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6 month read-through/discussion of Gödel, Escher, Bach starting 1/17 on Reddit

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Re: 6 month read-through/discussion of Gödel, Escher, Bach starting 1/17 on Reddit

#51

Post by giardini »

rhodin wrote: post #11

It's the kind of book you can spend a few days reading or a life time, just like "Zen and the art of motorcycle repair". I've read half of it in 8 years, so maybe it's time to redo the whole process from beginning to end.

There are times when it would be nice to downvote a post and this is one of them.

I would reread

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry...

before I woud crack GEB open again. In fact I discarded GEB. My belief is that the Devil himself collects these discarded old volumes and passes them out as reading material to nerds in Hell.

For 8 years you've been wasting your free time. Sell the GEB and read Nagel's "Godel's Proof" (see my other post for URL) instead.

Re: 6 month read-through/discussion of Gödel, Escher, Bach starting 1/17 on Reddit

#52

Post by thebigshane »

AlbumX10 wrote: post #34
brianwillis wrote: post #4

It's such a shame there isn't a Kindle/ePub/PDF version. I guess I'm off to kill another tree.

Here's a working link to the pdf: http://www.4shared.com/get/kj6ls_4Z/Godel_Escher_Bach-An_Ete... No seeders for torrent though, so direct download is the only option.

Can an admin please remove the parent comment?

We should not be promoting and posting links to pirated material here.

Re: 6 month read-through/discussion of Gödel, Escher, Bach starting 1/17 on Reddit

#53

Post by haberman »

presidentender wrote: post #38

I loved GEB, but since reading it (and jumping in and re-reading parts here and there when it strikes my fancy) I've come to the conclusion that it's a perfectly laid Dunning-Kruger trap which specifically ensnares people like me. I am not as smart as Hofstadter, and I know it, and so I'll never be sure I've actually understood the meat of the message. I think I get strange loops, recursion, self-reference and the me…

I had the opposite reaction: I lost faith in the book's analytical process only ten pages in, when Hofstadter claimed that Bach's canon was a "strange loop" simply because it modulates to a higher key. Sure, if you keep doing this you can get to the same key, an octave higher, but that's only because pitch itself is periodic, repeating the same notes every octave. There's nothing unique or mysterious about Bach's canon in this regard; anything that modulates up a step has the same property (for example, the chorus to "Mandy" by Barry Manilow).

I think the far more interesting observation is that octaves in music work this way, where we as humans somehow perceive frequencies in a 2:1 ratio as "the same, but different." A 440 and A 880 aren't the same pitch, and we can clearly perceive the difference between them, and yet the seem "the same" to the point that we give them the same letter and think of them as the same. I find that very interesting and slightly mysterious.

Anyway, since music is my area of expertise (as opposed to the other things described in the book) I lost faith that his explanations of the other subject material wouldn't have similarly sloppy thinking. The impression I got was that, in an effort to weave an interesting and engaging narrative, he was too quick to see things as instances of these fanciful concepts like "strange loops."

Re: 6 month read-through/discussion of Gödel, Escher, Bach starting 1/17 on Reddit

#54

Post by omarchowdhury »

defen wrote: post #47
WhatsHisName wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to the same grad school as the author did and got a PhD in physics there. Most of the professors I knew who taught the guy said the same thing to me about the book. It's just awful.

If you treat the book as an experience rather than a tome containing the answer to life the universe and everything, it's quite enjoyable.

Exactly. Reading this book looking for those answers or looking for validation of notions you already hold is just going to lead to frustration.

Re: 6 month read-through/discussion of Gödel, Escher, Bach starting 1/17 on Reddit

#55

Post by pork »

haberman wrote: post #53
presidentender wrote: post #38

I loved GEB, but since reading it (and jumping in and re-reading parts here and there when it strikes my fancy) I've come to the conclusion that it's a perfectly laid Dunning-Kruger trap which specifically ensnares people like me. I am not as smart as Hofstadter, and I know it, and so I'll never be sure I've actually understood the meat of the message. I think I get strange loops, recursion, self-reference and the me…

I had the opposite reaction: I lost faith in the book's analytical process only ten pages in, when Hofstadter claimed that Bach's canon was a "strange loop" simply because it modulates to a higher key. Sure, if you keep doing this you can get to the same key, an octave higher , but that's only because pitch itself is periodic, repeating the same notes every octave. There's nothing unique or mysterious about Bach's ca…

Interesting! Reminds me of the criticism leveled against Freakonomics, and it's genuinely the first time I've heard it applied to GEB. What you're saying is obvious and makes perfect sense, I wonder if we're both missing something, or if Hofstader was playing a little too merrily outside his domain of expertise.

Edit: first time until I got lower down this thread, wow!

Re: 6 month read-through/discussion of Gödel, Escher, Bach starting 1/17 on Reddit

#57

Post by drewrv »

funkah wrote: post #48
presidentender wrote: post #38

I loved GEB, but since reading it (and jumping in and re-reading parts here and there when it strikes my fancy) I've come to the conclusion that it's a perfectly laid Dunning-Kruger trap which specifically ensnares people like me. I am not as smart as Hofstadter, and I know it, and so I'll never be sure I've actually understood the meat of the message. I think I get strange loops, recursion, self-reference and the me…

Have you ever seen Hofstadter try to summarize the idea conveyed in the book? He really is not able to, and so I think the book pretty much boils down to "hey here's a bunch of weird/cool stuff." Which is not such a bad thing. But for me, there was a point where I had to stop reading, I think when he tries to independently derive propositional logic or something like that? (It has been a while.) I just remember findi…

He's pretty explicit that the idea is: consciousnesses is a strange loop, and since it's sometimes impossible to understand a system from within that system, we may never be able to understand the human mind because we are trapped within human minds.

Re: 6 month read-through/discussion of Gödel, Escher, Bach starting 1/17 on Reddit

#59

Post by levesque »

brianwillis wrote: post #4

It's such a shame there isn't a Kindle/ePub/PDF version. I guess I'm off to kill another tree.

In my case, it's more a matter of praticality. My nook is lighter than a book and contains many books, so if I don't feel like reading one type of book I can switch easily.

Less importantly, I can hold the nook with one hand and still be able to turn pages. I travel by bus, so this is useful to me - my other hand can hold a coffee ;)

Re: 6 month read-through/discussion of Gödel, Escher, Bach starting 1/17 on Reddit

#60

Post by JonnieCache »

irahul wrote: post #27
WhatsHisName wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to the same grad school as the author did and got a PhD in physics there. Most of the professors I knew who taught the guy said the same thing to me about the book. It's just awful.

I still can not make out whether you have read the book or not. You went to the same school as the author(I presume you mean the OP in the reddit thread), and you knew the professors who taught the guy didn't like the book. Is that all you are basing your opinion on? GEB isn't a physics book, so I don't see how "the professors who taught this guy" say matters - it's all too common that people don't like books that di…

I think he means he went to the same school as hofstadter.
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