I'm deeply puzzled by Hofstadter's response, but I don't imagine a culture gap explains it. The only thing I can thing of is that Hofstadter must have gotten a LOT more pessimistic about the prospects for a robust AI since the days of GEB.
"I guess people could be equivalent to a current IQ of 140..."
Yeah, obviously EY meant an equivalent absolute value.
Anyway, this reminds me of a lecture I sat in on in which one student wondered why it was impossible for everyone to be above average.
Tanasije, I'd say "Quinean empiricism" plus scientific realism (if I may sum those two) gives you physicalism, or something near enough. In any case, what is "supervenience" if not an account of what metaphysical naturalism is, on the one hand, or an explanation for the success of methodological naturalism, on the other?
(Yes, some scientists are in a sense metaphysically pluralist, since they grant or pressuppose the nonmateriality of abstract objects like mathematical entities or theories [profigately, in my view]. The point here, though, is that with respect to the phenomena they study as scientists, they presuppose physicalism.)
I like this bunch. Here's a Bertrand Russell quotation I'm fond of: "A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand."
"...then where is it?"
Same place all the other true counterfactuals are.