Outer Reaches of the Palindrome Page: 34
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Since the advent of the wheel, recursive principles have been a driving force in the
evolution of technology. Logic and mathematics break down into recursive constituents.
Somewhere along the way, we found out that the earth's surface is a continuous curve- a
sphere, not a plane. Today, we live in a world that is exponentially becoming dominated by
computers. It seems that an ultimate goal of technology is to duplicate human intelligence, and
many computer scientists cite recursion as a means of achieving that goal. According to
Hofstadter, "Without doubt, strange loops involving rules that change themselves, directly or
indirectly, are at the core of intelligence.35"
Recursion in computer science can be metaphorized by the concepts of pushing and
popping, where," ...to push means to suspend operations on the task you're currently working
on, without forgetting where you are- and to take up a new task. The new task is usually said to
be "on a lower level" than the earlier task. To pop is the reverse - it means to close operations on
one level, and to resume operations exactly where you left off, one level higher.36 This structural
process seems widely rendered. A dream within a dream within a dream. A phrase within a
phrase. "Pushing" from departure and "popping" back into return. Hofstadter says that relevant
information is stored in a "stack," and he further likens such recursion in computer science to a
telephone call where you put several interrupters on hold. The stack tells you who is waiting on
each different level, and where you were in the conversation when it was interrupted.37
Recursion may be an important part of how we think, how we operate, how we problem-
solve. It seems as if technology is modeled after the recursive nature of the human mind. "It is an
inherent property of intelligence that it can jump out of the task which it is performing, and
survey what it has done; it is always looking for, and often finding, patterns.38" We hear music
recursively - in particular, we maintain a mental stack of keys, and each new modulation pushes34
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McConnell, Michael Constantine. Outer Reaches of the Palindrome, thesis, December 2003; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4407/m1/37/: accessed May 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .