I Am a Strange Loop

In Where Does the Self Come From? David Chalmers asks where the self comes from and how our selves can exist in the minds of others. If consciousness cannot arise from matter, he asks, how is it that you or I are here? In I Am a Strange Loop, he argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the strange loop-a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called I. How can a mysterious abstraction be real--or is our I merely a convenient fiction? Does an I exert genuine power over the particles in our brain--or is it helplessly pushed around by the laws of physics?