Hofstadter, author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, argues that the self is not a ghostly substance but a pattern: a “strange loop” in which a system comes to represent itself, and that self-representation feeds back to shape what the system does. Just as Gödel showed that mathematics can make statements about itself, the brain builds symbols that refer to its own activity - and out of that self-reference the feeling of an “I” emerges. On this view the self is both real and a kind of beautiful illusion. Hofstadter adds a moving thought: we also live on, in part, in the minds of those who love us.