

Homage

In 2010, Odyssey two , the aberration of behavior of the computer HALL 9000 is indicated like a " buckle of Hofstadter- Möbius ".

To see

External bonds

personal Page of Douglas Hofstadter
Page of Douglas Hofstadter at the University of Indiana
Implemented of its idea '' Critiques of this book '' in line

----

Random links: