The proverbial German phenomenon of the verb-at-the-end about which droll tales of absentminded professors who would begin a sentence, ramble on for an entire lecture, and then finish up by rattling off a string of verbs by which their audience, for whom the stack had long since lost its coherence, would be totally nonplussed, are told, is an excellent example of linguistic recursion.
—Douglas R. Hofstadter
Topics: Language, Audiences
Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
—Douglas R. Hofstadter
No matter what verbal space you try to enclose Zen in, it resists, and spills over … the Zen attitude is that words and truth are incompatible, or at least that no words can capture truth.
—Douglas R. Hofstadter
Topics: Zen
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
- Sam Harris American Neuroscientist, Atheist, Author
- Daniel C. Dennett American Philosopher, Atheist
- Steven Pinker Canadian Psychologist
- Jacques Derrida French Philosopher, Literary Theorist
- Stewart Brand American Writer
- Carl Sagan American Astronomer
- Hilary Putnam American Philosopher
- Joyce Carol Oates American Novelist
- Stephen Jay Gould American Paleontologist
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