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Summary: Regarding the mind... intellectually stimulating
Review: I have purchased dozens of this book for friends. Although difficult for the layman, it is one of the most impressive books written about the human mind and thinking. As for technique, the author reinforces each concept from the perspective of art, mathematics and music. The only book in this subject area that is more stimulating and more current, is Sensitive By Nature: Understanding Intelligence and the Mind, which communicates well to professional and layman alike.
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Summary: Mathematics, yes - epistemology, no
Review: An engaging book - Hofstadter does well to link Bach and Escher to Godel, and to illustrate difficult concepts such that average readers can gain an appreciation of them.Hofstadter is at his best in the dialogues, as well as when he treats Bach, Escher and Godel. He is at his worst when he treats the elusive concept of meaning. Indeed, his treatment of meaning is a very simplistic version of psycho-physical reductionism, and, worse, he does not argue for his position, but assumes that it is indeed true. When reading his first chapter explicitly treating meaning, I was forced to look ahead to the index. To my dismay, there is no mention of Kant, no mention of the empiricist/rationalist debate, and no nuance in his hasty generalization regarding the identical states of people's brains, or an argument that would suggest that 'brain' and 'mind' have anything to do with each other. Entertaining, for the dialogue, penetrating in the treatment of Bach, Escher and Godel, but simplistic in its treatment of what intelligence actually is - disappointing . . .
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Summary: A very entertaining book
Review: I am just finishing the last dialog of GEB and had, what for me, is a strange reaction to it. I found it very entertaining though I have some problems with a few of the techniques the author uses in atempting to make the book more accessable to the average reader (arithmoquining, etc.). I would prefer it to have been a bit more mathematically rigouous, but that's the physicist in me coming out. I was sitting on the train, on my way into work, reading the book and decided to look aheasd to see how much was left. I suddenly found myself saying "I will miss this book like an old friend who suddenly anounced that he is moving away". For me, a strange reaction, but one that speaks of the entertaining and enjoyable nature of the book.
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Summary: Absolutely amazing!!
Review: GEB is an absolute masterpiece. Not only does the author clearly explain difficult concepts, but he does so using literary styles that reinforce and mirror the concept being taught. The book is a work of both art and science. Reading this book gives one the feeling of being taken on a fascinating journey of discovery to a place the author has been and cannot wait to show you. Compared to "A New Kind of Science" by Stephan Wolfram, which seems to tell the reader constantly how great the ideas in the book are, Hofstadter makes no such claims. The greatness of the book speaks for itself. This is without a doubt one of the most fascinating and well written books I have ever read. One gets the sense of passion that the author felt in writing the book, and no effort was spared in this book's creation. Not only is GEB a great read, but the author kindly provides puzzles and problems throughout the text to illustrate his points. One of the great joys of this book is stopping to solve these puzzles. In this way, the reader takes many of the intellectual steps personally, and then turns the page to discover he/she is indeed being guided on the same path as Hofstadter was some 20 years ago. GEB is truly a breathtaking achievement.
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Summary: Tour de Force
Review: Simply astonishing. For the mathematically/logically minded. There is a lot here and it requires a long time to ponder. The effort is worth it.
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Summary: A very good piece of art, but not a "metabook" in anyway...
