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Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

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Re: Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

#41

Post by nabla9 »

stuntkite wrote: post #6

I'd owned this book for many years and had a similar experience to OP. But one day someone gave me `I am a Strange Loop`, which I started reading and enjoyed way more. After getting in a little bit Hofstadter makes some apologies for GEB saying it was the sum of work of a very young person. I think he was 24? I think it's pretty incredible considering his age. The things that lead him to thinking critically about con…

> think he was 24? I think it's pretty incredible considering his age.

This makes sense. I read the book at age of 20 or so, and it made me to change my life and change my career path. It's very playful, it informs, connects and educates. I think older and more cynical me might not have enjoyed it so much.

I think "Metamagical Themes" and the "Fluid concepts and analogies" are his best books although GEP had the largest impact on me. They are more refined explorations of ideas.

The value of Hofstader's life work is his single minded exploration of one of the hardest problems in cognitive science. Unlike conventional AI/ML research he is tackling the problem beyond the reach of the state of the art and refusing to pick easier problems to solve even when he can't make progress.

Hofstader's main proposition is that analogy making is the core of human cognition. He has made repeated attempts to pin it down into something that is formal using toy examples and programs (copycat, letter spirit). I think his approach has been very insightful even if nothing comes out of it.

In my opinion the "Fluid concepts and analogies" is the culmination of his work. GEB and "Metamagical Themeas" are the predule, what came afterwards is more like prose and and maybe reflection of his personal tragedy.

Re: Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

#42

Post by xkgt »

I share the same sentiment with many of the commenters. I found GEB to be unnecessarily verbose and repetitive. But that is not to say that I wasn't impressed by the book. Irrespective of your disposition, there is a lot to take from it. First time I previewed it, I was blown away by its scope and depth that I decided to buy it. But after few chapters, I found it difficult to get past the fluff writing. I will take the advise of skipping first 300 pages and re-attempt this.

Like one other commenter, I too recommend the Open Courseware on GEB. I have only watched the videos on the chapters that I have already completed. It offers a fresh perspective and academic take on the material presented in the book.

Re: Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

#43

Post by ramblerman »

stuntkite wrote: post #6

I'd owned this book for many years and had a similar experience to OP. But one day someone gave me `I am a Strange Loop`, which I started reading and enjoyed way more. After getting in a little bit Hofstadter makes some apologies for GEB saying it was the sum of work of a very young person. I think he was 24? I think it's pretty incredible considering his age. The things that lead him to thinking critically about con…

> I think he was 24?

27, but equally impressive nonetheless

Re: Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

#44

Post by commandlinefan »

fao_ wrote: post #10
stuntkite wrote: post #6

I'd owned this book for many years and had a similar experience to OP. But one day someone gave me `I am a Strange Loop`, which I started reading and enjoyed way more. After getting in a little bit Hofstadter makes some apologies for GEB saying it was the sum of work of a very young person. I think he was 24? I think it's pretty incredible considering his age. The things that lead him to thinking critically about con…

This. 100 times, this. GEB is an alright book, but nobody I know has actually managed to finish it. I Am A Strange Loop discusses the exact same thing, but does so with the experience of years of writing in metaphor, and more importantly, entirely in metaphor . All of the metaphors are well-crafted in that they are both a pleasure to imagine, can be recalled rather easily, and accurately map to what the author is try…

> nobody I know has actually managed to finish it

Well, I guess that depends on what you mean by "finish it". Like the blog post guy says, he "looked at every page", but he's not sure he actually absorbed everything about it there was to absorb.

Re: Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

#45

Post by nabla9 »

fao_ wrote: post #10
stuntkite wrote: post #6

I'd owned this book for many years and had a similar experience to OP. But one day someone gave me `I am a Strange Loop`, which I started reading and enjoyed way more. After getting in a little bit Hofstadter makes some apologies for GEB saying it was the sum of work of a very young person. I think he was 24? I think it's pretty incredible considering his age. The things that lead him to thinking critically about con…

This. 100 times, this. GEB is an alright book, but nobody I know has actually managed to finish it. I Am A Strange Loop discusses the exact same thing, but does so with the experience of years of writing in metaphor, and more importantly, entirely in metaphor . All of the metaphors are well-crafted in that they are both a pleasure to imagine, can be recalled rather easily, and accurately map to what the author is try…

I read the whole book in almost one go over a weekend when I was 20. I think I took 3 hour break to sleep. I was very hungry and tired but I was unable to stop.

