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drillvoice's review
5.0
This is the work of a genius. It's like nothing else I've ever read. It's very idiosyncratic and maybe some folks would hate the particular nature of it but I found it very endearing. It's also quite a lot of intellectual work.
Broadly, the book is about the nature of intelligence and consciousness. But to get there you go on quite a journey, basically the whole first part is about Gödel's theorem which is some hardcore number theory from the '30s. "Number" is about right, I was almost insensate at times. But yeah it is amazing.
If you hate it probably stop, maybe it's just not for you, but if you like it, keep it up. The last chapter is a delight and I laughed out loud many times at the audacity.
Broadly, the book is about the nature of intelligence and consciousness. But to get there you go on quite a journey, basically the whole first part is about Gödel's theorem which is some hardcore number theory from the '30s. "Number" is about right, I was almost insensate at times. But yeah it is amazing.
If you hate it probably stop, maybe it's just not for you, but if you like it, keep it up. The last chapter is a delight and I laughed out loud many times at the audacity.
dee9401's review
2.0
I was hoping that Hofstadter's book would be my first five star review for 2012. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait a bit longer. I was very disappointed. The author says several times that he first envisioned this work as a pamphlet. I wish he'd stuck to that. The book is too long, poorly edited and the at first cute intervening dialogues between fictional characters become unbelievably annoying. The worst part of this book for me is the author's continual arrogance. He comes off as ever so clever, more so than his poor readers. How this book won a Pulitzer Prize (1980, general nonfiction) is almost beyond me. Perhaps the reviewers couldn't understand the book but thought they should and passed it's 700+ pages off as award quality.
Maybe I would have enjoyed this book a little more if I'd read it as a sophomore in college, when I was introduced to artificial intelligence in my computer science major. I enjoyed Hofstadter's book with its quick reminder of several courses I took, including abstract algebra, computer theory, AI, programming and logic. I say reminder rather than refresher since I doubt I could have learned these concepts via his writings. He talks deep but uses cutesy language that serves, for me, to obscure what he's getting at rather than enlighten. This book paired with some other textbooks and a good professor would have been nice. To be of use today, though, the book needs to be updated. It shows its age, having been writing in the late 1970s. The 20th Anniversary addition only includes an updated preface, no extra epilogues, chapters, or thoughts on the field that so entranced a young Hofstadter at the dawn of his career.
Maybe I would have enjoyed this book a little more if I'd read it as a sophomore in college, when I was introduced to artificial intelligence in my computer science major. I enjoyed Hofstadter's book with its quick reminder of several courses I took, including abstract algebra, computer theory, AI, programming and logic. I say reminder rather than refresher since I doubt I could have learned these concepts via his writings. He talks deep but uses cutesy language that serves, for me, to obscure what he's getting at rather than enlighten. This book paired with some other textbooks and a good professor would have been nice. To be of use today, though, the book needs to be updated. It shows its age, having been writing in the late 1970s. The 20th Anniversary addition only includes an updated preface, no extra epilogues, chapters, or thoughts on the field that so entranced a young Hofstadter at the dawn of his career.
clarke11235's review
4.0
Hofstader definitely has some unique ideas. It was very enjoyable and thought provoking, but it is super dense. Quite hard to get through the whole thing.
fdemey's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.75
Random musings about why GEB - an eternal golden braid is ok and why I almost like it (2.75). It is better than OK (2). It is interesting. But do I like it (3) or would I recommend it 3+?
Very challenging read.
In the beginning, the dialogues between Achilles, the tortoise and the crab are quiet interesting. Towards the end they feel more like what they were intended: a play of words and sentences, artificially stuctured to show a point that could have been made in less pages.
At times very interesting. At times tedious.
I learned something. D.H. gave me some new insights in domains I like. Bach music, maths, computer science, philosophy. In the meantime also muses about Escher and surrealists like Magritte. Can it get better? (Apparently it can, but I don't know how to improve it.)
Wonder what the criteria are to win a Pulitzer. Showing of your brilliance, tenacity, and mastery with words by writing a tedious book seems to do the trick.
I want to give credit to D.H. for a great intellectual endeavour. It is a feat, indeed. Well done.
I don't know the field enough, but there are bound to be less showy and tedious books giving similar insights.
The Genesis of this book is insightful, but in the end, it seems just a guy who sees a connection and tries to connect other fields to this, making this feel like an artificial exercise rather than a natural connection.
More of an etude of fugues than a musical offering.
Very challenging read.
In the beginning, the dialogues between Achilles, the tortoise and the crab are quiet interesting. Towards the end they feel more like what they were intended: a play of words and sentences, artificially stuctured to show a point that could have been made in less pages.
At times very interesting. At times tedious.
I learned something. D.H. gave me some new insights in domains I like. Bach music, maths, computer science, philosophy. In the meantime also muses about Escher and surrealists like Magritte. Can it get better? (Apparently it can, but I don't know how to improve it.)
Wonder what the criteria are to win a Pulitzer. Showing of your brilliance, tenacity, and mastery with words by writing a tedious book seems to do the trick.
