I Am Not a Strange Loop

I've been lingering on the theme of non-intuitive truths for the last couple of days, and just by strange coincidence Douglas Hofstadter's new book, I Am a Strange Loop, goes on sale on Monday. Hofstadter did more than anyone to popularize Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, which is a widely-accepted proof that there are some truths that cannot be proven (or disproven) within the realm of any formal logical system. Ever since he won a Pulitzer Prize for Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Hofstadter has been the patron saint of head-twisting paradoxes, especially those related to consciousness.

Good news! Hofstadter is finally going to get down to business and really drill into the question of consciousness.

Bad news! Hofstadter calls consciousness a "mirage." D'oh!

I suppose I should read the book first before passing judgement. (I just placed my order.) But I find it aggrevating when people use such ephemeral language to describe what is actually the most obvious truth which we can directly apprehend. The one thing that we know for sure, more than anything else, is that we are aware. Another Douglas H. spent most of his life demonstrating to people that our apprehension of awareness was more fundamental than anything else we knew. Mirage, my ass.