Now Hofstadter imagines that an observer who does not know the purpose of the domino network watches the dominoes performing and notices that one particular domino remains resolutely standing, never affected by any of the waves of downs and ups sweeping by. The observer points at [that domino] and asks with curiosity, ‘How come that domino there is never falling?’ We know that it is the output domino, but the observer does not. Hofstadter continues: Let me contrast two different types of answer that someone might give. The first type of answer – myopic to the point of silliness – would be,
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