Rating: 
Summary: hasn't aged well...
Review: When this book first came out, I, along with probably most mathematically and scientifically minded people of my generation, would certainly have considered it one of the best books ever written. Hofstadter has refined the task of writing a book into almost an art form. Drawing on the central theme of "strange loops" (ideas that loop back on themselves in a paradoxical manner, as might be seen in the art of M.C. Escher), Hofstadter successfully draws together ideas from a large variety of different human pursuits. An important idea--shown to be connected to other ideas in artificial intelligence, music, and art--is Godel's incompleteness theorem, which shows that there are limits on our ability to prove concepts that may, nevertheless, be true. This, too, is based on a "strange loop"--these loops seem to crop up everywhere and Hofstadter spends a lot of the book showing how they are pretty much fundamental to human knowledge.However, after reading the new preface in this 20th anniversary edition, I'm left with the sense that this once great book is now merely good. For one thing, Hofstadter seems to have evolved from a brilliant young man with a lot of great ideas into a somewhat cantakerous middle-aged man. He seems angry at the New York Times, and his readers, for not fully understanding the central message of the book. Yet he also excuses himself from making any attempt to update the book or bring the ideas in line with many of the enormous changes that have happened over the last 20+ years. It seems surprising to me that Hofstadter would constrain his own book to having only one central message--surely he should understand that a book of this complexity will mean many things to many different people, and that indeed is the reason for its popularity. So, I still highly recommend this book, but I'm left just a little disappointed that Hofstadter seems somewhat at war with his readers and as a result, won't attempt to update the book or try to help us reconcile the many events of the last 20 years with the themes of his book.
Rating: 
Summary: Tremendous inspiration for those with a humanist worldview
Review: I admit it: I tried twice over the span of ten years to get through this book before I finally succeeded last year. And no, I can't claim to have read every single word on every single page ("Crab" grows tedious at times). Yet I don't think Hofstader would be too disappointed in me, because I laid the book down feeling more inspired and optimistic about humanity than at any previous time in my life. By my third attempt at digesting GEB, I had arrived at a point where I was hungry for rigorous apologetic commentary on my reason-based worldview. The stunning thing about Hofstadter's book is that he managed to capture, at a still-early stage in the digital computing revolution, the essence of what is inevitably to come. As I neared the end of the book, I was gripped with the visceral certainty that humanity will ultimately transcend everything we know, that progress for all--though ambiguous in meaning--is attainable, that the human mind is the only seed necessary to produce astounding revolutions in our collective conscious experience. I stand in awe of the singular act of creativity and vision that produced GEB. The book may not be for everyone, but I for one forgive Hofstadter all of his self-indulgences. The sum here is vastly greater than the many complex and fascinating parts. Pick your copy up again and give it another try!
Rating:
Summary: overrated, but still very good
Review: No book could live up to this hype and praise, but still very worthwhile. It is best when describing difficult concepts of logic and computer science, weak when dragging in Zen and a tedious detour into molecular biology.
Rating:
Summary: Genius
Review: This is one of the most deeply brilliant books ever written. Rarely do I meet someone who actually understood it -- it is only superficially about weaving together the seemingly disparate works of Godel, Escher and Bach. It is a masterwork on consciousness, a colossal intellectual argument that parallels the tersely worded wisdom of a zen koan, whose purpose is to hint at truths that are inaccessible to human logic. Hofstadter hints at these truths by probing the godelian limits to self-understanding, the "snake eating itself"-like recursivity of consciousness. Zen koan are meant to provoke enlightenment through the momentary extrication from godelian-limited logic. The excersize of climbing the ladder of Hofstadter's argument will give you the tools to use logic to point yourself in the same direction, of truths beyond the scope of logic.
