WIST Quotations

Hofstadter, Douglas -- “Pseudo-Conservatism Revisited — 1965,” sec. 4 (1965)

Dave — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 19:29:57 +0000

[The right wing] believe that their prestige in the community, even indeed their self-esteem, depends on having these values honored in public. Besides their economic expectations, people have deep emotional commitments in other spheres — religion, morals, culture, race relations — which they also hope to see realized in political action. Status politics seeks not to advance perceived material interests but to express grievances and resentments about such matters, to press claims upon society to give deference to non-economic values.

Douglas R. Hofstadter (b. 1945) American academic, cognitive scientist, author
“Pseudo-Conservatism Revisited — 1965,” sec. 4 (1965)
(Source)

Hofstadter, Douglas -- “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)

Dave — Wed, 30 Dec 2020 20:19:15 +0000

We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.

Douglas R. Hofstadter (b. 1945) American academic, cognitive scientist, author
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)
(Source)

Reprinted in Harpers (Nov 1964).

Hofstadter, Douglas -- “Understanding understanding,” Scientific American (Jan 1981)

Dave — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:46:44 +0000

When you’re not looking at it, this sentence is in Spanish.

Douglas R. Hofstadter (b. 1945) American academic, cognitive scientist, author
“Understanding understanding,” Scientific American (Jan 1981)
(Source)

Frequently misattributed to his most famous book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979). Reprinted in his Metamagical Themas, ch. 1 "On Self-Referential Sentences" (1985).

Hofstadter, Douglas -- Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, “Hofstadter’s Law” (1979)

Dave — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:12:23 +0000

Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Douglas R. Hofstadter (b. 1945) American academic, cognitive scientist, author
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, “Hofstadter’s Law” (1979)