Douglas Hofstadter - Personal Life

Personal Life

Hofstadter was married to Carol Ann Brush until her death. They met in Bloomington, and married in Ann Arbor in 1985. They had two children, Danny and Monica. Carol died in 1993 from the sudden onset of a brain tumor – glioblastoma multiforme – when their children were five and two. The Carol Ann Brush Hofstadter Memorial Scholarship for Bologna-bound Indiana University students was established in 1996 in her name. Hofstadter's book Le Ton beau de Marot is dedicated to their two children and its dedication reads "To M. & D., living sparks of their Mommy's soul".

In 2010, Hofstadter took up salsa dancing while on sabbatical in Paris, and his salsa passion led him to branch out to other dances. In the fall of 2010, having returned to Bloomington, he met Baofen Lin in a chacha class, and the two were married in Bloomington in September 2012.

Hofstadter has composed numerous pieces for piano, and a few for piano and voice. He created an audio CD with the title DRH/JJ, which includes all these compositions performed primarily by pianist Jane Jackson, but with a few performed by Brian Jones, Dafna Barenboim, Gitanjali Mathur and himself.

The dedication for I Am A Strange Loop is: "To my sister Laura, who can understand, and to our sister Molly, who cannot." Hofstadter explains in the preface that his younger sister Molly never developed the ability to speak or understand language.

As a consequence of his attitudes about consciousness and empathy, Hofstadter has been a vegetarian for roughly half his life.