Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Douglas Hofstadter’s book is concerned directly with the nature of maps” or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the...
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Douglas Hofstadter’s book is concerned directly with the nature of maps” or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel Escher and Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780465026562 (0465026567)
ASIN: 465026567
Publish date: February 5th 1999
Publisher: Basic Books
Pages no: 817
Edition language: English
(Original Review, 1980-09-24)Before we ask "Are dolphins intelligent?" we must ask "What is intelligence?" Doug Hofstadter, in his book "Gödel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid", presents a way of looking at intelligence that is not as restrictive as most current definitions. (I highly recomme...
Preface to GEB's Twentieth-anniversary EditionOverviewList of IllustrationsWords of Thanks--Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden BraidNotesBibliographyCreditsIndex
If I were clever enough, I would write this review as a fugue. This is the formal structure that Hofstadter uses throughoutGödel, Escher, Bach. Whether the whole book is a fugue, I'm not smart enough to tell. But the fugue is used as a metaphor for layers of brain activity, thoughts, superimposed ov...
This is a book of brilliant insights separated by hundreds of pages of tangents. It touches on a ridiculous number of topics: number theory, music theory, fugues, art, physics, linguistics, literature, cognition, calculus, logic, programming, recursion, molecular biology, Zen, and much more. Many of...
I read this so long ago that I really think I need to re-read it.
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