Listen free for 30 days
-
I Am a Strange Loop
- Narrated by: Greg Baglia
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $39.38
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
You may also enjoy...
-
The Emperor's New Mind
- Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics
- Written by: Roger Penrose
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. The book's central concern is what philosophers call the "mind-body problem". Penrose examines what physics and mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they can't, and what we need to know to understand the physical processes of consciousness.
-
-
quite an adventure !
- By Michel Chehata on 2020-06-30
Written by: Roger Penrose
-
Surfaces and Essences
- Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking
- Written by: Douglas Hofstadter, Emmanuel Sander
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 33 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Analogy is the core of all thinking. This is the simple but unorthodox premise that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas Hofstadter and French psychologist Emmanuel Sander defend in their new work. Hofstadter has been grappling with the mysteries of human thought for over 30 years. Now, with his trademark wit and special talent for making complex ideas vivid, he has partnered with Sander to put forth a highly novel perspective on cognition.
-
-
Excellent
- By cocolombo on 2019-11-11
Written by: Douglas Hofstadter, and others
-
Chaos
- Making a New Science
- Written by: James Gleick
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the 20th century's third revolution.
-
-
Hard to understand and listen to
- By N S on 2021-12-10
Written by: James Gleick
-
The Big Picture
- On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
- Written by: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on the Higgs boson and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void?
-
-
Maybe angels are transgender...
- By Count Erklock on 2019-10-12
Written by: Sean Carroll
-
The Order of Time
- Written by: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most listeners, this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it appears. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where, at the most fundamental level, time disappears.
-
-
More like this please
- By Jihane Mriouah on 2019-04-19
Written by: Carlo Rovelli
-
Your Brain Is a Time Machine
- The Neuroscience and Physics of Time
- Written by: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.
-
-
Ok
- By Mark on 2021-07-25
Written by: Dean Buonomano
-
The Emperor's New Mind
- Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics
- Written by: Roger Penrose
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. The book's central concern is what philosophers call the "mind-body problem". Penrose examines what physics and mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they can't, and what we need to know to understand the physical processes of consciousness.
-
-
quite an adventure !
- By Michel Chehata on 2020-06-30
Written by: Roger Penrose
-
Surfaces and Essences
- Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking
- Written by: Douglas Hofstadter, Emmanuel Sander
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 33 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Analogy is the core of all thinking. This is the simple but unorthodox premise that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas Hofstadter and French psychologist Emmanuel Sander defend in their new work. Hofstadter has been grappling with the mysteries of human thought for over 30 years. Now, with his trademark wit and special talent for making complex ideas vivid, he has partnered with Sander to put forth a highly novel perspective on cognition.
-
-
Excellent
- By cocolombo on 2019-11-11
Written by: Douglas Hofstadter, and others
-
Chaos
- Making a New Science
- Written by: James Gleick
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the 20th century's third revolution.
-
-
Hard to understand and listen to
- By N S on 2021-12-10
Written by: James Gleick
-
The Big Picture
- On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
- Written by: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on the Higgs boson and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void?
-
-
Maybe angels are transgender...
- By Count Erklock on 2019-10-12
Written by: Sean Carroll
-
The Order of Time
- Written by: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most listeners, this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it appears. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where, at the most fundamental level, time disappears.
-
-
More like this please
- By Jihane Mriouah on 2019-04-19
Written by: Carlo Rovelli
-
Your Brain Is a Time Machine
- The Neuroscience and Physics of Time
- Written by: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.
-
-
Ok
- By Mark on 2021-07-25
Written by: Dean Buonomano
-
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
- Written by: Julian Jaynes
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes' still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only 3,000 years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion - and indeed our future.
-
-
An beautifully crafted theory from a genius
- By Anonymous User on 2018-09-18
Written by: Julian Jaynes
-
The Varieties of Religious Experience
- Written by: William James
- Narrated by: Lee Winfield
- Length: 18 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This landmark work by William James remains one of the most insightful books on psychology and spirituality. James considers the feelings, actions, and experiences of individuals, insofar as they understand themselves to be in a relationship with the divine. It examines the religion of everyday life and has nothing to do with doctrine or dogma.
-
-
Deep intelligent listening
- By Anonymous User on 2022-11-16
Written by: William James
-
Consciousness Explained
- Written by: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Paul Mantell
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The national bestseller chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 1991 is now available as an audiobook. The author of Brainstorms, Daniel C. Dennett replaces our traditional vision of consciousness with a new model based on a wealth of fact and theory from the latest scientific research.
