Douglas Hofstadter is an American cognitive scientist, philosopher, and author. He was born on February 15, 1945, in New York City. Hofstadter is best known for his book "[[Gödel, Escher, Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid]]," which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1980. Hofstadter's work primarily focuses on the nature of consciousness, creativity, and intelligence. He combines insights from mathematics, computer science, psychology, and philosophy to explore these topics. His writing style is often characterized by its complexity and playfulness. In "Gödel, Escher, Bach," Hofstadter explores the connections between logician Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem, artist M.C. Escher's optical illusions, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach's music. The book delves into various themes such as self-reference, recursion, and the nature of meaning. Hofstadter has also written several other influential books including "Metamagical Themas," "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies," "I Am a Strange Loop," and "Surfaces and Essences." These works further delve into topics like analogy-making in cognition and the concept of self. Throughout his career, Hofstadter has made significant contributions to artificial intelligence research as well. He developed a computer program called Copycat that simulates analogical thinking processes. This program aims to understand how humans solve problems through analogy-making. Apart from his academic work, Hofstadter has been a professor at Indiana University Bloomington since 1977. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to cognitive science and continues to engage in interdisciplinary research while exploring the mysteries of human consciousness. # References ```dataview Table title as Title, authors as Authors where contains(authors, "Douglas Hofstadter") or contains(authors, "Douglas R. Hofstadter") or contains(subject, "Douglas Hofstadter") or contains(subject, "Hofstadter") ```