I Am a Strange Loop

SL #641: I mean the self-reproduction of the double helix of DNA. The mechanism behind it all involves just the same abstract ideas as are implicated in Gödel’s type of self-reference. This is what John von Neumann unwittingly revealed when he designed a self-reproducing machine in the early 1950’s, and it had exactly the same abstract structure as Gödel’s self-referential trick did.

SL #642: Are you saying microgödelinos are self-replicating machines?

SL #641: Yes! It’s a subtle but beautiful analogy. The analogue of the Gödel number k is a particular blueprint. The “parent” machine examines this blueprint and follows its instructions exactly — that is, it builds what the blueprint depicts. To do that, it has to know what icons stand for what objects — a Gödelian kind of code, or mapping. The newly-built object is a machine that lacks one crucial part. To fill this lacuna, the parent machine then copies the blueprint and sticks the copy (which is the key missing part) into the new machine, and voilà! — the new composite object is a “child” machine, identical to its parent.

SL #642: This reminds me of the Morton Salt logo. Would the “child machine” lacking the crucial part be like the “umbrella girl” standing there empty-handed? And the blueprint would be a little blue salt box?

SL #641: Right! Hand her the little blue box, and she’s off to the races! Infinity, ho! And amazingly, only a few years later molecular biologists found that von Neumann’s Gödelian mechanism was the same trick Nature had discovered for making self-reproducing physical entities. DNA is the blueprint, of course. It all hinges on the existence of stable mappings (in this case, the mapping called the “genetic code”) and the meanings that come from them. And look where that led — to all of life, as far as it has come, and wherever it’s still heading! Infinity, ho!

SL #642: So you claim that the sense of being a unique living thing, reflected in the magical indexicality of the elusive word “I”, is not a profound phenomenon, but just a mundane consequence of mappings?

SL #641: I don’t think I said that! The sense of being alive and being a unique link in the infinite chain certainly is profound. It’s just that it doesn’t transcend physical law. To the contrary, it is a profound exploitation of physical law — hardly mundane! On the other hand, the all-too-common desire to mystify the pronoun “I”, as if it concealed a deeper mystery than other words do, truly muddies up the picture. The sole root of all these strange phenomena is perception, bringing symbols and meanings into physical systems. To perceive is to make a fantastic jump from William James’ “blooming, buzzing confusion” to an abstract, symbolic level. And then, when perception twists back and focuses on itself, as it inevitably will, you get rich, magical-seeming consequences. Magical-seeming, mind you, but not truly magical. You get a level-crossing feedback loop whose apparent solidity dominates the reality of everything else in the world. This “I”, this unreal but unutterably stubborn marble in the mind, this “Epi” phenomenon, simply takes over, anointing itself as Reality Number One, and from there on out it won’t go away, no matter what words are spoken.

SL #642: So the “I” is all too marbelous — too marbelous for words?

SL #641: What?! I thought you thought my “I” idea was for the birds.

SL #642: It’s true, I did, but I think I’m catching your drift. Perhaps I’m coming around a little bit. Your strange-loop view of an “I” is close to paradoxical, and yet not quite. It’s like Escher’s Drawing Hands — paradoxical when you’re sucked into the drawing by its wondrous realism, yet the paradox dissolves when you step back and see it from outside. Then it’s just another drawing! Most intriguing. It’s all too much, and just too very Berry… to ever be in Russell’s Dictionary.

SL #641: Ah, music to my ears! I’m so delighted you find a bit of merit in my ideas. As you know, they are only metaphors, but they help me to make some sense of the great puzzle of being alive and, as you kept on stressing, the great puzzle of being here. I thank you for the splendid opportunity of exchanging views on such subtle matters.

SL #642: The pleasure, I assure you, was all mine. And I shall await our next meeting with alacrity, celerity, assiduity, vim, vigor, vitality, savoir-faire, and undue velocity. Adieu till then, and cheerio!

[Exeunt.]

CHAPTER 21

A Brief Brush with Cartesian Egos

Well-told Stories Pluck Powerful Chords