Douglas Hofstadter: Victim of the Brain
Dec. 19th, 2013 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkaySo, being on a bit of a Hostadter kick recently, I was surprised to discover the existence of a 1988 film about him: Douglas Hofstadter: Victim of the Brain. It's a curious film, and one that I can't precisely *recommend*, but which had enough interesting features to be worth talking about. It intersperses footage of an interview with Hofstadter with a number of fictionalized adaptations of some philosophical scenarios he has proposed. And, just for extra randomness, an adaptation of a Stanislaw Lem story that covers related topics.
The film was written and directed by a Dutch fellow, and his heavy accent seriously interfered with my enjoyment. Hofstadter isn't the best interview subject, as his ideas are often hard to convey in off-the-cuff speech (or even with the help of a blackboard). Plus, of course, many of those ideas now seem rather out-dated, however cutting-edge they were at the time.
I knew that the film was a Dutch production, so I was a bit startled by the opening shot: "Gosh, that looks just like an MBTA Commuter Rail train pulling into South Station." Turns out, that's just what it was. When this was made, Hofstadter was working at MIT, so they filmed it locally (even the far-future SF scenes, some of which looked pretty familiar). There's many shots of Boston and Cambridge in the late 80s. The hotel that Arisia was in for many years features prominently.
My favorite section was the one where Daniel Dennet (played -- sort of -- by himself) gets his brain surgically removed and put in a vat by Marvin Minsky (I think also playing himself). You see, they needed a body controlled by radio, For Reasons. Naturally, hijinks ensue. (The moral![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kestrell took from this film was "Never let Marvin Minsky get at your brain.")
It's not a *good* film, but it's an interesting time capsule of cognitive science and Cambridge in the late 80s.
The film was written and directed by a Dutch fellow, and his heavy accent seriously interfered with my enjoyment. Hofstadter isn't the best interview subject, as his ideas are often hard to convey in off-the-cuff speech (or even with the help of a blackboard). Plus, of course, many of those ideas now seem rather out-dated, however cutting-edge they were at the time.
I knew that the film was a Dutch production, so I was a bit startled by the opening shot: "Gosh, that looks just like an MBTA Commuter Rail train pulling into South Station." Turns out, that's just what it was. When this was made, Hofstadter was working at MIT, so they filmed it locally (even the far-future SF scenes, some of which looked pretty familiar). There's many shots of Boston and Cambridge in the late 80s. The hotel that Arisia was in for many years features prominently.
My favorite section was the one where Daniel Dennet (played -- sort of -- by himself) gets his brain surgically removed and put in a vat by Marvin Minsky (I think also playing himself). You see, they needed a body controlled by radio, For Reasons. Naturally, hijinks ensue. (The moral
kestrell took from this film was "Never let Marvin Minsky get at your brain.")It's not a *good* film, but it's an interesting time capsule of cognitive science and Cambridge in the late 80s.