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4.31 AVERAGE
4.31 AVERAGE
Couldn't finish it. It had interesting ideas, but too much pretentious crap.. to the point that it ruined the interesting parts for me.
I will have to come back to this book in 10+ years and start again. I got about halfway through and realised I was just reading words on a page and not taking in their meaning. This is way above my level at the moment!
This book is not for the faint-hearted.
This book is not for the faint-hearted.
This book changed my life, made me smarter and gave me a larger penis. I've read it three times so far and it's like the size of a baby's arm.
The excellent book seemed fun and innocent when I read it in the early 1990s. A little more mixed feelings about computers today. Came out in 1979 we are far beyond it but it was speculative and metaphysical for the time. We are so much in Hofstadter's world now that it seems quaint now. But I loved it at the time and it is still solid.
https://youtu.be/V9ohtKameio
https://youtu.be/V9ohtKameio
Where to even begin. Well, the title, for starters. This book is not - as I first thought when I saw the title - about Godel, Escher and Bach all really being the same thing, or having the same underlying structure, or anything like that.
The book is primarily about "strange loops", when systems made of individually dumb (or meaningless) components begin to loop in on themselves and therefore gain - in what Hofstadter argues is a very real way - a degree of consciousness. Godel, Escher, and Bach (and more generally logic, art, and music) are used as analogies, metaphors, similes. They are ways to explain the points that he wants to make about the nature of consciousness.
Godel figured out a way for logic and math to talk about themselves logically/mathematically; Escher's drawings have various levels of loops and self-reference and self-reproduction, serving as a "pictorial parable" for Godel's Incompleteness Theorem; and Bach wrote musical pieces with musical themes that occur and are reproduced on different levels and with different variations and he did all this using individual notes which act together to create meaning and beauty and this relates back to Godel and Escher but also to beauty and meaning.
Along the way Hofstadter also talks about Zen Koans, teaches you (at least) two systems of symbolic logic, discusses the sociology of ants, gives an overview of the history of artificial intelligence and the biomolecular mechanisms underpinning DNA and RNA and protein synthesis. He does this using incredibly clear and interesting prose. Every chapter is preceded by a dialogue that in some way represents its theme or central idea.
The book is long, and difficult if - like me - you don't have much experience with math and music. Sometimes, Hofstadter dwells a bit too long on a point, and sometimes he gets a bit too caught-up in his own cleverness (and he is very, VERY clever, a true polymath) and making sure that we see how clever he is.
Did I understand all of it? Not even close. Half? I doubt it. Did I enjoy reading it? Immensely. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who has a general curiousity and interest in the world, coupled with a willingness to tackle strange and difficult material.
The book is primarily about "strange loops", when systems made of individually dumb (or meaningless) components begin to loop in on themselves and therefore gain - in what Hofstadter argues is a very real way - a degree of consciousness. Godel, Escher, and Bach (and more generally logic, art, and music) are used as analogies, metaphors, similes. They are ways to explain the points that he wants to make about the nature of consciousness.
Godel figured out a way for logic and math to talk about themselves logically/mathematically; Escher's drawings have various levels of loops and self-reference and self-reproduction, serving as a "pictorial parable" for Godel's Incompleteness Theorem; and Bach wrote musical pieces with musical themes that occur and are reproduced on different levels and with different variations and he did all this using individual notes which act together to create meaning and beauty and this relates back to Godel and Escher but also to beauty and meaning.
Along the way Hofstadter also talks about Zen Koans, teaches you (at least) two systems of symbolic logic, discusses the sociology of ants, gives an overview of the history of artificial intelligence and the biomolecular mechanisms underpinning DNA and RNA and protein synthesis. He does this using incredibly clear and interesting prose. Every chapter is preceded by a dialogue that in some way represents its theme or central idea.
The book is long, and difficult if - like me - you don't have much experience with math and music. Sometimes, Hofstadter dwells a bit too long on a point, and sometimes he gets a bit too caught-up in his own cleverness (and he is very, VERY clever, a true polymath) and making sure that we see how clever he is.
Did I understand all of it? Not even close. Half? I doubt it. Did I enjoy reading it? Immensely. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who has a general curiousity and interest in the world, coupled with a willingness to tackle strange and difficult material.
This book presents a way of understanding thought as a formal system. It doesn't so much "argue" for that position as teach you a lot of logic, math, AI, and even a little neuroscience and genetics to give you the tools to understand this. That said, GEB is obviously not so much for those who a) already understand the afore-mentioned fields and/or b) already accept the main thesis of the book. I fall squarely within category b), and have some background in the topics mentioned in category a), although not enough that this book wasn't worth reading. Having worked in the past to understand Gödel, I came away from GEB with a much deeper understanding of the proof itself and related concepts in math/logic. And while I didn't need convincing that thought is basically a property of a formal system, Hofstadter's outlook on this is enough to give the most insightful cognitive scientist some food for thought.
tedious, repetitive, plodding and obsessed with recursion as magic without ever discussing why some recursive processes are interesting in nature and theory. Hofstadter gives you the impression of being an 8 year old who's just discovered math and really wants to share his new enthusiasm with the adults but doesn't know how.
I got about 1/3 of the way through this sucker before giving up.
Maybe a very lay audience who was unfamiliar with any of the men that make up the title could try to drag some knowledge out out it if they were patient.
I got about 1/3 of the way through this sucker before giving up.
Maybe a very lay audience who was unfamiliar with any of the men that make up the title could try to drag some knowledge out out it if they were patient.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced