Just as we need our eyes in order to see, we need our “I”’s in order to be! We humans are beings whose fate it is to be able to perceive abstractions, and to be driven to do so. We are beings that spend their lives sorting the world into an ever-growing hierarchy of patterns, all represented by symbols in our brains.
— Hofstadter, Douglas R. I Am a Strange Loop. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basic Books, 2007.
