For the large part of Douglas Hofstader's life he has been interested in the underpinnings of consciousness. When his sister, Molly, was born with an unnamed neurological disorder, he became fascinated by the brain, neuroscience and the basic physical aspects of what makes up a person's sense of self. From an early age he realized that it is a minds ability to look into itself that helps to make it what it is. This act of self-referencing is called a "strange loop". Hofstader's first book, Gödel, Escher, Bach, contained some early attempts at explaining this.
Prologue
Chapter 1: On Souls and Their Sizes
Chapter 2: This Teetering Bulb of Dread and Dream
Chapter 3: The Causal Potency of Patterns
Chapter 4: Loops, Goals, and Loopholes
Chapter 5: On Video Feedback
Chapter 6: Of Selves and Symbols
Chapter 7: The Epi Phenomenon
Chapter 8: Embarking on a Strange-Loop Safari
Chapter 9: Pattern and Provability
Chapter 10: Gödel's Quitessential Strange Loop
Chapter 11: How Analogy Makes Meaning
Chapter 12: On Downward Causality
Chapter 13: The Elusive Apple of My "I"
Chapter 14: Strangeness in the "I" of the Beholder
