PREMIUM FEATURE
Advanced Search Filters
Filter search results by source, date, and more with our premium search tools.
"We have seen recursion in the grammars of languages, we have seen recursive geometrical trees, which grow upwards forever, and we have seen one way … - Douglas Hofstadter
"We have seen recursion in the grammars of languages, we have seen recursive geometrical trees, which grow upwards forever, and we have seen one way in which recursion enters the theory of solid state physics. Now we are going to see yet another way in which the whole world is built out of recursion. This has to do with the structure of elementary particles: electrons, protons, neutrons, and the tiny quanta of electromagnetic radiation called "photons". We are going to see that particles are - in a certain sense which can only be defined rigorously in relativistic quantum mechanics- nested inside each other in a way which can be described recursively, perhaps even by some sort of "grammar"."
English
Collect this quote
About Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is a mathematician, cognitive scientist, and Pulitzer Prize winning author.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Native Name:
Douglas Richard Hofstadter
Alternative Names:
Douglas R. Hofstadter
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Douglas Hofstadter
What does it matter if two brains are isomorphic, or quasi-isomorphic, or not isomorphic at all? The answer is that we have an intuitive sense that, although other people differ from us in important ways, they are still 'the same' as we are in some deep and important ways. It would be instructive to be able to pinpoint what this invariant core of human intelligence is, and then to be able to describe the kinds of 'embellishments' which can be added to it, making each one of us a unique embodiment of this abstract and mysterious quality called 'intelligence.
Through many types of abstraction and analogy-making and inductive reasoning, and through many long and tortuous chains of citations of all sorts of authorities (which constitute an indispensable pillar supporting every adult’s belief system, despite the insistence of high-school teachers who year after year teach that “arguments by authority” are spurious and are convinced that they ought to be believed because they are, after all, authority figures), we build up an intricate, interlocked set of beliefs as to what exists “out there” — and then, once again, that set of beliefs folds back, inevitably and seamlessly, to apply to our own selves.
Loading...