Rating: 
Summary: It doesn't work for me
Review: I found this book to be too distracted to be good science, too unpersuasive to be good philosophy, too cute to be good math, and too annoying to be good poetry. With no disdain or contempt for the many people and prize committees who have found their lives or minds enriched by this book I have to say I found nothing here that helped me.
Rating: 
Summary: Still completely original- and totally misunderstood.
Review: When GEB was first published,the reviews and enthusiasm were endless. It's a brilliant introduction to recursion, said many. No, it's an introduction to, and demonstration of Godel incompleteness, said others. It's a demonstration of the commonality of art and science, said others. And there's something about ants near the end, but we're not sure why.Readers today echo the same sentiments. They're all right, in their own way- but none of these views really get at what Hofsteader was trying to do. Yes, GEB is a tuorial on Godel, Bach, ants, recursion and a dozen other esoteric topics, and it's a heck of an intellectual entertainment, but Hofsteader didn't just write GEB to show prove what a clever book he could write. At the core, GEB is, first and formost, a theory of Artifical Intelligence; all the bits on Godel, recursion and combinations are just a tutorial to bring the reader up to speed for what's about to follow. When GEB was first published, the dominant paradigm in AI was top-down; you built inference engines, programmed them with high-level knowledge about systems, and tried to get them to generalize from their. To a small minority- including Hofstader- this begged the really important questions: Where did the ability to make inferences come from in the first place? How was knowledge represented? A few pioneers then- people like John Holland- were looking at bottom-up models in which one posited the simplest levels of an organization- the individual elements and the rules of interconnection and communication. They reasoned that that's what the brain was, so if you couldn't derive AI from a model that echoed the brain, you weren't really proving anything. It was from this perspective that GEB was written, and given the state of AI at the time, it's not surprising that most readers- even the most enthusiastic among them- totally missed the point. Today, the bottom-up, or connectionist paradigm is gaining new respectability, and the work over the last few decades in complexity theory has given us more insight into the mechanisms of connectionism. Reading GEB in that context, not only is Hofstader's thesis much clearer, but the book appears that much more brilliant and prescient, given when it was first written. If you've never read GEB, read it it now, and then read George Dyson's "Darwin Among the Machines", Waldrop's "Complexity", Resnick's "Turtles, Termites and Traffic James", and John Holland's "Hidden Order". If you've read GEB before, take a look at those same books and then go back and reread GEB. You'll see it in an entirely new light.
Rating:
Summary: A gem of a book
Review: A truly wonderful book: beautifully written, engaging, stimulating, and extremely original. I have read and reread it many, many times, and each time I have had new insights and appreciations; it so exquisite in detail. The only (potential) flaw is that it is not for everyone, since the beauty of the book is not revealed superficially. A tour-de-force not easy to emulate, even in a generation, even to its own author.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, witty, convincing
Review: There are few books composed in academia that cover a particularly wide range of subjects. Most, written by professors for students of a specific class, are rather focused and narrow, with a very stoic style and less than artistic prose. Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is not one of them. It has an eccentric style, riddled with informal references, unscholarly depictions, and a rather sketchy curriculum, if used for a class. That is, however, what makes it so readable. Its chapters are composed of two sections: a dialogue and an exposition. The former is a device borrowed jointly from Galileo (who used them to present propositions that might be considered heresy without attributing them to himself), and Lewis Carroll (who originated the characters in the Hofstadter book, Mr. Tortoise and Achilles). These dialogues are quirky and whimsical, but serve well as introductions to the rest of the material. Furthermore, they frequently can be viewed from two angles, as it were: the characters inside usually have erudite conversations about topics that Hofstadter discusses later in the exposition, but also the actual format and content of the story can be an indirect self-reference to the subject of the following chapter. For instance, in one story, Mr. Tortoise and Achilles discuss the multiple layers of harmony that J. S. Bach fugues contain, whilst they are whisked through a multiple-layer story, in which they transcend multiple layers of M. C. Escher lithographs. These dialogues are often filled with a rather high-brow wit that makes them so charming to read, and yet they succeed brilliantly at illustrating the difficult points that Hofstadter dissects later in the actual chapter. But don't let the wit mislead you, this book certainly is curriculum material. Hofstadter's ability to painlessly explain extraordinarily complex ideas is illustrated by his expositions. They span the broadest material of any book I've ever read. Starting at Gödel's Theory of Incompleteness in Formal Systems, it spreads to Zen Buddhism, to the oddities in the lithographs of M. C. Escher, to harmony in the music of J. S. Bach, to molecular biology, to modern art, to artificial intelligence, to cryptology and so on. And yet Hofstadter's phenomenal talent is such that he can tie all of these dissidents together seamlessly with certain fundamental strands: recursivity, self-reference and formalization. In truth, it's a marvel that Hofstadter can fit all of that in 777 pages, and yet it flows smoothly from start to finish. A remarkable work, superlative in its field ... whatever that may be.
