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Top positive review
19 people found this helpful
5.0 out of 5 starsGödel, Escher, Bach: An Eclectic Geek Bible
ByƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨Ʒon December 13, 2017
GEB is a singularity of very cool ideas.
Some of the topics explored: artificial intelligence, cognitive science, mathematics, programming, consciousness, zen, philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, genetics, physics, music, art, logic, infinity, paradox, self-similarity. Mathematics about mathematics. Thinking about thinking. Mathematics about thinking. Meta-everything.
The author said he was trying to make the point that consciousness was recursive, a kind of mental fractal. Your mind will certainly feel that way when you are done.
This is not a dry discussion of these topics. The author recognizes that he's exploring things that are intrinsically fascinating and fun, and has fun with them the whole way through. He doesn't just discuss the ideas, he demonstrates them, sometimes while he's discussing them, in clever and subtle ways.
Inbetween chapters, he switches to a dialogue format between fantasy characters; here he plays with the ideas being discussed, and performs postmodern literary experiments. For example, one of his dialogues makes sense read both forwards and backwards. In another, the characters jump into a book, and then jump deeper into a book that was in the book. In yet another, a programmer calmly explains the function and output of a chatbot while the chatbot calmly explains the function and output of the programmer. I find the author's sense of humor in these delightful.
In a word, it's brilliant. GEB combines the playful spirit of Lewis Carroll, the labyrinthine madness of Borges, the structural perfectionism of Joyce, the elegant beauty of mathematics, and the quintessential fascination of mind, all under one roof. It's become something of a cult phenomenon, and it has its own subreddit, r/GEB, and even its own MIT course.
Does the book succeed in its goal? One of the common criticisms is that the author never gets to the point and proves his thesis, and instead spends time on endlessly swirling diversions. But I don't blame him; the task of connecting mind to math is insanely speculative territory. All he can do is spiral the topic and view it from every conceivable direction. He decided to take a loopy approach to a loopy idea, and I think that's very fitting. If you want a more linear approach to the same idea, you could read I Am A Strange Loop. However, the way GEB weaves a tapestry of interrelated ideas, rather than focusing on just one, is a major part of its charm.
In the grand line of reductionism, where we in theory reduce consciousness to cognitive science to neuroscience to biology to chemistry to physics to math to metamath, GEB positions itself at the wraparound point at unsigned infinity, where the opposite ends of the spectrum meet.
It is an utter gem, a classic, and a pleasure to read. I cannot recommend it enough.
Some of the topics explored: artificial intelligence, cognitive science, mathematics, programming, consciousness, zen, philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, genetics, physics, music, art, logic, infinity, paradox, self-similarity. Mathematics about mathematics. Thinking about thinking. Mathematics about thinking. Meta-everything.
The author said he was trying to make the point that consciousness was recursive, a kind of mental fractal. Your mind will certainly feel that way when you are done.
This is not a dry discussion of these topics. The author recognizes that he's exploring things that are intrinsically fascinating and fun, and has fun with them the whole way through. He doesn't just discuss the ideas, he demonstrates them, sometimes while he's discussing them, in clever and subtle ways.
Inbetween chapters, he switches to a dialogue format between fantasy characters; here he plays with the ideas being discussed, and performs postmodern literary experiments. For example, one of his dialogues makes sense read both forwards and backwards. In another, the characters jump into a book, and then jump deeper into a book that was in the book. In yet another, a programmer calmly explains the function and output of a chatbot while the chatbot calmly explains the function and output of the programmer. I find the author's sense of humor in these delightful.
In a word, it's brilliant. GEB combines the playful spirit of Lewis Carroll, the labyrinthine madness of Borges, the structural perfectionism of Joyce, the elegant beauty of mathematics, and the quintessential fascination of mind, all under one roof. It's become something of a cult phenomenon, and it has its own subreddit, r/GEB, and even its own MIT course.
Does the book succeed in its goal? One of the common criticisms is that the author never gets to the point and proves his thesis, and instead spends time on endlessly swirling diversions. But I don't blame him; the task of connecting mind to math is insanely speculative territory. All he can do is spiral the topic and view it from every conceivable direction. He decided to take a loopy approach to a loopy idea, and I think that's very fitting. If you want a more linear approach to the same idea, you could read I Am A Strange Loop. However, the way GEB weaves a tapestry of interrelated ideas, rather than focusing on just one, is a major part of its charm.
