Douglas Hofstadter, who earned his MS (’72) and PhD (’75) in physics at the UO, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States. (Left: A colorized image of "Hofstadter's Butterfly," a fractal discovered by Douglas Hofstadter when he was at the UO.)
Perhaps most widely known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979), Hofstadter is a scholar of “multifarious interests” (as he puts it in his bio on the web site for Indiana University, where he is College Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science).
Hofstadter’s explorations into the human mind range from examining “errors as a window on the mind … to the mechanisms of creativity to the nature of consciousness … to reveal[ing] how analogy-making lies at the base of all human thought,” according to his bio.
He is especially intrigued by the role that “irrational analogical leaps” play in physics research and plans eventually to write a book on the topic.
The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, is an eminent scholarly organization whose early members included George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine and James Madison. The APS honors and engages distinguished scientists, humanists, social scientists and leaders in civic and cultural affairs. Hofstadter also was recently named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Read more about Douglas Hofstadter, the American Philosophical Society and Hofstadter’s books, including Gödel, Escher, Bach.
Read about a UO alum's provocative book, plus his further explorations into cognition.
Read the Q&A from our lively humanities roundtable and/or listen to the entire discussion.
Watch Ian McNeely's talk at Google, Inc. and read a chapter from his book, Reinventing Knowledge.
Check out the dazzling "math windows" in Deady Hall.