Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

Prelude . . . Ant Fugue 156ACHILLES: Oh, really? Such as what?CRAB: Such as hearing it through the ears, so to speak, of someone to whom it is a totallynew experience-someone such as you, Achilles. Somehow the excitement transmits itself,and I can feel thrilled again.ACHILLES: That is intriguing. The thrill has remained dormant somewhere inside you, butby yourself, you aren't able to fish it up out of your subconscious.CRAB: Exactly. The potential of reliving the thrill is "coded," in some unknown way, in thestructure of my brain, but I don't have the power to summon it up at will; I have to wait forchance circumstance to trigger it.ACHILLES: I have a question about fugues which I feel a little embarrassed about asking,but as I am just a novice at fugue-listening, I was wondering if perhaps one of you seasonedfugue-listeners might help me in learning? ...TORTOISE: I'd certainly like to offer my own meager knowledge, if it might prove of someassistance.ACHILLES: Oh, thank you. Let me come at the question from an angle. Are you familiarwith the print called Cube with Magic Ribbons, by M. C. Escher?TORTOISE: In which there are circular bands having bubblelike distortions which, as soonas you've decided that they are bumps, seem to turn into dents-and vice versa?ACHILLES: Exactly.CRAB: I remember that picture. Those little bubbles always seem to flip back and forthbetween being concave and convex, depending on the direction that you approach them from.There's no way to see them simultaneously as concave and convex-somehow one's braindoesn't allow that. There are two mutually exclusive "modes" in which one can perceive thebubbles.ACHILLES: Just so. Well, I seem to have discovered two somewhat analogous modes inwhich I can listen to a fugue. The modes are these: either to follow one individual voice at atime, or to listen to the total effect of all of them together, without trying to disentangle onefrom another. I have tried out both of these modes, and, much to my frustration, each one ofthem shuts out the other. It's simply not in my power to follow the paths of individual voicesand at the same