In the grand line of reductionism, where we in theory reduce consciousness to cognitive science to neuroscience to biology to chemistry to physics to math to metamath, GEB positions itself at the wraparound point at unsigned infinity, where the opposite ends of the spectrum meet.
It is an utter gem, a classic, and a pleasure to read. I cannot recommend it enough.
Top critical review
5 people found this helpful
2.0 out of 5 starsand Bach's writing are tenuous at best.
ByAdam Luhringon September 29, 2017
It contains a reader-friendly explanation of formal systems and Godel's incompleteness theorem, but most of the book is taken up with a borderline manic creative flight that makes almost no connection between the three titular men's works. Aside from the fact that they all relate to trippy notions of infinity, the ties drawn between Godel's logical proof; Escher's gravity-bending, hyperbolic geometry; and Bach's writing are tenuous at best.
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ByƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨Ʒon December 13, 2017
GEB is a singularity of very cool ideas.
Some of the topics explored: artificial intelligence, cognitive science, mathematics, programming, consciousness, zen, philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, genetics, physics, music, art, logic, infinity, paradox, self-similarity. Mathematics about mathematics. Thinking about thinking. Mathematics about thinking. Meta-everything.
The author said he was trying to make the point that consciousness was recursive, a kind of mental fractal. Your mind will certainly feel that way when you are done.
This is not a dry discussion of these topics. The author recognizes that he's exploring things that are intrinsically fascinating and fun, and has fun with them the whole way through. He doesn't just discuss the ideas, he demonstrates them, sometimes while he's discussing them, in clever and subtle ways.
Inbetween chapters, he switches to a dialogue format between fantasy characters; here he plays with the ideas being discussed, and performs postmodern literary experiments. For example, one of his dialogues makes sense read both forwards and backwards. In another, the characters jump into a book, and then jump deeper into a book that was in the book. In yet another, a programmer calmly explains the function and output of a chatbot while the chatbot calmly explains the function and output of the programmer. I find the author's sense of humor in these delightful.
In a word, it's brilliant. GEB combines the playful spirit of Lewis Carroll, the labyrinthine madness of Borges, the structural perfectionism of Joyce, the elegant beauty of mathematics, and the quintessential fascination of mind, all under one roof. It's become something of a cult phenomenon, and it has its own subreddit, r/GEB, and even its own MIT course.
Does the book succeed in its goal? One of the common criticisms is that the author never gets to the point and proves his thesis, and instead spends time on endlessly swirling diversions. But I don't blame him; the task of connecting mind to math is insanely speculative territory. All he can do is spiral the topic and view it from every conceivable direction. He decided to take a loopy approach to a loopy idea, and I think that's very fitting. If you want a more linear approach to the same idea, you could read I Am A Strange Loop. However, the way GEB weaves a tapestry of interrelated ideas, rather than focusing on just one, is a major part of its charm.
In the grand line of reductionism, where we in theory reduce consciousness to cognitive science to neuroscience to biology to chemistry to physics to math to metamath, GEB positions itself at the wraparound point at unsigned infinity, where the opposite ends of the spectrum meet.
It is an utter gem, a classic, and a pleasure to read. I cannot recommend it enough.
Some of the topics explored: artificial intelligence, cognitive science, mathematics, programming, consciousness, zen, philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, genetics, physics, music, art, logic, infinity, paradox, self-similarity. Mathematics about mathematics. Thinking about thinking. Mathematics about thinking. Meta-everything.
The author said he was trying to make the point that consciousness was recursive, a kind of mental fractal. Your mind will certainly feel that way when you are done.
This is not a dry discussion of these topics. The author recognizes that he's exploring things that are intrinsically fascinating and fun, and has fun with them the whole way through. He doesn't just discuss the ideas, he demonstrates them, sometimes while he's discussing them, in clever and subtle ways.
Inbetween chapters, he switches to a dialogue format between fantasy characters; here he plays with the ideas being discussed, and performs postmodern literary experiments. For example, one of his dialogues makes sense read both forwards and backwards. In another, the characters jump into a book, and then jump deeper into a book that was in the book. In yet another, a programmer calmly explains the function and output of a chatbot while the chatbot calmly explains the function and output of the programmer. I find the author's sense of humor in these delightful.
