Book: Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Eihli · #1 07-17-2006, 03:14 PM

If anyone has read this book can you please tell me about it? Are there any tips you can give me to better understand the book? I had to read the preface 4 times before I even began to understand what the rest of the book would be about (and I'm still not 100% sure I got it).

Is it worth the effort for the average person? Thanks.

FredBoots · #2 07-18-2006, 06:28 PM

It is a great book. Lots of math. You're smarter from just reading the preface.

aeest400 · #3 07-18-2006, 08:16 PM

Just seach for some discussion of it on the web. Hofstadter is a smart guy and their are interesting things in the book, but it didn't really change my view of cognition. Haven't read it in a long time though.

Siegmund · #4 07-20-2006, 05:38 AM

The preface of the 20th-anniversary edition is singularly unhelpful for understanding what the book is about: it's basically Hofstadter musing about the world's reaction to his book, and about how some of his own thinking has developed/shifted since he wrote it.

For a quick overview of what the book is going to cover, there is, of course, the Long Table of Contents.

A one-sentence summary of the book: all disciplines are interrelated, and whichever one you choose to study, you will have a deeper understanding of it if you look at how your field fits into the big picture of how the world works.

You don't have to be a trained mathematician, musician, or philosopher to understand it. Some modest background in those fields helps. (I, and several other of the "smart kids," read it sometime during high school. But I did have weird taste.) The excursions into Zen and genetics/biology are a bit distracting if these fields don't interest you; if they do, they are a secondary reason you might want to read it. Of course you're more likely to enjoy reading the book if you are sympathetic to his "premise of interconnectedness" and to the idea of mathematics being an underlying principle that helps explain how it all fits together.
The sections on artificial intelligence are beginning to look a bit dated. (Not as dated as certain people working in AI in the 1980s wish they were - but there has been progress in the field.) The rest of the book is aging very well.

vhawk01 · #5 07-20-2006, 01:52 PM

Just picked this book up last night, looking forward to reading it. Thanks, SMP forum!!

bluesbassman · #6 07-20-2006, 04:56 PM

[ QUOTE ]
If anyone has read this book can you please tell me about it? Are there any tips you can give me to better understand the book? I had to read the preface 4 times before I even began to understand what the rest of the book would be about (and I'm still not 100% sure I got it).

Is it worth the effort for the average person? Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is my favorite nonfiction book, so yes, I obviously think it's worth it. Plug ahead, and I think you'll find you'll understand more as you get into it.

It's really a wonderful book.