Rating:
Summary: An epic intellectual journey
Review: This book tries to explore several interrelated and complicated questions. These are "what makes a self?", "how is a self related to computers and formal systems?", "how is meaning created?" and "to what extent is self-reference essential for meaning?". To try and answer these questions (and he admits that there are currently no satisfactory answers), the author embarks on a journey touching physics, maths, art, biology, computer science, cognitive science, music, Zen etc etc etc. This is a huge book in terms of length, scope and meaning. That's probably why it's been quite popular for over 20 years. The book starts with an introduction to formal systems as rules for manipulating objects which can be represented as strings. He then links up to mathematical concepts to see how we can examine these systems and attach representation to them. Recursion is also introduced along with TNT (a special system of basic number theory), as well as some non-formal ways of thinking about systems (such as Zen). In the second part of the book, computers and cognitive science are linked to formal systems. Finally, using TNT as an example, Godel's incompleteness theorem is explained in a manner that's relatively easy for the layman to understand, as well as its implications with respect to meaning. Then, the book talks about self-reference on a more general sense as well as the progresses in AI and what this all has to do with the search for meaning and the investigation of our thinking selves. This may sound like a huge heap of tpoics and it is - but that's what makes the book special - its ways of connecting things from Godel's incompleteness theorem to Escher's self-referential prints to Bach's finely structured music which gives the "formal system" of musical notes an extra meaning. One of the enjoyable things about the book is that each chapter has a dialogue before it which introduces the subject in an easy and intuitive matter. The dialogues carry along the Socratic tradition with the main players being Achilles and the Tortoise. The book has hundreds of tables, diagrams and drawings to allow all readers to ponder at their level. Even if you don't agree with many of Hofstadter's theories, I hope you will still consider this a great book. It combines humour, philosophy, science and keen observation in an enriching way.
Rating:
Summary: Essential reading
Review: GEB is a great jumping point into issues of the philosophy of the mind, the underpinnings of mathemetical logic and the possibility of artificial intelligence and consciousness. The book explores a number of themes - one of the most important is joining together disparate forms of 'strange loops' - paradoxical self referential constructs that pop up in in art (Escher and Bach fugues), mathematics (Godel's theorem), religion (Zen buddhism), AI and various other places. I agree with another reviewer - everything in GEB leads towards an understanding the mind (Hofstadter's field is of course AI/cog science) - it's not just a random romp - but it's a misleading exagerration to say GEB is trying to provide a bottom-up theory! It is true, some of the foundations of AI such as propositional logic are explored and various metaphors for the mind are developed as well as the importance of circular self-referentiality, and emergence of complex behavior from simple primitives - but the implications for AI and cognitive science are always rather vague and the HOW is mostly left as an open-ended question. This open-endedness perhaps contributes to the rambling feeling of the book. Of course these questions are great mysteries and it's not surprising that GEB doesn't provide a neat theory to tie it all together. At it's size it is a rather daunting book to read in one go, but since a lot of chapters are rather independent it is possible to dip into it from time to time, i find myself picking it up occasionally and re-reading random chapters, usually i notice something new to ponder on. For me the most unique contribution of this book is the pointing out the importance of 'strange loops' in so many areas of thought (although they're never formally defined). I found myself constantly linking this idea to other things - for example Jacques Derrida's notion of deconstruction seems to me most easily understood as about creating a linguistic strange-loop to point out the limitations of language and philosophy itself. I don't think the book has really dated much at all the central ideas are timeless and AI and cognitive science haven't advanced to a point that invalidates anything, although Fermat's theorem has now been solved.