In a word, it's brilliant. GEB combines the playful spirit of Lewis Carroll, the labyrinthine madness of Borges, the structural perfectionism of Joyce, the elegant beauty of mathematics, and the quintessential fascination of mind, all under one roof. It's become something of a cult phenomenon, and it has its own subreddit, r/GEB, and even its own MIT course.
Does the book succeed in its goal? One of the common criticisms is that the author never gets to the point and proves his thesis, and instead spends time on endlessly swirling diversions. But I don't blame him; the task of connecting mind to math is insanely speculative territory. All he can do is spiral the topic and view it from every conceivable direction. He decided to take a loopy approach to a loopy idea, and I think that's very fitting. If you want a more linear approach to the same idea, you could read I Am A Strange Loop. However, the way GEB weaves a tapestry of interrelated ideas, rather than focusing on just one, is a major part of its charm.
In the grand line of reductionism, where we in theory reduce consciousness to cognitive science to neuroscience to biology to chemistry to physics to math to metamath, GEB positions itself at the wraparound point at unsigned infinity, where the opposite ends of the spectrum meet.
It is an utter gem, a classic, and a pleasure to read. I cannot recommend it enough.
19 people found this helpful
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ByEuler Buffon September 8, 2013
I am proudly one of the many fanboys of this book. While I don't think it is quite accessible to just any audience, I do think that it is a must read for any academic, particularly in a mathematically rigorous field. The book meanders, taking its time, through a myriad of topics, from music theory to painting to artificial intelligence. At each step of the way, however, Hofstadter includes "meta" jokes and puzzles about the ideas in the work, which helps to tie the book together until the disparate ideas are weaved together at the end under the auspices of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. In the introduction to this edition, Hofstadter laments that so few readers were able to pick out his true thesis in the work. His explanation is that the book is about "how cognition and thinking emerge from well-hidden neurological mechanisms." However, don't expect a dry, direct approach to that question. Hofstadter couches that single question in an expansive frame that offers an indelible glimpse into the mind of a true thinker.
ByRob Kroeseon April 25, 2009
GEB: EGB is basically an exploration of the idea of intelligence, artificial and otherwise. Hofstader's goal is to shed some light on how intelligence / consciousness / self-awareness happens. I would call him a materialist, in the sense that he believes that there is a physical basis for thoughts, feelings and emotions. He is dismissive of "soulists," who believe that there is some sort of inexplicable metaphysical aspect to consciousness.
The question, in Hofstader's mind, is, "If the human brain is made of essentially the same stuff as a kitchen table or a pocket calculator or a tree, why does the first have a sense of of self -- of being an 'I' -- whereas the others do not? Hofstader explores how physical activity in the brain, which seems completely mechanistic and completely unlike the process of thought that we experience, can in fact give rise to a qualitatively different sort of activity occurring at the "higher levels" of the brain. He gives several examples of such systems, such as an ant colony: the individual ants are stupid, acting in response to basic stimula, but the colony as a whole is much smarter.
This kind of qualitative difference between the different levels of a system is key to Hofstader's thesis that critics of the possibility of artificial intelligence have misinterpreted the implications of such limitative notions as Godel's theorem. Godel's theorem states, in essence, that any sufficiently powerful system will contain truths that are not provable within the system. The problem with computers, these critics charge, is that they are stuck within a particular system -- there is no way to program them to realize that there is no solution to a particular problem within the system, even though such a fact would be perfectly obvious to an intelligent person who can "jump out of the system." So the computer is stuck trying to solve the problem with a method that is doomed to fail.
Hofstader argues, on the other hand, that there is nothing magical about being able to jump out of the system and reflect on whether it is the appropriate system to be using. In fact, in doing this one is still "in" a system -- it's just a bigger system, one that has the ability to think about lower level systems. And one can jump out of that top level system and reflect on it as well -- but then of course one has entered a new system again. There's always another system, at a higher level, no matter how high up you go.
At a certain point these levels blur together, because they are recursive -- meaning they reflect back on themselves. Hofstader uses the works of Escher and Bach to illustrate the concept of recursivity. For example, there is Escher's stairway that goes up and up until you are back where you started, or the two hands, each of which is drawing the other.