-
-
Tremendous work, but recommend print version
- By William Bennett on 2019-01-28
Written by: Daniel C. Dennett
-
I've Been Thinking...
- Written by: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Daniel C. Dennett—preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist—has spent his career creating the basis for a naturalistic account of consciousness with acumen and elegance. I’ve Been Thinking traces the development of Dennett’s own intellect and instructs us how we too can become good thinkers. Dennett’s restless curiosity leads him from his childhood in Beirut to Harvard, and from Parisian jazz clubs to “tillosophy” on his tractor in Maine. Along the way, he reveals the breakthroughs and misjudgments that shaped his paradigm-shifting philosophies.
Written by: Daniel C. Dennett
-
The Invention of Science
- A New History of the Scientific Revolution
- Written by: David Wootton
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 22 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this fascinating history spanning continents and centuries, historian David Wootton offers a lively defense of science, revealing why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history. The Invention of Science goes back 500 years in time to chronicle this crucial transformation, exploring the factors that led to its birth and the people who made it happen. Wootton argues that the Scientific Revolution was actually five separate yet concurrent events that developed independently.
-
-
Good
- By ArcesseEum on 2018-01-02
Written by: David Wootton
-
Lost in Math
- How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
- Written by: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: Observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria.
-
-
Good Public Wake-up Call
- By Shesophist on 2019-05-01
Written by: Sabine Hossenfelder
Publisher's Summary
One of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks where the self comes from - and how our selves can exist in the minds of others.
Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, soul, consciousness, "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here?
I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop" - a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called "I". The "I" is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse.
How can a mysterious abstraction be real - or is our "I" merely a convenient fiction? Does an "I" exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the laws of physics?
These are the mysteries tackled in I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter's first book-length journey into philosophy since Gödel, Escher, Bach. Compulsively listenable and endlessly thought-provoking, this is a moving and profound inquiry into the nature of mind.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
What the critics say
"I Am a Strange Loop is vintage Hofstadter: earnest, deep, overflowing with ideas, building its argument into the experience of reading it - for if our souls can incorporate those of others, then I Am a Strange Loop can transmit Hofstadter's into ours. And indeed, it is impossible to come away from this book without having introduced elements of his point of view into our own. It may not make us kinder or more compassionate, but we will never look at the world, inside or out, in the same way again." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)
"Nearly thirty years after his best-selling book Gödel, Escher, Bach, cognitive scientist and polymath Douglas Hofstadter has returned to his extraordinary theory of self." (New Scientist)
"I Am a Strange Loop scales some lofty conceptual heights, but it remains very personal, and it's deeply colored by the facts of Hofstadter's later life. In 1993 Hofstadter's wife Carol died suddenly of a brain tumor at only 42, leaving him with two young children to care for.... I Am a Strange Loop is a work of rigorous thinking, but it's also an extraordinary tribute to the memory of romantic love: The Year of Magical Thinking for mathematicians." (Time)
More from the same
What listeners say about I Am a Strange Loop
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ynordu
- 2019-03-25
awesome
read this book at all costs. this is my favourite philosopher right now. crazy stuff.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ruy
- 2019-11-01
Good theme, some chapters too dense
Other parts I can't find a good match with the rest of the main theme
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- tyler
- 2023-04-22
Okay
The author is fundamentally misunderstood in the fact that the moral delema of killing creatures comes down to the design of life and transferring energy.
A lion doesn't have a moral issue killing and consuming so a chapter dedicated to what is a soul by explaining his vegetarianism just wastes the readers time.
A lot of the book seems to be dedicated to the authors ego, it seems.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Arpad Benedek
- 2021-01-12
Interesting subject, but arguments long.
I think the book discusses an interesting subject but it is very slow in arriving to the conclusion. I red Gödel, Escher, Bach and I loved it therefore I chose this book. Probably it is just me but I felt bored often while listening to it. The conclusion is interesting though arguable, the arguments for it too long. The narrator was good, though there was a slight annoyance every time he mispronounced Gödel, I kept hearing girdle.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2024-01-16
Interesting but flawed
The idea that you exist in others and others exist in you has some truth, but without communication or transfer of data from one self to another a dual soul doesn't exist.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful