062: Metamathematics is fun!

Elizabeth Marro asks, and I answer: travel, heat, playlists, work-noise, spilt nail polish, suitcase detritus, books--especially Douglas Hofstadter--and the reassuring beauty of logic

As we go on, the theme of Strange Loops will recur again and again. Sometimes it will be hidden other times it will be out in the open; sometimes it will be right side up, other times it will be upside down, or backwards.

—Douglas R. Hofstadter in Gödel, Escher, Bach

Elizabeth Marro opened her latest issue of “Spark” with a series of questions: Think about the week that is ending today. What will you remember? What gave you the most peace? What gave you a reason to smile? It’s been a long, hot, strange summer and this week I’m looking for beauty. How about you?

After I read this, my mind set a new personal best for “number of images sent to the conscious self on a loop.”

What will you remember? What gave you the most peace? What gave you a reason to smile? 

~ Walking around the Marineterrein neighborhood of Amsterdam. Scenes of Dutch modernist buildings, a canal cordoned off into swim lanes, an eco-restaurant-biolab-arts-centre with mycelium-based panels (i.e. mushroom huts), a vegetable…