I want to give credit to D.H. for a great intellectual endeavour. It is a feat, indeed. Well done.
I don't know the field enough, but there are bound to be less showy and tedious books giving similar insights.
The Genesis of this book is insightful, but in the end, it seems just a guy who sees a connection and tries to connect other fields to this, making this feel like an artificial exercise rather than a natural connection.
More of an etude of fugues than a musical offering.
foggy1218's review
4.0
2022 reads, 19/20:
The above quote is not from this book, but instead, the final lyric in the final song off Bon Iver’s 2011 album, Bon Iver, Bon Iver. These three words encapsulate everything that Justin Vernon was trying to say not only in that whole song, but the whole album: we are here, and in this place, we are self-evident. In math, an axiom is the strongest statement you can make, something that cannot be proved because of its self-evidence (for example the first equality axiom, which states x = x, i.e. a number equals itself). And much like I am comparing this foundational mathematical term to music, Hofstadter does the same in his book Gödel, Escher, and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
Hofstadter masterfully weaves Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, Bach’s fugues, and Escher’s drawings together to create a map between the neurological structure of the brain and the rise of artificial intelligence. His starting point is defining a ‘strange loop,’ a type of self-reference which leads you back to the original statement, and works from there. If you hold on for the whole ride, his final chapters provide an interesting and original take on minds and machines. In between these chapters lie dialogues between a slew of characters such as the tortoise and Achilles, which are not just entertaining, but also excellent at priming you for the ideas about to be introduced in the next chapter. Some did not enjoy the dialogues, but I thought they were some of the best parts of the book.
At times, this does read like a textbook, but it’s not dry or boring at all; Hofstadter is inviting us to try to get to the point before he gets there, which makes reading GEB almost conversational. I started to lose a bit of interest in the latter half of the Part II, solely because I am not super interested in genetics; to me, Hofstadter is at his best when he is writing about logic, paradoxes, and writing dialogues with hidden meanings. Others would disagree, however, as some really enjoy the neurological aspects, and don’t see the point of the math. And as I mentioned, you don’t really get to the crux of what Hofstadter wants to convey in this book until the final three chapters, which could turn off some people.
Anyone who has an interest in math, puzzles, computer science, neurology, genetics, or even art would at least moderately be interested in what Hofstadter is saying. By no means is a formal background in math required, you just need interest. The reason it took me so long to finish this was not because it was boring, in fact the opposite – his ideas need time to marinate before you go on. In this book, the journey was much better than the destination.
“This is axiom”
The above quote is not from this book, but instead, the final lyric in the final song off Bon Iver’s 2011 album, Bon Iver, Bon Iver. These three words encapsulate everything that Justin Vernon was trying to say not only in that whole song, but the whole album: we are here, and in this place, we are self-evident. In math, an axiom is the strongest statement you can make, something that cannot be proved because of its self-evidence (for example the first equality axiom, which states x = x, i.e. a number equals itself). And much like I am comparing this foundational mathematical term to music, Hofstadter does the same in his book Gödel, Escher, and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
Hofstadter masterfully weaves Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, Bach’s fugues, and Escher’s drawings together to create a map between the neurological structure of the brain and the rise of artificial intelligence. His starting point is defining a ‘strange loop,’ a type of self-reference which leads you back to the original statement, and works from there. If you hold on for the whole ride, his final chapters provide an interesting and original take on minds and machines. In between these chapters lie dialogues between a slew of characters such as the tortoise and Achilles, which are not just entertaining, but also excellent at priming you for the ideas about to be introduced in the next chapter. Some did not enjoy the dialogues, but I thought they were some of the best parts of the book.
At times, this does read like a textbook, but it’s not dry or boring at all; Hofstadter is inviting us to try to get to the point before he gets there, which makes reading GEB almost conversational. I started to lose a bit of interest in the latter half of the Part II, solely because I am not super interested in genetics; to me, Hofstadter is at his best when he is writing about logic, paradoxes, and writing dialogues with hidden meanings. Others would disagree, however, as some really enjoy the neurological aspects, and don’t see the point of the math. And as I mentioned, you don’t really get to the crux of what Hofstadter wants to convey in this book until the final three chapters, which could turn off some people.
Anyone who has an interest in math, puzzles, computer science, neurology, genetics, or even art would at least moderately be interested in what Hofstadter is saying. By no means is a formal background in math required, you just need interest. The reason it took me so long to finish this was not because it was boring, in fact the opposite – his ideas need time to marinate before you go on. In this book, the journey was much better than the destination.
maxis's review
5.0
Spent six months reading this. Everyday it was a part of my life. Can not paraphrase in 250 words or less.
xofelia's review
4.0
This book is phenomenal. You can tell the author is super smart, trying to simplify concepts learned through years of intense study. The fact that this book came out almost 50 years ago shows, and some of the simplification is lost due to the fact that the cultural context, and state of technology are so different from when it came out. Nevertheless this book helped open my mind and I will definitely keep coming back to try to understand some of the more opaque aspects of number theory and Gödel numbering
jediprincess's review against another edition
cannot get library copy again for awhile, but will come back to it!