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Quote by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Work

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

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Author

Douglas R. Hofstadter

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“In place of my record stood a God whom I had mocked, ridiculed, and despised, a God whom I had ignored and considered myself to be above, independent of, and smarter than. Against all logic, He chose to set an ungrateful and condemned man free... again!”

“I get a prompt about using my Dissociative Cognition System. It takes considerable effort to make even that decision, but I manage to give my systems the OK and immediately I can step back from the crushing burden of misery, cut off from certain aspects of my own biochemistry so that I can function and make rational decisions. It was an essential mod, for someone who was going to be on their own for long periods of time without any social contact. My emotions are still out there, and I can get fascinating readouts about what that locked-away part of me is actually feeling, good, indifferent, bad, worse, but it doesn't touch me unless I choose to open the door again. It's a fine line, I suspect, between useful logic and that pathological numbness that true depression can often lead to, where doing or wanting anything seems like climbing uphill.”

“I am yet to find a happy computer, despite being the epitome of rationality. Likewise, I am yet to find a civilized animal, despite being the epitome of sentimentality. What this means is that, only with the right balance between rationality and sentimentality there can exist a magical creature called human, brimming with infinite potential - but mess up the balance, and you are stuck with either a cold mechanical world run by rationality or a red-hot uncivilized world run by brutality - both equally unfit for preserving civilized life.”

“Unfortunately no one knows anything and everyone has to know something to live anything which makes all people irrational and illogical more or less if they are not able to doubt everything. Evil minds take advantage of it to deceive even when it seems impossible there is deceit. They turn anyone against anyone but themselves and in the end they are the only ones favored. Immorality should not reproduce.”