Metamagical Themas: Questing For The Essence Of Mind And Pattern Book Club (BCE/BOMC) Edition

by Douglas Hofstadter (Author)

34 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0465045662

ISBN-10: 0465045669

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Product Details

Paperback: 852 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; Book Club (BCE/BOMC) edition (1985)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465045669
ISBN-13: 978-0465045662
Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 1.9 x 8.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #388,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #64 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > AI & Machine Learning > Machine Theory
- #105 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence
- #288 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > AI & Machine Learning > Intelligence & Semantics

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Top Customer Reviews

Hofstadter's approachable collection

ByA Williamson October 5, 2001

Format: Paperback

When I was in high school I discovered the joys of reading Martin Gardner's "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American. After a few years of pleasure he was replaced by someone else who (among other things) wrote on the joys of Rubik's cube and I found myself wasting weeks of time and filling notebooks with my quest to explore and solve the cube.
That columnist was Douglas Hofstadter, who brought the same skill at sharing his enthusiam for his topic that created the amazing, mind shattering 'Godel, Escher, Bach'. His column, that occupied the same place as "Mathemetical Games", was called "Metamagical Themas" (looking closely at those two names will tell you a lot about Douglas Hofstadter) and lasted for 13 issues.
This book is a compilation of those columns, each with a new endnote by Hofstadter and some letters received by the magazine and his reply.
Together they cover a large range of topics while keeping to the central concerns of most of Hofstadter's work; consciousness, patterns, music, language and computer systems.
The combination works superbly. This volume is much more easily approached than 'Godel, Escher, Bach' while raising similar questions in the mind of the reader. For those that have read the earlier work there is not just the joy of more of Hofstadter's writing on diverse topics but the sheer pleasure of discovering another dialogue involving Achilles and the Tortoise.
I find it hard to define the set of people who would enjoy this book, but it would be a large and varied one.

0Comment 91 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Better than GEB?

ByA customeron January 25, 2000

Format: Paperback

Perhaps it is sacrilege, or stretching things a bit, but in my view this book tops GEB. Admittedly, I have read GEB several times, so maybe somebody who hasn't read GEB won't get the full benefit of Metamagical Themas. Here are my reasons for my opinion:
1) Hofstadter doesn't spend so much time being cute. Sure, all the jokes in GEB were funny, but they can get old, especially when you're going through the book a second time trying to delve deeper into an idea.
2) The variety of topics. Everything from Chopin to self reference to nuclear proliferation. Yet as the title might suggest, a common thread runs through all the topics. Hofstadter emphasizes this with his addendums to the original articles; he also has several new essays.
3) A great summary of Hofstadter's views on AI. If you read GEB and weren't really sure what he's about, reading the new Achilles and Tortoise dialogue, "Who shoves whom around in the careenium?", will clear things up. It did for me. Also, there's an article on Hofstadter's criticisms of the approaches that have been taken by AI experts (up to 1985, when the book was written).
In summary, GEB was an amazing work that was diluted to make it more palatable to non-technical people. Metamagical Themas is Hofstadter at full strength.

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Serious Thinking about Thinking.

ByA customeron October 16, 1997

Format: Paperback

Douglas Hofstadter is obsessed with the meaning of meaning and has been thinking about thinking for most of his life. His first book won a Pulitzer Prize, but for those of us who share his obsession with thought, meaning, pattern, and creativity, this one is even better.
The words in this book could be read in a week. The concepts Hofstadter explores will keep your mind busy for months. You will find yourself reading for fifteen minutes, and then thinking and speculating for hours. I have never seen a book that does so much to spark the creativity and curiosity of the reader.
The focus of the book is broad, almost maddeningly so -- Hofstadter jumps from Art to Logic to Science to Pattern with a speed and grace that leaves most people gasping. But as you read it, you will begin to see a common thread -- It is about how people think, and what the fundamental processes of thought and creativity might be, explored through as many manifestations of thought and creativity as Hofstadter can manage. And Hofstadter, lucky for us, can manage quite a lot.
If you are interested in thought and creativity, in mind, soul, and pattern -- if "effing the ineffable" is one of your hobbies, as it is mine -- and you are going to buy one book this decade, then buy this one.

11 comment 38 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Brilliant and Thought Provoking

ByDavid Marcuson April 20, 2004

Format: Paperback

This collection of Hofstadter's columns from Scientific American provides wonderful reading.
One of the gems is his simple, but brilliant analysis of the Prisoner's Dilemma. The usual analysis notes that the Nash equilibrium is for both players to defect. Hofstadter notes (correctly) that if both players are rational, then because the game is symmetrical, both players will choose the same strategy. So, the only choices are for both to cooperate or both defect. Since both cooperating has a higher payoff than both defecting, the rational strategy is to cooperate. The Nash equilibrium isn't relevant because it considers pairs of strategies which are impossible if both players are rational, i.e., the pairs where one player defects and the other cooperates.
Hofstadter notes that many people when presented with the above argument still say that they would defect. His descriptions of his attempts to reason with his friends and the results of the lottery he conducted (he told readers of his column they could send in entries for the lottery, but the more that entered, the smaller the prize would be) are, as he says, amusing, disturbing, and disappointing.

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One of those books

ByAmazon Customeron January 23, 2001

Format: Paperback

This is one of those books (like GEB) that you could own for a lifetime and refer to at random and always learn a new tidbit or be taken on a new tangent. A book that feels like being in someone elses mind (again like GEB). Excellent and worthwhile. I give it four (instead of five) stars only because the truly great books take you into someone else's mind and leave you thinking it was your own...

0Comment 9 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

A writer that keeps you thinking!

I fell in love with the writer's first book, "Goedel, Escher, Bach, the Eternal Golden Braid" in the 1980's and wore out my first copies, and have been reading his books...Read more

Published 1 month ago by LindaRuth V.

Entertaining & fun

Logic, math and puzzles oh my.

Published 6 months ago by Amazon Customer

I love this book

Published 11 months ago by Crystal Chen

good book, very intriguing to say the least

good book, very intriguing to say the least. Hofstadter is one of a kind. You might want to smoke a few bowls before you start this journey ; )

Published 12 months ago by Jacob

Great item and good service.

Published 1 year ago by Amazon Customer

A very important text about the modern science.

The author is famous talkimg about several arguments of the modern science, particularly in relation to the artificial intelligence.

Published on October 9, 2014 by Edoardo Angeloni

Great book arrived in perfect timing

Published on July 17, 2014 by Lappoon Rupert Tang

an oldie but a goodie

I first read this book when I was a nerdy high school student. I didn't understand half of it at the time. Now I understand a bit more.Read more

Published on May 11, 2014 by Kristin J. Bradburn

What was the question he was trying to answer? If he had known the answer would he have entered into a dialog with himself?Read more

Published on April 3, 2014 by Paris Miles-Brenden

Number Numbness

I bought the hardcover of this book when it first came out. HUGE BOOK. Lots of pages of some really interesting and thought-provoking studies.Read more

Published on October 25, 2013 by Michael L. Sweet

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