Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945) is an American cognitive and computer scientist whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, analogy-making, strange loops, ambigrams, artificial intelligence, and discovery in mathematics and physics. His 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid won the Pulitzer Prize f Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945) is an American cognitive and computer scientist whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, analogy-making, strange loops, ambigrams, artificial intelligence, and discovery in mathematics and physics. His 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and a National Book Award (at that time called The American Book Award) for Science. His 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology. Hofstadt… Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (ISBN 0-465-02656-7) (1979) Metamagical Themas (ISBN 0-465-04566-9) (collection of Scientific American columns and other essays, all with postscripts) (1985) Ambigrammi: un microcosmo ideale per lo studio della creatività (ISBN 88-7757-006-7) (in Italian only) Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies (co-authored with several of Hofstadter's graduate students) (ISBN 0-465-02475-0) Rhapsody on a Theme by Clement Marot (ISBN 0-910153-11-6) (1995, published 1996; volume 16 of series The Grace A. Tanner Lecture in Human Values) Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language (ISBN 0-465-08645-4) I Am a Strange Loop (ISBN 0-465-03078-5) (2007) Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, co-authored with Emmanuel Sander (ISBN 0-465-01847-5) (first published in French as L'Analogie. Cœur de la pensée; published in English in the U.S. in April 2013) Hofstadter, Douglas (2025). Ambigrammia Between Creat Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945) is an American cognitive and computer scientist whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, analogy-making, strange loops, ambigrams, artificial intelligence, and discovery in mathematics and physics. His 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and a National Book Award (at that time called The American Book Award) for Science. His 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology. Hofstadter's law is "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." The law is stated in Gödel, Escher, Bach. Hofstadter coined the term ambigram in 1983-1984 to define a calligraphic composition of glyphs (letters, numbers, symbols or other shapes) that can yield different meanings depending on the orientation of observation. It is a neologism composed of the Latin prefix ambi- ("both") and the Greek suffix -gram ("drawing, writing"). To explain visually the numerous types of possible ambigrams, Hofstadter created many pieces with different constraints and symmetries. Various university galleries have exhibited his work. In 1987, a book of 200 of his ambigrams, together with a long dialogue with his alter ego Egbert G. Gebstadter on ambigrams and creativity, was published in Italy. Hofstadter's 2025 book Ambigrammia Between Creation and Discovery ("ABCD") presents hundreds of his hand-crafted ambigrams in English, as well as a few drawn by his friends. The book is a reflection on this art form. His works of all types are presented in their historical context, with explanations of the particularities of each. David Chalmers – Toward a Theory of Consciousness Bob French – Tabletop: An Emergent, Stochastic Model of Analogy-Making Gary McGraw – Letter Spirit (Part One): Emergent High-level Perception of Letters Using Fluid Concepts Melanie Mitchell – Copycat: A Computer Model of High-Level Perception and Conceptual Slippage in Analogy-making Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (ISBN 0-465-02656-7) (1979) Metamagical Themas (ISBN 0-465-04566-9) (collection of Scientific American columns and other essays, all with postscripts) (1985) Ambigrammi: un microcosmo ideale per lo studio della creatività (ISBN 88-7757-006-7) (in Italian only) Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies (co-authored with several of Hofstadter's graduate students) (ISBN 0-465-02475-0) Rhapsody on a Theme by Clement Marot (ISBN 0-910153-11-6) (1995, published 1996; volume 16 of series The Grace A. Tanner Lecture in Human Values) Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language (ISBN 0-465-08645-4) I Am a Strange Loop (ISBN 0-465-03078-5) (2007) Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, co-authored with Emmanuel Sander (ISBN 0-465-01847-5) (first published in French as L'Analogie. Cœur de la pensée; published in English in the U.S. in April 2013) Hofstadter, Douglas (2025). Ambigrammia Between Creation and Discovery (ABCD). Yale University Press. p. 320. ISBN 978-0-30-027543-8. The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul (co-edited with Daniel Dennett), 1981. (ISBN 0-465-03091-2, ISBN 0-553-01412-9) and (ISBN 0-553-34584-2) Inversions, by Scott Kim, 1981. (Foreword) (ISBN Stanford University Presidential Lecture – site dedicated to Hofstadter and his work Douglas Hofstadter at DBLP Bibliography Server "The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think" by James Somers, The Atlantic, November 2013 issue Profile at Resonance Publications NF Reviews – bibliographic page with reviews of several of Hofstadter's books "Autoportrait with Constraint" – a short autobiography in the form of a lipogram GitHub repo of sourcecode & literature of Hofstadter's students work Douglas Hofstadter on the Literature Map Works by or about Douglas Hofstadter at the Internet Archive