Hofstader believes that self-awareness -- the "I" -- arises from this kind of recursivity. To put it very simply, at the highest levels the brain is a system that deals with symbols, and the "I" is the symbol for the system itself.
There is much, much more to this book. There are lengthy tangents into mathematics, philosophy, biology (the section about the recursion that takes place in the copying of DNA is particularly fascination), etc.
Thankfully the book is organized into sections that alternate between straight exposition of some concept and a fictional dialogue that illustrates the concept. Still, it's not light reading, and I did wish at points that there was a Reader's Digest version that would just give me the main points without going off on a tangent for 30 pages about wasps or something.
Godel, Escher, Bach made me rethink a lot of my preconceptions about consciousness and artificial intelligence, and is well worth reading the next time you have three months to spare.
The question, in Hofstader's mind, is, "If the human brain is made of essentially the same stuff as a kitchen table or a pocket calculator or a tree, why does the first have a sense of of self -- of being an 'I' -- whereas the others do not? Hofstader explores how physical activity in the brain, which seems completely mechanistic and completely unlike the process of thought that we experience, can in fact give rise to a qualitatively different sort of activity occurring at the "higher levels" of the brain. He gives several examples of such systems, such as an ant colony: the individual ants are stupid, acting in response to basic stimula, but the colony as a whole is much smarter.
This kind of qualitative difference between the different levels of a system is key to Hofstader's thesis that critics of the possibility of artificial intelligence have misinterpreted the implications of such limitative notions as Godel's theorem. Godel's theorem states, in essence, that any sufficiently powerful system will contain truths that are not provable within the system. The problem with computers, these critics charge, is that they are stuck within a particular system -- there is no way to program them to realize that there is no solution to a particular problem within the system, even though such a fact would be perfectly obvious to an intelligent person who can "jump out of the system." So the computer is stuck trying to solve the problem with a method that is doomed to fail.
Hofstader argues, on the other hand, that there is nothing magical about being able to jump out of the system and reflect on whether it is the appropriate system to be using. In fact, in doing this one is still "in" a system -- it's just a bigger system, one that has the ability to think about lower level systems. And one can jump out of that top level system and reflect on it as well -- but then of course one has entered a new system again. There's always another system, at a higher level, no matter how high up you go.
At a certain point these levels blur together, because they are recursive -- meaning they reflect back on themselves. Hofstader uses the works of Escher and Bach to illustrate the concept of recursivity. For example, there is Escher's stairway that goes up and up until you are back where you started, or the two hands, each of which is drawing the other.
Hofstader believes that self-awareness -- the "I" -- arises from this kind of recursivity. To put it very simply, at the highest levels the brain is a system that deals with symbols, and the "I" is the symbol for the system itself.
There is much, much more to this book. There are lengthy tangents into mathematics, philosophy, biology (the section about the recursion that takes place in the copying of DNA is particularly fascination), etc.
Thankfully the book is organized into sections that alternate between straight exposition of some concept and a fictional dialogue that illustrates the concept. Still, it's not light reading, and I did wish at points that there was a Reader's Digest version that would just give me the main points without going off on a tangent for 30 pages about wasps or something.
Godel, Escher, Bach made me rethink a lot of my preconceptions about consciousness and artificial intelligence, and is well worth reading the next time you have three months to spare.
ByDavid Brockerton July 22, 2009
This book has a preface by the author. After twenty (20) or so pages, I was thinking, "Can I understand what he wrote about in the rest of this book?" but I persevered and read the whole book. This book is intense, like any philosophical book. His motive is to "suggest ways of reconciling the software of the mind with the hardware of brain" and that is quite an endeavor he succeeds at, sort of. No wonder he won the Pulitzer prize for this book. He talks of how he came to write and develop the book, and then, upon preparing for republication, he decides to not redo the book: it is what it is, from back then, any addition or correction would create a new book, and it can been seen every so often he imagines some stuff that we use daily, like spell correction, that were just not available back then. If he was to do that, he might as well write a whole new book, and that was not in the cards, nor was it the purpose of the new edition.
