Rating: 
Summary: the Book of the books
Review: For me this book has become the "Book of the books"....how to say...? I mean, it is something more than a simple book that you can find in the open shelves worldwide. The book is 'just' about self-reference and self-referential systems and Hofstadter explains you that self-reference is that fundamental 'natural' law which moves everything, at every level of complexity as the human intelligence can recognize it: in music, mathematics, art, physics, genetics,...and so on. Hofstadter has the exceptional skill of making the reader to understand these concepts by means of lots of examples, simplified images borrowed from every field of human knowledge, just step by step towards the deep understanding of the so destabilizing Godel's Theorem of Incompleteness. "Gödel, Escher, Bach" is the book which makes you to think and to develop your thinking even beyond the contents of the book itself, trying to catch what should be the last and fardest level of the self-referential systems. The book is however structured in order to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and how powerful such an intelligence can become if just we can really fully understand how our own brain does work, since AI is 'simply' a way for creating something perfectly imitating ourselves, without being God. And such a process is a so-called a 'strange loop', because we have to go inside our self for creating something outside it. In conclusion, the book represented for me something like "Wonderland" (actually, the reference to Lewis Carrol is a constant in the book), and more..., because once you finished it, you realizes that the book itself is a strange loop as well, and that you would like to start to read it again...and again....
Rating:
Summary: just the "Book of the books"
Review: For me this book is just the "Book of the books"....how to say...? I mean, it is something more than a simple book that you can find in the open shelves worldwide. This book is 'just' about self-reference and self-referential systems and Hofstadter explains you that self-reference is just that fundamental 'natural' law which moves everything, at every level of complexity as the human intelligence can recognize it: in music, mathematics, art, physics, genetics,....and so on. Hofstadter has the exceptional skill of making the reader to understand this concepts by means of lots of examples, simplified images borrowed from every field of human knowledge, just step by step towards the deep understanding of the so destabilizing Godel's Theorem of Incompleteness. "Gödel, Escher and Bach" is the book which makes you to think and to develop your thinking even beyond the contents of the book itself, trying to catch what should be the last and fardest level of the self-referential systems. The book is however structured in order to talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how powerful such an intelligence can become if just we can really fully understand how our own brain does work, since AI is just a way for creating something perfectly imitating ourselves, without being God. And this is just a 'strange loop', because we have to go inside our self for creating something outside it. In conclusion, the book represented for me something like "Wonderland" (actually, the reference to Lewis Carrol is a constant in the book), and more...Because, once you finished it you realizes that the book itself is a strange loop as well, and that you would like to start to read it again...and again....
Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile effort to read
Review: I first read GEB some 20 years ago as a high school senior/college freshman. Even though I was a mathematically inclined physics major, an amateur classical musician, and a lightning-fast reader, the book still took me a year to finish. This is the sort of weighty tome where one reads a chapter, and then sets the book aside for awhile to let things settle in. It's no wonder that a poll by New Scientist magazine of highly-regarded scientists had to be rephrased as "EXCEPT for Godel Escher Bach, what scientific or technical book would you take to an uninhabited island?" I will cheerfully confess that I cannot remember all of the details of the book, and that there were times when I simply couldn't get at what Hofstadter was trying to explain. Still, some of Hofstadter's writing has stayed with me the past two decades--his classic analogy of Godel's theorem with a stereo system, his discussion of the difficulties of creating an "accurate" translation (using the beginning of "Crime and Punishment"), his wondrous tying-together of math, music, and art. The totally math-phobic will find these, and many other concepts, readily accessible and even symbol-free. Wish I could say as much for some "general audience" philosophy books!
Rating: 
Summary: Nice job, Mr Indoctrinator
Review: I can only warn you of this book: It might give you a nervous breakdown if you are a spiritual person. The sickly intelligent author has a devilish and almost violent joy in convincing you that you don't have a soul, that your mind and self is a product of the complexity of your brain, and that is the ideology that pours out of every sentence in this book! He believes so strongly that everything can be objectified and symbolized that he kind of neglects his very own existence ...The thrill is: you have to hand it to him: he's real logical! It took me some time to get over it, but I felt he was wrong... and he is wrong, but it's not easy to put in words, because words are just words. No matter how you try to cover up the truth... someday it will prevail, because it IS! What traumatic experience made this author so loveless, cynical and blind?
Rating:
Summary: A Profound Meditation On Human Creativity
Review: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid debates, beautifully, the question of consciousness and the possibility of artificial intelligence. It is a book that attempts to discover the true meaning of "self." As the book introduces the reader to cognitive science, the author draws heavily from the world of art to illustrate the finer points of mathematics. The works of M.C. Escher and J.S. Bach are discussed as well as other works in the world of art and music. Topics presented range from mathematics and meta-mathematics to programming, recursion, formal systems, multilevel systems, self-reference, self-representation and others. Lest you think Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, to be a dry and boring book on a dry and boring topic, think again. Before each of the book's twenty chapters, Hofstadter has included a witty dialogue, in which Achilles, the Tortoise, and friends discuss various aspects that will later be examined by Hofstadter in the chapter to follow. In writing these wonderful dialogues, Hofstadter created and entirely new form of art in which concepts are presented on two different levels simultaneously: form and content. The more obvious level of content presents each idea directly through the views of Achilles, Tortoise and company. Their views are sometimes right, often wrong, but always hilariously funny. The true beauty of this book, however, lies in the way Hofstadter interweaves these very ideas into the physical form of the dialogue. The form deals with the same mathematical concepts discussed by the characters, and is more than vaguely reminiscent of the musical pieces of Bach and printed works of Escher that the characters mention directly in their always-witty and sometimes hilarious, discussions. One example is the "Crab Canon," that precedes Chapter Eight. This is a short but highly amusing piece that can be read, like the musical notes in Bach's Crab Canon, in either direction--from start to finish or from finish to start, resulting in the very same text. Although fiendishly difficult to write, the artistic beauty of that dialogue equals Bach's music or Escher's drawing of the same name. As good as all this is (and it really is wonderful), it is only the beginning. Other topics include self-reference and self-representation (really quite different). The examples given can, and often do, lead to hilarious and paradoxical results. In playfully presenting these concepts in a highly amusing manner, Hofstadter slowly and gently introduces the reader to more advanced mathematical ideas, like formal systems, the Church-Turing Thesis, Turing's Halting Problem and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, does discuss some very serious topics and it can, at times, be a daunting book to handle and absorb. But it is always immensely enjoyable to read. The sheer joy of discovering the puns and playful gems hidden in the text are a part of what makes this book so very special. Anecdotes, word plays and Zen koans are additional aspects that help make this book an experience that many readers will come to feel to be a turning point in their lives. Like every other book written by Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, has an index and a bibliography that must be noted as exceptionally well done. Although filled with English wordplay, this book is in no way tied to the American origin of its author. For years, it was thought that Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, would be impossible to translate, but so far, it has successfully been translated into French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Swedish, Dutch and Russian. A profound and beautiful meditation on human thought and creativity, this book is indescribably gorgeous and definitely one of a kind.
