How long does it take to read I Am a Strange Loop?
I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter takes about 8 hours to read at 250 words a minute.
About 8 hours
A week or two of reading
First published 2007. 436 pages, about 119,900 words.
16 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 13 hours 19 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 8 hours |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours |
The page count is the median across 8 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Hofstadter's long-awaited return to the themes of Gödel, Escher, Bach--an original and controversial view of the nature of consciousness and identity. What do we mean when we say "I"? Can a self, a soul, a consciousness, an "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? This book argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. Deep down, a human brain is a chaotic soup of particles, on a higher level it is a jungle of neurons, and on a yet higher level it is a network of abstractions that we call "symbols." The most central and complex symbol in your brain or mine is the one we both call "I." But how can such a mysterious abstraction be real--or is our "I" merely a convenient fiction?--From publisher description.
Subjects: Self (Philosophy), Intellect, Consciousness, Soul, Kognitiver Prozess, Metamathematik
