Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid | 
| Author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  237 reviews
Sales Rank: 1620
Media: Paperback
Edition: 20 Anv
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 832
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 0465026567
Dewey Decimal Number: 510.1
EAN: 9780465026562
ASIN: 0465026567
Publication Date: February 4, 1999
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Condition: NEVER READ! Book is an overstock and shows minor handling wear. May have marker line (remainder mark) on edge. Packed securely and shipped quickly!
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Amazon.com
Twenty years after it topped the bestseller charts, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is still something of a marvel. Besides being a profound and entertaining meditation on human thought and creativity, this book looks at the surprising points of contact between the music of Bach, the artwork of Escher, and the mathematics of Goedel. It also looks at the prospects for computers and artificial intelligence (AI) for mimicking human thought. For the general reader and the computer techie alike, this book still sets a standard for thinking about the future of computers and their relation to the way we think. Hofstadter's great achievement in Goedel, Escher, Bach was making abstruse mathematical topics (like undecidability, recursion, and 'strange loops') accessible and remarkably entertaining. Borrowing a page from Lewis Carroll (who might well have been a fan of this book), each chapter presents dialogue between the Tortoise and Achilles, as well as other characters who dramatize concepts discussed later in more detail. Allusions to Bach's music (centering on his Musical Offering) and Escher's continually paradoxical artwork are plentiful here. This more approachable material lets the author delve into serious number theory (concentrating on the ramifications of Goedel's Theorem of Incompleteness) while stopping along the way to ponder the work of a host of other mathematicians, artists, and thinkers. The world has moved on since 1979, of course. The book predicted that computers probably won't ever beat humans in chess, though Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997. And the vinyl record, which serves for some of Hofstadter's best analogies, is now left to collectors. Sections on recursion and the graphs of certain functions from physics look tantalizing, like the fractals of recent chaos theory. And AI has moved on, of course, with mixed results. Yet Goedel, Escher, Bach remains a remarkable achievement. Its intellectual range and ability to let us visualize difficult mathematical concepts help make it one of this century's best for anyone who's interested in computers and their potential for real intelligence. --Richard Dragan Topics Covered: J.S. Bach, M.C. Escher, Kurt Goedel: biographical information and work, artificial intelligence (AI) history and theories, strange loops and tangled hierarchies, formal and informal systems, number theory, form in mathematics, figure and ground, consistency, completeness, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, recursive structures, theories of meaning, propositional calculus, typographical number theory, Zen and mathematics, levels of description and computers; theory of mind: neurons, minds and thoughts; undecidability; self-reference and self-representation; Turing test for machine intelligence.
Product Description
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. Goedel 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 232 more reviews...
 My favourite book - ever! June 9, 2008
This is one of my favourite book of all time. I first read it twenty years ago as an undergraduate on my computer science degree. The nice thing about getting older, but still remaining young, is that you can go back and revistit master works - and lets make no bones about it, this is a master work. As such, it requires time, effort and mastery of the ideas.
This is not a book that you can just pick up and read in a couple of days. Of course you can delve into it and loose yourself for a few hours, but to obtain mastery will take serious time and effort. Using Howard Gardener's terminology, Hofstadter synthesises across the domains of music, maths and art. This is no mean feat.
Buy it, only if you have the time for it. Treasure it, enjot it and love it as much as I do.
 Abstruse and over-rated April 20, 2008
4 out of 17 found this review helpful
The author complains in the new preface that a vast majority of the reviewers, including those who have rated this book very highly, seem to have no idea of what he has been trying to say. In my opinion, this is a self-indictment that does not leave much for others to say. If the author cannot get his ideas across in 700 pages, perhaps people should not waste their time on him. I have learnt it the hard way: after buying this book, five years ago, on high recommendations of friends, only to find it so boring and confused that I could never go beyond a few pages even though I gave it innumerable attempts.
Magnum Opus on Intelligence March 28, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I realized after recommending this to a friend that I've never reviewed it. Strange, since it's one of the dozen most important books I've ever read in my nearly half-century on this planet. I first read it over 20 years ago, and continue to refer to its literate and well-crafted pages frequently.
This book is Doug Hofstadter's religion. Since it's so good and so right about so many things, people run off into strange places with Hofstadter's words, sort of like the Bible. GEB (the shorthand name for the book) is, for me, a meta-level examination of what it is to be human. Some people see the shadows of the gods in there. I'm not trying to be melodramatic, nor do I believe I'm overstating the value of this book.
Hofstadter takes the reader along on a Carrollian trip using metaphor and fable. Then he employs pedagogical, practical exercises, and good old-fashion lecture. Rinse and repeat, again and again. When he tells you to get pen and paper, please do it. Take your time with this book. I tried and failed on my first attempt. When I finally settled into it, it took me three months to joyously work my way through it. Take a year if you need it.
Reception, analysis, recursion, reapplication. Hofstadter examines the basic evidences of intelligence, forms sensible, fundamental meta-rules, and builds from there. This book - as others have said - is hard work, like climbing a mountain. But at the end of the endeavor, the view is dazzling.
Wow... Deep thoughts, and Abstract Perspectives February 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have not completed this book, and I am not sure you can ever say that you are complete with a book of this magnitude, however, it will certainly be a book I will review again and again. If you want to be challenged intellectually, this book would be the ticket. I enjoy a good challenge, and although it isn't a 'fun' read, it is valuable book to have in your personal library if you are interested in a paradigm shift in your reality.
 HOFSTADER'S ERROR(By James E. Spinosa) January 28, 2008
1 out of 15 found this review helpful
After studying Douglas R. Hofstader's brilliant book, I discovered an error in the proof of Godel's first incompleteness theorem that invalidates the proof. The same error is in Newman & Nagel's book Godel's Proof.
The error occurs on page 447. The incorrect statement is, "a' is the arithmoquinification of u." The statement should read: a' is the arithmoquinification of the numeric value of the Godel number u. The term u represents the Godel number of a specific formula, and the word arithmoquinification is a portmanteau word coined by the author.
Godel's theorem is derived by arithmoquining a formula that Hofstader calls the "uncle" formula. On page 447, he writes,"Now all we need to do
is-arithmoquine this very uncle! What this entails is 'booting out' all the free variables-of which there is only one,namely a"-and putting in the
numeral for u everywhere. This gives us: ~Ea:Ea': where the number of S's equals the numeral for u." That is Hofstader's version of Godel's theorem or G. On page 447
he offers this interpretation of the theorem,"There do not exist numbers a
& a' that both(1)they form a TNT-proof-pair, and(2)a' is the arithmoquinification of u." But,as I have pointed out Godel's theorem does
not declare part(2)of his interpretation. Instead, the correct interpretation of part(2)is, a' is the arithmoquinification of the numeral of the Godel number u. The numeral of the Godel number u cannot be
arithmoquined because it is not a formula and therefore has neither a Godel number nor a free variable.
This invalidates the proof because we no longer have a true statement: a'
is the arithmoquinification of u that cannot be proven. Instead we have a
false statement that cannot be proven. For more info & essays on this subject,please go to www.jimssciencepage.info
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