I read it again in next six months in small pieces afterwards.

Re: Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

#46

Post by Angostura »

nabla9 wrote: post #41
stuntkite wrote: post #6

I'd owned this book for many years and had a similar experience to OP. But one day someone gave me `I am a Strange Loop`, which I started reading and enjoyed way more. After getting in a little bit Hofstadter makes some apologies for GEB saying it was the sum of work of a very young person. I think he was 24? I think it's pretty incredible considering his age. The things that lead him to thinking critically about con…

> think he was 24? I think it's pretty incredible considering his age. This makes sense. I read the book at age of 20 or so, and it made me to change my life and change my career path. It's very playful, it informs, connects and educates. I think older and more cynical me might not have enjoyed it so much. I think "Metamagical Themes" and the "Fluid concepts and analogies" are his best books although GEP had the larg…

> Metamagical Themes

It's Metamagica Themas, I think - an anagram of 'Mathematical Games'; the Martin Gardner's column in Scientific American which proceeded it.

A lovely book.

Re: Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

#47

Post by stuntkite »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #39
audunw wrote: post #29

I read and finished GEB first, and then read 'I am a Strange Loop'. I think the trick to reading GEB is to not take it so seriously. You can skim sections, you can skip parts, you don't have to understand everything, not everything has to make sense. I think the author here misses that when he complains such about the quality of the metaphors. They're not meant to help understand, as much as being there to give a vag…

IAASL also has one of the best (and easiest to understand) descriptions of non human sentience-when he talks about why he’s a vegetarian.

I am not a vegan, but his consciousness cone is something I seem to bring up frequently with people. Usually by the end of the conversation I don't quite know why I'm not vegan aside from habit. Last time I brought it up I was eating sushi and talking about how I had decided to quit eating cephalopods because they might be smarter than humans... But then ate pork belly and just didn't really know what I stood for anymore. Pigs don't have a complex skin pattern language, but they are smarter than my cats who I would never eat. Other people's cats might be smarter than a pig, mine are pretty dumb.

I need to double down on meal planning and just really quit it.

Re: Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

#48

Post by stuntkite »

ramblerman wrote: post #43
stuntkite wrote: post #6

I'd owned this book for many years and had a similar experience to OP. But one day someone gave me `I am a Strange Loop`, which I started reading and enjoyed way more. After getting in a little bit Hofstadter makes some apologies for GEB saying it was the sum of work of a very young person. I think he was 24? I think it's pretty incredible considering his age. The things that lead him to thinking critically about con…

> I think he was 24? 27, but equally impressive nonetheless

Definitely. Thanks for the clarification!

I honestly think it's kind of an important feature of the book. Since it's about the evolution of one's consciousness. At least for me being able to place how old he was as he found himself making the thing helps the parts that can feel sort of strange have the right contextual... extrusion? I recall what it was like to be in my mid 20s, I was thinking a lot about what it meant to be alive and people started suddenly around 25 treating me like what I thought was an adult.

The content of the book being about the procession of consciousness and all, yeah, it's a different book if you know he's 27 than if you think he's 60.

Re: Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

#50

Post by brudgers »

My first GEB, I traded for a complete works of Shakespeare. The second is sitting on a shelf alongside Fluid Analogies. Thinking about the GEB phenomenon today, boggles my mind. Sure it won a Pulitzer. But it was a best seller. That's how different the world was...non-fiction could be thick and highly technical and sell in volume to the general public...it didn't need to be a new journalistic summary or popular history, it could have long passages that many readers wouldn't fully understand and puzzles that they could not solve. A non-fiction book could require the reader to work. Not vague self-improvement homework, but intellectually in the present moment of the text. It was OK for a book to be hard. GEB is a piece of genius that would never get off the ground today. Basic Books is part of a conglomerate and self-publishing isn't a replacement.
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