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4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Was lost halfway in, but how I love Science in its full glory!
The fact that this book tries to cover everything is it's biggest asset and disappointment. Buried in metaphor, analogy, and vast abstraction, the chapters blur, concepts intertwine, and eyes become strained. That said, if taken at a leisurely pace the ideas in this book are fundamental to anything remotely tech-philosophy related today. It give you a new appreciation for socio-linguistics, dusty mathematicians, programming, and what it means to be a person. Be bold, give it a try, but if the fatigue gets to you, you're not missing anything a summary couldn't convey.
An essential book to anyone who studies language, logic or computing
It is too difficult in a review to do justice to a book that is so sprawling in topics and ideas, rigorous and yet so creative. I feel the illustration below by the author captures some of the essence of the book though:
"Figure 83 is a picture which can be interpreted on two levels. On one level, it is a sentence pointing at itself; on the other level, it is a picture of Epimenides executing his own death sentence."
This excerpt deals with one of the fundamental concepts of the book, self-referential paradoxes, which are at the centre of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, used in discussions of intelligence and consciousness. The illustration and caption also serve as an example of the creativity and humour of Hofstadter. If you find this remotely funny, I believe you will find the dialogues introducing each chapter amusing. However, developing the toolkit for understanding Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem isn't exactly a laugh riot. While needing no formal mathematical background, it is a formal thinking exercise comprising a decent chunk of the book. I think the current top rated review is a fair indicator for whether to invest the time or not. I would add though that regardless of total understanding, there are many interesting (or perhaps not, if you just wanted the central thesis of the book) discussions. Hofstadter loves to expand on examples and tangential points; language, Zen Buddhism, DNA and ant colonies to name several. Though acting as examples to a grander point, they offer interesting ideas to consider even in isolation. GEB is a truly thought provoking book. 5 stars.
"Figure 83 is a picture which can be interpreted on two levels. On one level, it is a sentence pointing at itself; on the other level, it is a picture of Epimenides executing his own death sentence."
This excerpt deals with one of the fundamental concepts of the book, self-referential paradoxes, which are at the centre of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, used in discussions of intelligence and consciousness. The illustration and caption also serve as an example of the creativity and humour of Hofstadter. If you find this remotely funny, I believe you will find the dialogues introducing each chapter amusing. However, developing the toolkit for understanding Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem isn't exactly a laugh riot. While needing no formal mathematical background, it is a formal thinking exercise comprising a decent chunk of the book. I think the current top rated review is a fair indicator for whether to invest the time or not. I would add though that regardless of total understanding, there are many interesting (or perhaps not, if you just wanted the central thesis of the book) discussions. Hofstadter loves to expand on examples and tangential points; language, Zen Buddhism, DNA and ant colonies to name several. Though acting as examples to a grander point, they offer interesting ideas to consider even in isolation. GEB is a truly thought provoking book. 5 stars.
This was published about the time I graduated from high school. I remember reading and loving what little I understood. I should probably read it again now as an adult and see if I can get some more out of it.
Had to give up on this copy and order another. This one had highlighter marks throughout. ARGH!
***
Finally done. I'm left with the feeling this could have (should have?) been a somewhat shorter book, but the expansive, dare I say recursive? nature of the various tangents gave me some breathing room to catch up--not so necessary during the musical and artistic passages, or the handling of AI, but boy howdy the math did make me slow down my reading. Hofstadter is a patient explainer of ideas, and that's both a blessing (during the difficult passages, which are few) and a curse (during the easier passages, which are more abundant). Still, this is a book I would highly recommend to anyone with interest in the building blocks of AI, how we define intelligence, and how we decide what makes any system, whether of music, art, or mathematics, whole.
***
Finally done. I'm left with the feeling this could have (should have?) been a somewhat shorter book, but the expansive, dare I say recursive? nature of the various tangents gave me some breathing room to catch up--not so necessary during the musical and artistic passages, or the handling of AI, but boy howdy the math did make me slow down my reading. Hofstadter is a patient explainer of ideas, and that's both a blessing (during the difficult passages, which are few) and a curse (during the easier passages, which are more abundant). Still, this is a book I would highly recommend to anyone with interest in the building blocks of AI, how we define intelligence, and how we decide what makes any system, whether of music, art, or mathematics, whole.