Talk:Hofstadter's law/Archives/2012

Dictionary.com
This article is, with the exception of the quoted line, word-for-word identical to Dictionary.com's entry for Hofstadter's law. It needs to be rewritten.--An Enormous Laser Beam (talk) 18:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, dictionary.com is just quoting Wikipedia (this is what you mean, right?) Shreevatsa (talk) 19:33, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

What IS Hofstadter's law?
What exactly Hofstadter's law states is not in the article. I came to wikipedia trying to find out what it is, and I'm still just as confused. Someone who knows what Hofstadter's law is needs to add that in.--An Enormous Laser Beam (talk) 18:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Huh? It's exactly what it says in the article. Hofstadter's law is: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law". See also Parkinson's Law etc. Shreevatsa (talk) 19:27, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Hofstadter's law invalid
Strictly speaking the adage hofsatdter created and self-referred to as his law, is not a law. a law governs the behavior of a group or system, and/or all the components of the group or system. The only thing hofstadter's law appears to be governing is itself, and by reasonable uses of the words law and behavior, laws can not be said to exhibit behaviors.

If Hofstadter's law is not a paradox then it can be best described as tautology.

Some origin and context should be provided in the article. which chapter of egb was it stated in? actually, on second thought could this article please just get merged with an article on egb?208.125.126.250 (talk) 19:16, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The page number is provided in the footnote. What else do you need? Yworo (talk) 20:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Importance
I do not question Hofstadter nor GEB (which I haven't finished yet, but so far it is brilliant), but I wonder of the importance of the law. The only reference is the book itself, and for it to have its own article I feel that it should be mentioned someplace else. Anyone who is more into it, please try to add some additional sources / references. Quispiam (talk) 22:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)