Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
There aren’t many books I’ve read that have genuinely shifted the way I think about the world. It helps that I’ve already got a masters in Logic and have always been fascinated by the subject, but the way Hofstadter weaves concepts and ideas together is so charming and so illuminating that I’d challenge almost anyone not to fund it delightful. More that anything, the way he talks about the meaning that exists in and out of a system is incredible, and it’s surprising how applicable it is to so many situations. I think about this book a lot and if you’re interested in these topics then it would be a crime not to read it.
Good at times, but gets a little wearisome, especially near the end when you've just about had enough of Hofstadter waxing on and on about the deep connections he has wrought for you by explaining in great detail all of his ingenious, subtle, self-referential nuggets which he is obviously very proud of.
As others have said, the book feels a bit bloated - it could lose at least a hundred pages or so.
In terms of content, the sheer breadth of topics keeps the book interesting. And for all of his humble-bombast the writing is engaging (especially given the length). If you liked receiving a liberal arts education, you'll probably be raving about this book by the end. Overall my interest, like the book's focus, teetered and tottered.
As others have said, the book feels a bit bloated - it could lose at least a hundred pages or so.
In terms of content, the sheer breadth of topics keeps the book interesting. And for all of his humble-bombast the writing is engaging (especially given the length). If you liked receiving a liberal arts education, you'll probably be raving about this book by the end. Overall my interest, like the book's focus, teetered and tottered.
This book was very popular with my friends when I was in college, so popular, in fact, that I balked at it as being something trendy and never got around to reading it. Until now. I love this book. And I'm glad I waited to read it.
GEB is a difficult book to describe. The three central figures, a mathematician, an artist, and a composer, don't seem to share much on the surface aside from their obvious brilliance in their respective fields.
Hofstadter brings the work of the three together in a lengthy examination of the nature of thought and intelligence. Along the way, he touches on symbolic logic, number theory, music, visual art, molecular biology, Zen, computer science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence.
He does it all while interspersing his chapters with humorous dialogues using the style and characters of Zeno and Lewis Carroll, and formatting inspired by Bach's compositions.
Going into this book, I had almost no knowledge of classical music. I'm okay with math, and have a pretty reasonable grasp of molecular biology (I teach high school biology and chemistry). I'm a fan of Escher's work, although I don't have much theoretical knowledge about visual art.
I found myself referencing many, many books I'd read and ideas I'd encountered over my lifetime as I made my way through GEB, which I why I was glad to be reading it now, rather than when I was 18. There is a LOT to ponder in this book.
And throughout it all, Hofstadter engages in some amazing wordplay, adding new layers to the text in an incredible variety of ways.
This book definitely asks a lot of the reader. It's dense in places, and it jumps rapidly to so many wildly different ideas that it can feel like a scramble to keep up.
But it is absolutely loaded with brilliance. A fascinating read.
GEB is a difficult book to describe. The three central figures, a mathematician, an artist, and a composer, don't seem to share much on the surface aside from their obvious brilliance in their respective fields.
Hofstadter brings the work of the three together in a lengthy examination of the nature of thought and intelligence. Along the way, he touches on symbolic logic, number theory, music, visual art, molecular biology, Zen, computer science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence.
He does it all while interspersing his chapters with humorous dialogues using the style and characters of Zeno and Lewis Carroll, and formatting inspired by Bach's compositions.
Going into this book, I had almost no knowledge of classical music. I'm okay with math, and have a pretty reasonable grasp of molecular biology (I teach high school biology and chemistry). I'm a fan of Escher's work, although I don't have much theoretical knowledge about visual art.
I found myself referencing many, many books I'd read and ideas I'd encountered over my lifetime as I made my way through GEB, which I why I was glad to be reading it now, rather than when I was 18. There is a LOT to ponder in this book.
And throughout it all, Hofstadter engages in some amazing wordplay, adding new layers to the text in an incredible variety of ways.
This book definitely asks a lot of the reader. It's dense in places, and it jumps rapidly to so many wildly different ideas that it can feel like a scramble to keep up.
But it is absolutely loaded with brilliance. A fascinating read.
The more I describe it, the worse it sounds, so suffice it to say I have never read anything like it. An extremely rewarding read.
Truth and Beauty are as interrelated as mathematics and music.
