what do we mean when we say i can thought arise out of matter 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 i am a strange loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the strange loopa special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains deep down a human brain is a chaotic seething 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 the i is the nexus in our brain where the levels feed back into each other and flip causality upside down with symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around rather than the reverse for each human being this i seems to be the realest thing in the world but how can such a mysterious abstraction be realor 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 allpowerful laws of physics these are the mysteries tackled in i am a strange loop douglas r hofstadters first booklength journey into philosophy since godel escher bach compulsively readable and endlessly thoughtprovoking this is the book hofstadters many readers have long been waiting for