George is a super accomplished science writer and we both share a close mutual friend. Here he reviews Douglas Hofstadter’s new book in The Scientific American.
Money quote:
Think of your eyes as that video camera, but with a significant upgrade: a mechanism, the brain, that not only registers images but abstracts them, arranging and constantly rearranging the data into mental structures–symbols, Hofstadter calls them–that stand as proxies for the exterior world. Along with your models of things and places are symbols for each of your friends, family members and colleagues, some so rich that the people almost live in your head.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 