21–30 of 252 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2245 There are several famous mathematicians known for their avid use of amphetamines.
And there are many who arent. I doubt there's a statistical corollation.
I've read GEB over many years rather in the way someone would read the Bible. I pick it up from time to time and enjoy chewing on one or two chapters of material. But I've yet to figure out if the book actually has a specific thesis. I know it's all about the power of interpretation and the way in which interpreting a formal system as self-referencing has the effect of completely blowing up the intended design of tha…
Hofstadter's actual thesis/intent with the book, and what he has to say about Gödel numbering (note: the book goes over Gödel's theorem and some implications, but Hofstadter's real interest is less in Gödel's theorem than in the proof technique—Gödel numbering—that Gödel used, because he is tickled by the self-reference), or Escher or Bach for that matter, are not really what make the book most worthwhile. What matters is the marriage of form and content, the perfect puns that seem to be set up several hundred pages apart, the way you'd be reading another dialogue before suddenly realizing that the lines are spelling out an acrostic, the satisfaction of things working themselves out perfectly (even the puns) (a feeling similar to the satisfying tying-together of the plots of certain novels, some of Wodehouse's included), and so on.
Very few authors can write about technical topics in a way their personality shines through. (Knuth is another IMO, except with the personality staying in second place to the technical content, while with Hofstadter it's the other way around!)
(Or non-technical writing: did you know about Hofstadter's translation of Eugene Onegin? He learnt Russian just to be able to read and translate that poem (see https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/r... https://www.tralalit.de/en/2018/07/25/a-tale-of-two-or-so-tr... https://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/pml1/onegin/ for the story, and https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/09/12/r... for the very negative NYT review) and the result is amazing for exactly the reasons the reviewer complains about: yes it can't stand alone and it's best read alongside a "real" translation say Falen's, but throughout you can see Hofstadter having fun with his word games, and somehow his personality shines through even in just the way he's choosing to translate Pushkin; it's so amazing how he manages to have so many things just work out. “Till his creditors cast their nyet's”)
Short take...our reality is a mesh between two different math desc, one is micro and one is not. The only problem is we still have no idea how nature bridges between those two different mathematic systems and that leads us down some very interesting rabbit holes:
1. String Theory and multiple worlds, except they are on micro basis, i.e. you cannot see them even with an electron microscope.
2. Tim travel at electron part level but not atom level.
among other interesting things.
I've read GEB over many years rather in the way someone would read the Bible. I pick it up from time to time and enjoy chewing on one or two chapters of material. But I've yet to figure out if the book actually has a specific thesis. I know it's all about the power of interpretation and the way in which interpreting a formal system as self-referencing has the effect of completely blowing up the intended design of tha…
Metamagical Themas is worth checking out for that style of reading as it is a compilation of his essays. One can pick and choose any to read but there's overarching themes that bring them together too.
I've read GEB over many years rather in the way someone would read the Bible. I pick it up from time to time and enjoy chewing on one or two chapters of material. But I've yet to figure out if the book actually has a specific thesis. I know it's all about the power of interpretation and the way in which interpreting a formal system as self-referencing has the effect of completely blowing up the intended design of tha…
Why read this when GEB is its own in-depth explainer?
I've read GEB over many years rather in the way someone would read the Bible. I pick it up from time to time and enjoy chewing on one or two chapters of material. But I've yet to figure out if the book actually has a specific thesis. I know it's all about the power of interpretation and the way in which interpreting a formal system as self-referencing has the effect of completely blowing up the intended design of tha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you so much for saying this, I find this misconception deeply insulting
It's not an insult. Psychedelics can profoundly change how someone perceives things. GEB has that sort profound shift in POV that many would associate with psychedelics.
I've read GEB over many years rather in the way someone would read the Bible. I pick it up from time to time and enjoy chewing on one or two chapters of material. But I've yet to figure out if the book actually has a specific thesis. I know it's all about the power of interpretation and the way in which interpreting a formal system as self-referencing has the effect of completely blowing up the intended design of tha…
It is for sure reaching, but his core conceit is about pattern recognition and emergent behavior and he throws everything he's got at the wall there through the eyes of his interests because he KNOWS there is something there, even if Godel could describe it in a 19 page paper decades before.
That some of this is obvious in hindsight almost 50 years later does not discredit the bizarrely singular nature of his effort, maybe the same way Seinfeld seems corny now.