Review: The book primarily starts to talk about the "core" of the famous GEB figure. And it can basically said to be the Godel theorem. In the introduction, author explicitly states that he has thought of an essay about Godel theorem at first and that his ideas "growed like a sphere" then. It is credible and nice that Escher is involved significantly with his famous, brain teasing works and the concept of "self reference" in these figures is well presented together with the great analogies of Godel theorem that is also intimately related with this concept. Another important thing that the author constantly points out is the idea of "isomorphism". The meaning of patterns and the actual meaninglessness of formal systems is related to this idea before rushing into the AI topics. By the way, Bach is just a little flavor for the book which is subjectively included for the sake of completeness of the trio. Things start to get a little bit mysterious and annoying when Zen Buddhism is presented to make some kind of convincing relationship between the main plot, but I think it's not convincing. The author is not sure that whether he really understood what Zen is. But I'm sure that he misuses it. What lies beneath the eastern philosophies is some kind of Pantheism and its reflections to the practical life. That's all. Anyway, the chapter about Zen can be totally omitted. It's an unnecessary part of the book. It's vital to see that the author is not a blind defender of strong AI as some intellectuals were so in the era the book is written. He stresses the complexity of intelligence, but more importantly in what way it is complex and how. He tries to make "isomorphisms" and "mappings" of the brain and thought and finally suggests that if sufficiently large layers of abstraction and sophisticated symbol manufacturing and processing units are established we can have an intelligence on a machine. By the way, the relationship presented between Godelian issues and the intelligence is not strong as the ones described in the first part. I mean, we really have to be sure that intelligence is not a "brain-bound phenomenon" (a term exactly used in the book) if we are to ignore low level details. It's not guaranteed that we'll achieve intelligence on a machine if we do abstractions and use some other kind of hardware. (Though, we can go very far) Physical and biological rules might be more effective than we think and it might be that the way neurons work presents a scheme that is very specific and hard (maybe impossible) to implement on any other platform. (This idea is proposed by Penrose, but very speculatively. Indeed, we don't have much knowledge about these issues) As for the nature of a possible AI (that he suggests), the author stresses that this machine would not be prone to programming for example, since the obvious programming statements (or say simplest, atomic operations) get lost in the layers and we actually don't know how it does a certain operation. So, what? This book has lots of beautiful ideas that are well presented and it's really easy to read although the concepts may seem unfamiliar at first. What makes it more valuable is that the author has a certain sense of literature and the text gets extremely nice at times. The creative dialogues of Achilles and Tortoise also indicate this feature. This book is a classic. BUT, it's neither a Bible of any kind nor a "metabook" (or any kind of thing that it's sometimes regardes as) and a book in this field is not expected to be so. (That's why he still get 5 stars from me) Author dubs it as a statement of his religion and it really is, as there are lots of excitement and mystery throughout the book. I asked myself why this book is so popular. People putting it very high is probably influenced by the "style" of the book. It pulls the reader into the bizarre world of the author even if you don't notice it. The artistic value is important here. This book could well be an above average book by a monotone and uninspired writing. But, it's a very good piece of art with valuable, ingenius ideas and what can we expect more? In short, I strongly advice this book if you want to have some sense of the topics it touches, but don't get hypnotized. I also advice you to read Penrose's work "Emperor's New Mind". For me, these two form a good couple while most do not think that way.
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Summary: This book influenced my personality
Review: I was 16 when this book first came out. I read bits and pieces of it constantly from that time until I finally read the whole book from beginning to end when I was 37. By then I had read the whole book several times over, but never sequentially. Many of my personality traits can be traced back to this book: a love of Lewis Carroll, my career as a computer programmer, my interest in robotics and artificial intelligence, and several Bach CD's in my collection (including the Musical Offering). I love this book. I'll leave it next to my son's bed when he's old enough to start understanding it.
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Summary: My third copy
Review: I have just purchased my third copy of this book. I bought the first copy when it first came out decades ago. Why, you ask 3 copies -- because I lent my two previous copies out to people who lent them out to people who ... They never came back. The book is that good that I'm willing to buy another copy.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Interesting, readable book
Review: This book covers a wide range of material, from number theory to artificial intelligence to Bach to Zen and to complex biological systems. However, it is written in a very readable manner even to non-experts such as myself. Every chapter is separated from the others and introduced by interesting little stories that are both very entertaining in their own right and very helpful in understanding some of the subject matter presented in the book. The first part of the book deals primarily with number theory, and I feel that this is really where the book shines. This is in part biased by my interest in mathematics, but even still, to me the writing in the first half has a clearer style and sharper purpose, although others have disagreed with me on this point. In the second half, where the book goes into artificial intelligence and some neural systems behavoir, I think that the date of the book starts to show through. For instance, ..., the book makes the prediction that a computer would not be able to beat a world-champion chess player, whereas that has clearly happened. The second half is still an interesting read, but for me this was the section of the book that stopped it from getting a full five stars. However, to anyone interested in number theory, Godel's incompleteness theory, and some of the intricacies of the music and art of Bach and Escher, I would heartily recommend this book, although I advise that it be started when a fair amount of time can be devouted to it; it is by no means light reading.
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Summary: incerdible!
Review: what can i say that has not already been said? i have never read another book that relates ideas (particularly concepts as complex as those discussed in the book) so clearly, let alone with such imagination.
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