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4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
A wonderful read which covers many topics of formal logic, AI, human consciousness, programming, natural number theory, music, art and many more. Never felt as dumb from reading a book before.
Quite a difficult read if you know nothing of logic, AI and so on, but if you stick with it you will surely learn a lot about all of these topics.
Oddly enough, not explicit stated, one of the best descriptions of how object oriented programming works is hidden in there as well.
I can't recommend this book enough, but one should be prepared that GEB is not an easy read unless you already are quite familiar in all the above listed topics and even so.
Definitely a book I will reread many more times to come
Quite a difficult read if you know nothing of logic, AI and so on, but if you stick with it you will surely learn a lot about all of these topics.
Oddly enough, not explicit stated, one of the best descriptions of how object oriented programming works is hidden in there as well.
I can't recommend this book enough, but one should be prepared that GEB is not an easy read unless you already are quite familiar in all the above listed topics and even so.
Definitely a book I will reread many more times to come
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
No puedo puntuarlo porque no siento haberlo comprendido del todo. Definitivamente tendré que volver a él en algún punto en el tiempo, y eso me asusta bastante.
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
if you decide to try to take on this book, do yourself a favor: read only the intermediary "dialogue" chapters, and the annotated bibliography. Those are the only enjoyable parts of the book, because they make a concise point and point you in a better direction, respectively.
It's hard to make some kind of critical review of this given that it's been...a long amount of time since I was last in a computer science/math classroom. I think that Hofstadter does a good job of laying out the groundwork for the connection between G/E/B, but he makes this leap that a lot of people writing books on technical topics for people who are not well-versed in technical topics (read: me) do that I hate, which is "there will be no slowing down, I assume that your mental projections of my fun analogy now map perfectly onto Actual Topic X which I will now discuss in detail using the actual technical terms, and God help you if you get lost". Overall, it was reasonably enjoyable, but became a slog quickly around the halfway-60% point. If I had read this back when I was actually getting a degree and thinking about this stuff every day, I think I'd have enjoyed it more.
What I read of this book was fascinating, but it's on hold now because I've misplaced it during the move. I think it's in a box somewhere...
Thanks Doug, I am now convinced that mathematics is self aware.
This book is indescribably amazing. All of the concepts are tangled together in a complicated hierarchy (much like the tangled hierarchies that are an integral concept in the book), that loops back on itself in strange and unexpected ways (much like the strange loops that are also an integral concept) yet at the same time flows smoothly from one concept to the other around and around from beginning to the end (in a way similar to the harmonious flow of a canon or fugue by Bach). The structure of the book mirrors the concepts it explores (mirroring is also an important concept (the book mirrors mirroring by mirroring itself)) giving a much more in-depth look at all of their aspects.
Pinning down what this book is about isn't easy. It begins by introducing specific concepts: strange loops, formal systems, isomorphisms, tangled hierarchies, and recursion, to name a few, and then expands and fleshes out the web of relationships between them and everything else, notably Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, intelligence and consciousness. This is merely scratching the surface, as it also runs into a myriad of other concepts including paradoxes, Zen Buddhism, ant colonies, translation, computer science, artificial intelligence, DNA, proteins, genetics, creativity, art and music, geometry, and psychology. To paraphrase the author's explanation, GEB explores consciousness, meaning and self awareness and how such things can result from a combination of things that are completely lacking all of these aspects. This hardly does the book justice, though. Reading it is an experience that can't be found in any other book. It takes some dedication, but is overwhelmingly worth the effort.
Pinning down what this book is about isn't easy. It begins by introducing specific concepts: strange loops, formal systems, isomorphisms, tangled hierarchies, and recursion, to name a few, and then expands and fleshes out the web of relationships between them and everything else, notably Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, intelligence and consciousness. This is merely scratching the surface, as it also runs into a myriad of other concepts including paradoxes, Zen Buddhism, ant colonies, translation, computer science, artificial intelligence, DNA, proteins, genetics, creativity, art and music, geometry, and psychology. To paraphrase the author's explanation, GEB explores consciousness, meaning and self awareness and how such things can result from a combination of things that are completely lacking all of these aspects. This hardly does the book justice, though. Reading it is an experience that can't be found in any other book. It takes some dedication, but is overwhelmingly worth the effort.