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From: zwicky@osu-eddie.UUCP (Elizabeth D. Zwicky)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Godel, Escher, Bach
Message-ID: <702@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 15:59:42 EST
Article-I.D.: osu-eddi.702
Posted: Fri Nov  1 15:59:42 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 05:13:34 EST
References: <2246@iddic.UUCP> <2336@flame.warwick.UUCP> <2270@iddic.UUCP>
Reply-To: zwicky@osu-eddie.UUCP (Elizabeth D. Zwicky)
Distribution: net
Organization: Ohio State Univ., CIS Dept., Cols, Oh.
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The Pylyshyn in question I have not read. I have read some Pylyshyn, 
specifically on AI and the Turing test, and found it to be murky at best
and in parts what even philosophers admitted was so philosophical as
to be meaningless. This caused me to think twice before reading
anything else of his; it's not good for the paint to throw books
at the walls.

GEB I read with great enjoyment, twice in a rather bed-ridden
summer in high school. Once alone, and once with a friend who was also
bed-ridden at the time and had nothing better to do. We both liked it,
she perhaps more than I, although to this day it is all th connection
she has to any of this stuff except Bach. I am not certain that
Hofstadter is always right, but there is value in being intriguingly
wrong (to a degree); if you hit the right balance between interest
and falsehood, you can induce people to read enough more to find the
truth. You can at least show them why anybody might be interested,
which has more value than you might think, if you've never tried
to explain to a health-inspector grandfather what cognitive science is
an why you'd be interested in it.

	Elizabeth D. Zwicky