Rating:
Summary: One of the three Great Excelent Books!
Review: Great, great, great! A wonderfull book. But some of the comments I've read above miss the point of the book because... well, perhaps they haven't read OTHER books that might help. For example, critics of GEB without reading "The Selfish Gene" (by Dawkins) should not be taken in account. For, if "functionalim" doesn't specifie necessary and sufficient conditions for reference, melt it with Darwinism, and you'll have it. Beside that, GEB has alloud me to really understand Damásio's books, "Descartes's Error" and "The felling of what happens", his latest. Read them and you'll see that Damasio's construct of the mind is a very godelian one - or better, a Hofstadterian one. Reason, Emotion and Imagination, all these are subsistems that may communicate in godelian ways (what was that Pascal was trying to say with 'the heart has reasons that reason itsel does not know of'?). Read GEB - it's a Great, Excelent Book
Rating:
Summary: One of the three Great Excelent Books!
Review: Great, great, great! A wonderfull book. But some of the comments I've read above miss the point of the book because... well, perhaps they haven't read OTHER books that might help. For example, criticism of GEB without reading "The Selfish Gene" (by Dawkins) should not be taken in account. For, if "functionalim" doesn't specifie necessary and sufficient conditions for the act reference, melt it with Darwinism, and you'll have it. Beside that, GEB has alloud me to really understand Damásio's books, "Descartes's Error" and "The felling of what happens", his latest. Read them and you'll see that Damasio's construct of the mind is a very godelian one - or better, a Hofstadterian one. Reason, Emotion and Imagination, all these are subsistems that may communicate in godelian ways (what was that Pascal was trying to say with 'the heart has reasons that reason itsel does not know of'?). Read GEB - it's a Great, Excelent Book
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books ever written
Review: If you haven't read what some people consider the greatest book ever written, take the opportunity to buy your very own copy of the 20th anniversary edition of this Pulitzer-prize-winning classic of art, science and philosophy. It's difficult to imagine anyone reading this masterpiece and not becoming entranced by the beauty of science, the science of beauty, the Zen of illogic, the logic of Zen, and the mystical threads that weave together the life of even the most rational of skeptics. This is one of my favorite books of all time. To quote futurist and boy genius Eliezer Yudkowsky in his review of GEB: "It is a terrible thing to contemplate that 150,000 people die every day without having read this book. Don't let it happen to you.". --Richard Brodie, author, Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme
Rating:
Summary: Enigmatic Landmark
Review: Though it has long been a staple of the Extropian reading list. Gödel Escher Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter is such an entertaining and complex book that it can never have too many reviews. Originally published in 1979, Gödel Escher Bach proved to do what few other books before it could do: merge the essence of science, philosophy and art together in a single linear text. This on its own is a difficult feat; however, it is the level of insight into each area which makes GEB such essential Extropian reading, and is ultimately what won it the Pulitzer Prize for that year. Beginning with one of many dialogues between Achilles and the Tortoise (done in the style of Lewis Carroll) one knows that this is not your average book. However, despite the lighthearted appearance of the dialogues, in actuality they provide the embodiment of the previous and successive chapters in a somewhat more frivolous form. For example, the first dialogue questions the feasibility of the existence of motion...a physics problem tackled in a comical setting and discussion. From there Hofstadter takes us on a journey through mathematical formal systems, Zen, inconsistency theorems, canonic music compositions, Turing machines and self-referential sentences...tying them all together with the common link of cognitive study. Beyond the complex issues posited by the text itself, Hofstadter's writing style makes the book palatable to scientists and non-scientists alike, causing the artist to think scientifically, and the scientist to appreciate the nuances of artistry. Hofstadter appears to have an open enough mind to not view any of his conclusions as absolute truths...a distinction which very few scientific authors possess. Perhaps the most inherent value of the book is that despite its age (let's face it: 21 years is an eon ago in the face of technological progress) it is still extremely fresh and offers months worth of fodder for progressive thought on a multitude of complex issues. In the Extropian community, Gödel Escher Bach has inspired luminaries such as Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, Max More and Spike Jones among many others. In essence, it is a wonderful book that deserves to be read by anyone who has an interest in technology, philosophy, art and cognition; there are no others like it.
Rating:
Summary: Two kinds of readers
Review: I was once told there are two kinds of people: those who get past chapter 7 in GEB, and those who don't. It saddens me to be in the second group, but the part I did read has left an intangible pattern weaving somewhere back there in my mind.
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