I've been intending to read this book for 20 years. I finally read it. It wasn't what I expected - this journey into logic, mathematics, wordplay, Zen, and Artificial Intelligence. Some of it was fascinating. Some of it was tedious. Maybe because I didnt feel like expending the time to puzzle through chapters I didn't readily understand. Maybe that's just laziness on my part. Or maybe it's just that I didn't want to spend an inordinate amount of time on this 800-page book. Maybe if I had bought it, read a chapter week, and spread it out over six months; but as it was, it was like trying to study a textbook, so it ceased being fun after a few chapters. Also, at certain points, it seems like Hofstadter is impressed with his own cleverness, but maybe that's just me.
One of the things I did love about this book is that there are several things that will blow your mind. Provided you haven't already discovered them.
For example (from Chapter 1): Is heterological heterological?
Chapter 2: Euclid's amazing proof that no matter what number you can think of there is always a prime number greater than it. N! + 1 (because N! Is divisible by every number less than N, therefore, N!+1 is divisible by none of those numbers).
In chapter 11, it's the struggle between holism and reductionism in the analogy of neurons : brain :: ants : ant colony - an ant colony is an intelligent entity made up of non-sentient ants just as a brain is an intelligent entity made up of non-sentient neurons.
In chapter 12, the discussion about how one person's mind might map to another's.
Overall, it was interesting, and maybe I shouldn't have checked it out of the library where I knew I had a limited amount of time in reading it.
I've been intending to read this book for 20 years. I finally read it. It wasn't what I expected - this journey into logic, mathematics, wordplay, Zen, and Artificial Intelligence. Some of it was fascinating. Some of it was tedious. Maybe because I didnt feel like expending the time to puzzle through chapters I didn't readily understand. Maybe that's just laziness on my part. Or maybe it's just that I didn't want to spend an inordinate amount of time on this 800-page book. Maybe if I had bought it, read a chapter week, and spread it out over six months; but as it was, it was like trying to study a textbook, so it ceased being fun after a few chapters. Also, at certain points, it seems like Hofstadter is impressed with his own cleverness, but maybe that's just me.
One of the things I did love about this book is that there are several things that will blow your mind. Provided you haven't already discovered them.
For example (from Chapter 1): Is heterological heterological?
Chapter 2: Euclid's amazing proof that no matter what number you can think of there is always a prime number greater than it. N! + 1 (because N! Is divisible by every number less than N, therefore, N!+1 is divisible by none of those numbers).
In chapter 11, it's the struggle between holism and reductionism in the analogy of neurons : brain :: ants : ant colony - an ant colony is an intelligent entity made up of non-sentient ants just as a brain is an intelligent entity made up of non-sentient neurons.
In chapter 12, the discussion about how one person's mind might map to another's.
Overall, it was interesting, and maybe I shouldn't have checked it out of the library where I knew I had a limited amount of time in reading it.
The most entertaining, educational, and inspiring book I've ever read. It's almost impossible to recommend because of its sheer length and breadth, and its elusive subject matter - music, art, physics, biology, cognitive science, AI, eastern and western philosophy, and lots of math - doesn't help. You'll just have to take my word for it.
Finally finished this after multiple failed attempts over the last 5 years. A fascinating exploration of systems, the human mind, and AI. It would be interesting to hear how developments in AI have changed the author's perspective since this was written.
- Discussion of intelligence emerging from a system of simple rules (e.g., an anthill)
- Godel incompleteness theorem
- imagine a formal system
- the rules of such system can be seen as functions applied to axioms that create theorems
- We can then encode this (and any) formal system into number theory - thus an axioni is some number and rules are some function that operates on numbers
- Then encode the statement "this statement is not a theorem of the formal system"
- If it IS a theorem - it brings a contradiction
- Thus it's not a theorem of the formal system
- But that means that the formal system in incomplete!
- There is a truth that can be expressed by the formal system but is outside of the formal system.
- "in order to understand any message, you have to have a message which tells you how to understand that message"
- And yet humans understand messages! There's something to the structure of our brains that permits this.
- Conflicting experiments demonstrating both locality and distribution of memory in the brain.
- Godel incompleteness theorem
- imagine a formal system
- the rules of such system can be seen as functions applied to axioms that create theorems
- We can then encode this (and any) formal system into number theory - thus an axioni is some number and rules are some function that operates on numbers
- Then encode the statement "this statement is not a theorem of the formal system"
- If it IS a theorem - it brings a contradiction
- Thus it's not a theorem of the formal system
- But that means that the formal system in incomplete!
- There is a truth that can be expressed by the formal system but is outside of the formal system.
- "in order to understand any message, you have to have a message which tells you how to understand that message"
- And yet humans understand messages! There's something to the structure of our brains that permits this.
- Conflicting experiments demonstrating both locality and distribution of memory in the brain.