A Four-word. But more like Golf.

So a quick post on a general impression about the ideas in I Am A Strange Loop. His book GEB (Godel, Escher, Bach ...) was written in 1979 and predates I Am A Strange Loop by 28 years. The ideas in I Am A Strange Loop were (if I'm to understand the foreword correctly) initially to be a restatement of the ideas of his earlier book. The author states that this did not end up being the case.

In between the publication of GEB and I Am A Strange Loop, Hofstadter's wife died (1993, 14 years after the initial publication of GEB, 6 years prior to the edition that I currently have yet to read, and 14 years before the publication of I Am A Strange Loop) under tragic circumstances. The writing in I Am A Strange Loop seems charged with this event. It was something that I didn't notice at first. I think that the opening chapters are likely very similar in content to the earlier work. After the first mention of his wife's death, the tone changes. He details the period of time immediately after, and the restless thrashing and emotional turbulence that resulted. All of which led to a period of intense self-reflection and the revisitation of his earlier ideas through a tinted lens. At times it seems like the ideas that are generated through that time period are simply a means of reconciliation with the tragedy. But despite this, they maintain a sense of rationality and consistency that typically falls apart through emotional instability.