Gödel goosed him to realize the notions he writes about, but Escher and Bach represent examples of what Gödel was writing and he is thinking about. As you read the introduction you realize this is one educated and well rounded fellow. He describes the development of Bach's preludes and fugues like a music teacher (I realized that I have a recording of Wanda Landowsky playing "The Well-Tempered Clavier" Book 1, preludes and fugues, but that did not help me understand as you will see). Bach worked up various themes and notions through his music and than then did some fancy finagling and out came some thing wild and crazy wonderful. I listened to the recording I have to no avail. This is something you get to know by playing and playing the tunes, a lot, for yourself, but Mr. Hofstadter's exposition explains what is what for you. Escher is easier (visual experiences are more important or easier to comprehend than aural experiences). The pictures are presented as examples of repetition or growth from one thing into another. The idea of repeating or self-reference is important: it is one thing that computers do not do. We can do imagining things as well, but at a more basic level we self-reference creating a hump of ability that computers have to accomplish if they are to get to be self aware or intelligent.
As he said, he wants to understand the hardware of the brain, but in comparison, computers are simpler, but getting more complicated. He is working from the bottom up with computers: machine language, assembly, programing languages, etc. Fro our brains he is working from the top down, trying to see how the thoughts (software) we think get from one point to another. It is difficult because we do not have access to the basic growth of each thought (neurons firing). Logic tries, yet, as that one guy two (2) or three (3) thousand years ago said, "All I know is that I do not know anything." Mr. Hofstadter just comes to that thought in another roundabout way. I kept thinking of sex deviants doing what they do and that if we could look into their heads, we would be hard pressed to see where the impetus for their deviant behavior comes from, how it develops or why they do it. It is somewhere in there, but the thoughts (software) are so complicated that we can not see how it develops into what is expressed. I also think of how we all speak. We talk without thinking (something I am accused of constantly and embarrassingly), but in reality we just do not follow the thought process from what we hear and see, etc., to what we think of it, to what we will say, to saying it. Another thought is what is happening in the brains of mediators, you know, those Zen folks who quiet the mind, what is happening in there then? The mind is just amazing in what it does.
Throughout this book Mr. Hofstadter writes of the mind and the brain like a psychologist, how it works and what it does. He also delves into genetics. His forte is math and all its intricacies. He develops a couple of different math models to illustrate Gödel's incompleteness theorem. The logic starts out straight forward enough, then veers off into some esoteric realm where the notion of paradox lives, and this is where we have to develop our math notions. We can study the properties of prime numbers or infinities, but we always must end up knowing we do not know everything, because our logic can not encompass paradoxes, and they will be somewhere in all we do, or something like that.
As you can see, I was not able to understand his math models, but I think I got the jist of it.
This book reminds me of another book published in 1978, "The Seven Mysteries of Life" by Guy Murchie. It is amazing that they talk of the same things in the same way and for the same reasons. Though this is a treatise on computers and artificial intelligence, and the other is a religious book, sort of, about the awesomeness of life.
As for the artificial intelligence aspect, I like his development towards that goal, but, and I find no fault in the imagining of it, I am disappointed that computers will just be like us. It will not create a Spock like machine, or what science fiction has led us to hope for (see Isaac Asimov, "I, Robot" etc.). I did like his notion of combining genotypes to create new genes, but I am a guy and I like that sort of stuff. I find that I agree with someone who said, "There are much more fun ways to create intelligence, and it is not artificial." If artificial intelligence is not going to be all that great, it is only good to try to develop it for the exercise and the experience it will give us, but otherwise, eh, no big deal.
Gödel goosed him to realize the notions he writes about, but Escher and Bach represent examples of what Gödel was writing and he is thinking about. As you read the introduction you realize this is one educated and well rounded fellow. He describes the development of Bach's preludes and fugues like a music teacher (I realized that I have a recording of Wanda Landowsky playing "The Well-Tempered Clavier" Book 1, preludes and fugues, but that did not help me understand as you will see). Bach worked up various themes and notions through his music and than then did some fancy finagling and out came some thing wild and crazy wonderful. I listened to the recording I have to no avail. This is something you get to know by playing and playing the tunes, a lot, for yourself, but Mr. Hofstadter's exposition explains what is what for you. Escher is easier (visual experiences are more important or easier to comprehend than aural experiences). The pictures are presented as examples of repetition or growth from one thing into another. The idea of repeating or self-reference is important: it is one thing that computers do not do. We can do imagining things as well, but at a more basic level we self-reference creating a hump of ability that computers have to accomplish if they are to get to be self aware or intelligent.
