Gödel, Escher, Bach: Een Eeuwige Gouden Band by Douglas R. Hofstadter

4.32 AVERAGE

crono101's review against another edition

5.0
A challenging read that was very interesting. Some parts were difficult (the math!), but overall, it was explained clearly, and it really got me thinking. Now I want to know how far AI has come since he wrote this!

booksaremyjam's review against another edition

3.0
So I think it's pretty official: I am not a philosophy person. My brain swirls down a rabbit hole whenever I think too much about existence and how the mind works I get lost in the mere process of my thinking and soon I am just a tiny speck in the giant ocean of existence and then my throat sort of closes up and I shut down and I need to watch Robot Chicken to shake it all off.
What I'm trying to say is: this was interesting but holy moly I just don't want to think about it.

koechliniana's review against another edition

5.0

Gödel, Escher, Bach impacted my thinking in ways that no other book has. I won't try and produce the comprehensive summary that others have so bravely provided, but there are a few things I must say about this remarkable book.


The concepts presented in Gödel, Escher, Bach have such universal application-- I find myself referring back to it frequently as I make more and more connections between self-reference, isomorphisms, chaos, etc. and their real-world applications. Even if that were not the case, the ideas themselves really do enrich my thinking. I am a composer, and GEB provided an essential link between compelling, logical form, and whimsical, self-referential substance (this is the technique that Bach liked to use).


The book makes for difficult, rigorous reading-- I put it down on my first try only to pick it up again two years later-- but be brave, knowing that the benefits are well worth the effort.



(To get a taste of the ideas behind GEB, take a look at Nomic and 1000 Blank White Cards-- two of my favorite games!)

laturz's review against another edition

4.0
After reading 500 pages of this 750 page book in over 2 months I decided to put it down. Although initially interesting, it lost my attention. Essentially the author is theorizing on how consciousness arises. He then tries to use these theories to show how we could give consciousness to machines. I I think anyone who has a more math oriented brain, or who knows something about computer programming would find this book interesting.

artofwelding's review against another edition

4.0
I read it, and I remember understanding and liking it at the time ... but I definitely do not remember what it was about.
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maddieramone's review against another edition

4.5
challenging informative slow-paced

jetjaguar124's review against another edition

4.25
challenging funny informative reflective
This book has many great things, especially Hofstadter's ability to convey rather complex topics to a general audience, and overall I think he pitches his central thesis well. My main point of criticism is the length. Some better editing would have been appreciated. I understand the central gimmick of the book is exploring how the same sorts of patterns, or "strange loops," occur in multiple different domains, from music to biology to mathematics, but this book falls prey to the same sorts of traps that many works of philosophy fall prey to: it simply feels like you understand his central thesis within the first two chapters, and then there's another 600 pages explaining it over and over again in different contexts. While I do think the book would lose something essential if you were to trim it down to a pamphlet (as it was in its embryo stage, per Hofstadter's telling), nevertheless I find that the sections that rely upon mathematics, computer science, and physics, which are (not so coincidentally) Hofstadter's areas of expertise, are far far more compelling than the book's winding detours through biology, linguistics, Lewis Carroll, Zen Buddhism, etc... etc...  I also could have done entirely without the dialogues. Having cutsey animal characters lay out the chapter ideas in little digestible tidbits is not an inherently bad idea, but these sections usually don't work, either because 1) they're boring 2) they actually present the central idea of the chapter in a more confusing or obtuse way than Hofstadter just showing you equations or puzzles and 3) the Carroll style of characters saying cute little quips of "oh boy!" and "wowsers!" is somewhat irritating after a while. They are just not compelling at all.

As such, had it been edited down to a smaller volume, perhaps one that's trimmed by 30 - 50%, I think it would have been a stronger work overall. I believe this is what Hofstadter did in his later refinement of these ideas in I am a Strange Loop, and I am eager to check out that book to see if, perhaps, it leaves me with fewer annoyances than this one did.

whitewizard42's review against another edition

2.0
challenging slow-paced
Must have been more impactful/impressive 30 years ago. I just kept expecting some sort of final cohesion, especially to the "Typogenetics" segment, but it was just A Sequence Of Thoughts.

sebiic's review against another edition

4.0
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hanoi(aux, finish, start, num - 1)
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epictetsocrate's review against another edition

4.0
FREDERICK cel MARE, rege al Prusiei, a venit la putere în 1740. Deși este amintit în cărțile de istorie mai ales pentru șiretenia sa militară, el a fost, de asemenea, devotat vieții minții și a spiritului. Curtea sa din Potsdam a fost unul dintre marile centre de activitate intelectuală din Europa în secolul al XVIII-lea. Celebrul matematician Leonhard Euler a petrecut douăzeci și cinci de ani acolo. Au venit mulți alți matematicieni și oameni de știință, precum și filozofi - inclusiv Voltaire și La Mettrie, care au scris unele dintre cele mai influente opere ale lor în timp ce erau acolo.