Douglas Hofstadter

A very dense book that still manages to have a sense of whimsy and humor. Best absorbed in chunks and then read again at a later date. And then yet again. You will certainly have your share of "homework" to do to get the most out of GEB.

At the risk of sounding snobbish, I have to wonder how accessible GEB is to those, even readers of other books on philosophy, who do not have at least some grounding in the diverse subject matter. While Hofstadter's enthusiasm for the material is infectious, the math alone in this book can be an exercise in frustration.

Still, the intersection of complex math, music, and art is hardly unheard of. GEB is less a book that you stumble upon, and more one that is passed down to you by a mentor or friend. An heirloom, in many ways.

Full of lively discussions about patterns, language, loops, paradoxes, systems, AI, the nature of consciousness... primarily using examples of mathematician Godel, artist M.C. Escher, and composer J.S.Bach, but also dipping into greek philosophy, Zen Buddhism, computer programming, and more.

Ultimately, recommended if you enjoy just... thinking about thinking.… (meer)

I started reading this book almost simultaneously with my application for an Artificial Intelligence master at my University. Honestly, I got a little frustrated with the one-sided approach to AI that I read about, the premise always seems to be 'artificial intelligence'=='machine learning'. So I was entirely happy during my read of this book. It gave me a playful introduction and a new look into first-order logic, a subject in which I was already pretty invested, as well as an endless supply of inspiration on which to draw in my further AI adventures. I loved this book for it and I cannot believe that no-one in my first few explorations with AI told me to stop what I was doing and read this tome first.

I did have some issues with the book. While I loved the first few dialoges and I was thoroughly impressed with the underlying themes of the dialogs, they did become somewhat stale and forced after a few of them. Also, the constant meta-ness that Hofstadter supplies is very interesting and part of what makes the book great, but at some times this also seemed a little forced and it undermined the credability of the story just a little.

Even so, writing (and reading for that matter) this book has been an amazing feat and I cannot imagine that I will not read it again some time and take even more insight away from it. This book should be mandatory reading for anyone doing something or another in the field of AI, or conciousness or anything related.… (meer)

I don't need to go into why this book is bad as plenty of other readers have done so marvellously. Link, link, target="_top">link and link. But if you do end up reading it, treat it not like a book, rather a long monologue turning into background buzz that might trigger you to some of your own ideas.… (meer)