As he said, he wants to understand the hardware of the brain, but in comparison, computers are simpler, but getting more complicated. He is working from the bottom up with computers: machine language, assembly, programing languages, etc. Fro our brains he is working from the top down, trying to see how the thoughts (software) we think get from one point to another. It is difficult because we do not have access to the basic growth of each thought (neurons firing). Logic tries, yet, as that one guy two (2) or three (3) thousand years ago said, "All I know is that I do not know anything." Mr. Hofstadter just comes to that thought in another roundabout way. I kept thinking of sex deviants doing what they do and that if we could look into their heads, we would be hard pressed to see where the impetus for their deviant behavior comes from, how it develops or why they do it. It is somewhere in there, but the thoughts (software) are so complicated that we can not see how it develops into what is expressed. I also think of how we all speak. We talk without thinking (something I am accused of constantly and embarrassingly), but in reality we just do not follow the thought process from what we hear and see, etc., to what we think of it, to what we will say, to saying it. Another thought is what is happening in the brains of mediators, you know, those Zen folks who quiet the mind, what is happening in there then? The mind is just amazing in what it does.
Throughout this book Mr. Hofstadter writes of the mind and the brain like a psychologist, how it works and what it does. He also delves into genetics. His forte is math and all its intricacies. He develops a couple of different math models to illustrate Gödel's incompleteness theorem. The logic starts out straight forward enough, then veers off into some esoteric realm where the notion of paradox lives, and this is where we have to develop our math notions. We can study the properties of prime numbers or infinities, but we always must end up knowing we do not know everything, because our logic can not encompass paradoxes, and they will be somewhere in all we do, or something like that.
As you can see, I was not able to understand his math models, but I think I got the jist of it.
This book reminds me of another book published in 1978, "The Seven Mysteries of Life" by Guy Murchie. It is amazing that they talk of the same things in the same way and for the same reasons. Though this is a treatise on computers and artificial intelligence, and the other is a religious book, sort of, about the awesomeness of life.
As for the artificial intelligence aspect, I like his development towards that goal, but, and I find no fault in the imagining of it, I am disappointed that computers will just be like us. It will not create a Spock like machine, or what science fiction has led us to hope for (see Isaac Asimov, "I, Robot" etc.). I did like his notion of combining genotypes to create new genes, but I am a guy and I like that sort of stuff. I find that I agree with someone who said, "There are much more fun ways to create intelligence, and it is not artificial." If artificial intelligence is not going to be all that great, it is only good to try to develop it for the exercise and the experience it will give us, but otherwise, eh, no big deal.
ByLarry D. Loweon January 26, 2018
Marvelous, sophisticated read. A tour-de-force. A book that will expand your mind by the pure experience of following the interwoven threads of ideas.
Some guy in a coffee shop asked me what I was reading and what it was about, and I stumbled around alot as Hofstadter predicted. Though I have a mathematical and computer background, I found the book to be both elementary and difficult in certain parts. Once he gets his notation going, it's like yeah yeah, I get the general idea, no need to make me pull out the whiteboard. I will say that I learned more about the structures of classical music reading this book than I did in any music appreciation class I've taken.
Bynach0_her0on March 13, 2015
I bought this book used knowing full well that it would be beaten up, so I'll just review the book.
It's amazing. There are parts where I'll get lost, mostly due to done ideas I've never heard of being taken for granted, but eventually everything is explained due to the authors eloquence with words.
It's amazing. There are parts where I'll get lost, mostly due to done ideas I've never heard of being taken for granted, but eventually everything is explained due to the authors eloquence with words.
ByAndrew Finchon October 23, 2005
This is an incredible book. Not only does it make the maze of modern physics, mathematics and philosophy more comprehensible, but it pulls all disciplines together in a wonderful mix of various formats, from dialogues to pictures to complex explanations. The beauty of this all is that you can dip in at any part and find something interesting and inspiring. If you don't get on well with the explanations, try some dialogues, or read the author's commentary about the pictures. If you have time to work through the whole book, it will be well worth it.