Rating:
Summary: An epic intellectual journey
Review: This book tries to explore several interrelated and complicated questions. These are "what makes a self?", "how is a self related to computers and formal systems?", "how is meaning created?" and "to what extent is self-reference essential for meaning?". To try and answer these questions (and he admits that there are currently no satisfactory answers), the author embarks on a journey touching physics, maths, art, biology, computer science, cognitive science, music, Zen etc etc etc. This is a huge book in terms of length, scope and meaning. That's probably why it's been quite popular for over 20 years. The book starts with an introduction to formal systems as rules for manipulating objects which can be represented as strings. He then links up to mathematical concepts to see how we can examine these systems and attach representation to them. Recursion is also introduced along with TNT (a special system of basic number theory), as well as some non-formal ways of thinking about systems (such as Zen). In the second part of the book, computers and cognitive science are linked to formal systems. Finally, using TNT as an example, Godel's incompleteness theorem is explained in a manner that's relatively easy for the layman to understand, as well as its implications with respect to meaning. Then, the book talks about self-reference on a more general sense as well as the progresses in AI and what this all has to do with the search for meaning and the investigation of our thinking selves. This may sound like a huge heap of tpoics and it is - but that's what makes the book special - its ways of connecting things from Godel's incompleteness theorem to Escher's self-referential prints to Bach's finely structured music which gives the "formal system" of musical notes an extra meaning. One of the enjoyable things about the book is that each chapter has a dialogue before it which introduces the subject in an easy and intuitive matter. The dialogues carry along the Socratic tradition with the main players being Achilles and the Tortoise. The book has hundreds of tables, diagrams and drawings to allow all readers to ponder at their level. Even if you don't agree with many of Hofstadter's theories, I hope you will still consider this a great book. It combines humour, philosophy, science and keen observation in an enriching way.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good book!
Review: I haven't really heard any hype about the book (a lot of the other reviewers are saying the book doesn't live up to its hype). I'm about 2/3 through, and it's really interesting! I'm not really sure what the message is, but I just like that it makes me think about interesting things. I'm an undergrad student doing a summer research project in math, so when I get a bit tired of really rigorous math, this is a nice break for me, but it still keeps me thinking.
Rating: 
Summary: I didn't read this book,
Review: and I'm probably not going to. However, after reading many of these comments, I thought I should point out: If you want to understand Godel's incompleteness theorem, go pick up "Godel's Incompleteness Theorems (Oxford Logic Guides, No 19)" by Raymond Smullyan. Someone mentioned that Hofstadter's book is the best introduction to Godel, while others have mentioned that the book obscures Godel's meaning with unnecessary, misleading, and often outdated material (as a student of both philosophy of language and Asian philosophy, i cringe when i hear of Western authors throwing in needless references to Zen). Smullyan's book plainly deserves the distinction of "best introduction to Godel". It takes some acquaintance with logic, but why would you care about Godel if you don't care about logic? Perhaps the answer to that question is in Hofstadter's book, but it shouldn't be; if you care about Godel you should care about logic. Wrap your head around that biconditional. While I cannot make too educated an evaluation of the book that I'm presently "reviewing", I can say that it doesn't take a tome to explicate Godel's simple theorem (Smullyan gets it done in about a chapter, and the metatheory course I took my last year in college got it done pretty concisely as well, albeit with about 400 pages worth of background). Godel may inspire one to write a big rumination on "how things are", but that's an odd thing to want to read. I hope a lot of people do however, as I'll probably write such a thing some day. It's a wonder one can be paid for self-indulgence, but the world works in mysterious ways...
Rating: 
Summary: a book I hate
Review: After hearing for years effusive praise heaped on this book by one reviewer/reader after the other, I thought I'd better look at it. Now,we are living in an age that "naturalizes" everything, that treats virtually all issues (including, e.g., the nature of consciousness, perception, language, self), all topics, all domains, as formalizable and treatable by some version or variety of natural sciences/math. (See, for example, the thinking, "research", and practices in current mainstream psychiatry.) Nevertheless, there is a good deal of impressive, very well informed minority literature that counters this trend--one which, according to some, started in ancient Greece and got its major boost in the Cartesian era. (My own publications have dealt with this issue peripherally, and I'm currently at work on a ms. that makes it central.) Apart from several rather lame discussions of Zen and of the limitations of logic and formalisms, Hofstadter's book is predicated on the veneration of formalization. I propose that it plays into the rampant societal pathology of abuse and inappropriate veneration of rationality--an abuse, I might add, which is also accompanied by its opposite polarity, a non-thinking mindlessness, an infantile way of operating. This polarized pathology devalues, ignores, misses what ought to be central to our lives--matters related to what the Jungian James Hillman somewhat ponderously calls our "soul". Hence, my hatred of this pretentious, smug work, and its collusion with scientism.
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