Rating:
Summary: A symphony for the mind
Review: Perhaps Hofsteader's method (or is it madness) is best explained with an example. One of the chapters, contrapunctus (or something like that) opens with a dialogue where some of the "characters" are discussing the greatness of acrostics and J.S. Bach. One character remarks that he wonders whether an author would include his own name or Bach's name, should he just happen to be including an acrostic work. As it just so happens, the first letters of each line in the dialogue spell "Hofsteader's Contrapunctus Acrostically Backwards Spells J.S.Bach, which, acrostically backwards, spells J.S. Bach. Wow! This is not to say that the work is not serious though. Through analogies such as the attempt to create a record player(logical system) that could play(prove/disprove) any record(statement), Hofsteader attempts to explain 300 years of process in formal systems and theory. Escher and Bach are just some of the ideas he brings together in this history. Be forewarned, the math/small print can get a bit heavy at times (especially in the sections on 1-2 specific formal systems). If you're willing to slog through it though, it is well worth it. The entire book is like a pleasant little exercise for the mind.
Rating:
Summary: Too brilliant to categorize
Review: This book is the most unique and startlingly profound/brilliant book I have ever read. Very impressive.
Rating:
Summary: Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach
Review: This Pulitzer Prize winning book should be read by everyone, but with a few cautions. Don't expect to be able to understand the book thoroughly unless you are an expert in mathematical logic, classical music, and art. I recommend hiring a reputable consultant or tutor to translate the book into more brief, concise, and easily understood English (at least, approximately). Hofstadter does not believe in short summaries, at least in this book. See my review of Marshall and Zohar, who have a much briefer summary of Godel (2-3 pages, roughly), and once you read that book you can tackle Hoftstadter's explanation of Godel's proof. Most people also miss the point that Mathematical Logic is of remarkable importance for all areas of knowledge (that was Godel's field) - see my reviews of Hajek, Hodges, and others in this respect. Another point is that Bach, one of the greatest classical composers, was a mathematical genius, and music and mathematics often go together (see some of my classical music and country/popular music reviews).
Rating:
Summary: This book is a "MUST READ"
Review: If you did enjoy Roger Penrose's "SHADOWS OF THE MIND" you will enjoy GEB. This book makes accesible to the layman things on the level of the Godel Theorem ,number theory , and philosophy of the science. If you (like me ) love J.S. Bach music , you will keep reading this book again and again . I found the Achiles Record Player battle against the tortoise one the most beautifull yet powerful way to explain the complex idea of Godel Theorem . Buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Mental Gymnastics
Review: EGB is a tremendous work in the field of cognitive science. Not only does Hofstadter draw together many of the findings of his field into a concise and readable format, but he also draws the reader into thinking about the genesis and consequences of the mental process. EGB's socratic, and often humorous, dialogs are a work of art unto themselves. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Me too
Review: I will simply add my "Amen" to the chorus that found this book wonderful. An illuminating, entertaining and profound discussion about a difficult subject. Lewis Carroll would have loved the dialogues. I only wish I knew enough to appreciate Western Classical music.
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