As an ex-music student, I found the "Bach" sections less convincing than the rest, but I agree that Bach was quite a mathematician as well as being a musician and a composer. To link his work and his name with John Cage is quite something, but the author pulls it off.
I also like the way that these great names are brought together and shown to be speaking about the same things - a universality that perhaps is at theheart of this book.
Very much recommended for a user-friendly exploration into sicentific, musical, mathematical, and philosophical ideas.
As an ex-music student, I found the "Bach" sections less convincing than the rest, but I agree that Bach was quite a mathematician as well as being a musician and a composer. To link his work and his name with John Cage is quite something, but the author pulls it off.
I also like the way that these great names are brought together and shown to be speaking about the same things - a universality that perhaps is at theheart of this book.
Very much recommended for a user-friendly exploration into sicentific, musical, mathematical, and philosophical ideas.
ByR. Perry Hookeron August 12, 2008
This is a work of incredible depth and scope. From number theory to cognition to genetics, Hofstadter offers powerful insights about the way we and the world work. One word of advice: don't worry if you can't understand all of his ideas. This book is so chock-full of content that most readers could spend a decade plowing through it, only to find that they've missed something important. Just read it. You'll get some of it, and that's enough.
ByT. Allenon March 20, 2013
"Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." - Hofstadter's Law
I've been a professional self-taught software engineer for 7 years at this point, with a strong interest in artificial intelligence and until last year, I'd never even heard of cognitive science. I've known of Hofstadter's law in my field, but I never had any idea who he was either.
Not having the fortunate experience to find like minded people at a university, I've met very few people in my life who I could have the type of conversations I wanted to have.
That started to change last year when I began meeting people in college, one introduced me to cognitive science. I also met another pair of room mates, a mathematician and a music major that I had the most amazing conversations with them, and this book on their bookshelf caught my eye.
I started reading about cognitive science, music, and math theory more and one name kept popping up, Hofstadter. Then I saw that he was the author of this book.
So I took the plunge and bought this book, and several of his others. It has been one of the best experiences I've ever had to read this.
Hofstadter, at 27, wrote this book. It is a huge relief to see someone write about subjects which my mind has wandered to so many times, when they were the same age as me. Someone with the knowledge and ability to discuss the ideas extremely well.
Even with my lack of formal training, he explains concepts of propositional logic, classical music, and art in ways that are easy to understand. I'm still only half way through the book, and it's already the most amazing book I've ever had the pleasure to read.
The book is very thought provoking, and one I'd highly recommend to anyone who is interested in any of the subjects he speaks of throughout the book, which there are many. They are all tied together so well, and though the theme of the book is very hard to describe, it all seems interconnected.
Nothing I could say, could truly do this book justice. If you're thinking about buying it already, just buy it, and enjoy it. You won't regret it.
I've been a professional self-taught software engineer for 7 years at this point, with a strong interest in artificial intelligence and until last year, I'd never even heard of cognitive science. I've known of Hofstadter's law in my field, but I never had any idea who he was either.
Not having the fortunate experience to find like minded people at a university, I've met very few people in my life who I could have the type of conversations I wanted to have.
That started to change last year when I began meeting people in college, one introduced me to cognitive science. I also met another pair of room mates, a mathematician and a music major that I had the most amazing conversations with them, and this book on their bookshelf caught my eye.
I started reading about cognitive science, music, and math theory more and one name kept popping up, Hofstadter. Then I saw that he was the author of this book.
So I took the plunge and bought this book, and several of his others. It has been one of the best experiences I've ever had to read this.
Hofstadter, at 27, wrote this book. It is a huge relief to see someone write about subjects which my mind has wandered to so many times, when they were the same age as me. Someone with the knowledge and ability to discuss the ideas extremely well.
Even with my lack of formal training, he explains concepts of propositional logic, classical music, and art in ways that are easy to understand. I'm still only half way through the book, and it's already the most amazing book I've ever had the pleasure to read.
The book is very thought provoking, and one I'd highly recommend to anyone who is interested in any of the subjects he speaks of throughout the book, which there are many. They are all tied together so well, and though the theme of the book is very hard to describe, it all seems interconnected.
Nothing I could say, could truly do this book justice. If you're thinking about buying it already, just buy it, and enjoy it. You won't regret it.
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