Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version nyu B notes v1.5 12/10/84; site csd2.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!csd2!klahr From: klahr@csd2.UUCP Newsgroups: net.cog-eng Subject: Re: Godel, Escher, Bach Message-ID: <2740002@csd2.UUCP> Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 21:36:00 EST Article-I.D.: csd2.2740002 Posted: Mon Oct 28 21:36:00 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 30-Oct-85 06:38:33 EST References: <2336@flame.warwick.UUCP> Organization: New York University Lines: 26 Here's someone who just meandered onto this net, giving his $0.02 worth: I read GEB and I liked it very much. Granted, there are sections where I felt toyed with, others that I felt were far too long-winded (as was this past phrase- see what I just did? That's a fairly common Hofstadter cutesy ploy), and others that I found fuzzy, confusing, and not too comprehensible. But in return for putting up with these nuisances, I got a very entertaining and very readable introduction to one man's philosophical views of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (capitalized as the heroes of this tome- sized epic). I thought I was given a fairly good qualitative feel for the substance of 20th century mathematical set theory, as embodied by the famous Godel's Theorem, and found the analogies made to molecular biology, Bach cantatas, and Escher drawings very interesting and helpful to following the overall scheme of things. The heart of the book is Hofstadter's tying together the implications of G, E, and B's use of Recursion with his own thesis for what is THE true nature of the mind, what is intelligence, and what "true" artificial intelligence is. While I don't agree with it, I thought I was given an intelligent hypothesis. If you want a good, nontextbook type intro to AI, if you're interested in cognitive theory, or if you want to know more about Godel's Theorem than "no system can be perfectly self contained", or even if you'd like to know more about Bach or Escher, try it! By the way, Hofstadter has published another book, a collection of columns he wrote for Scientific American on similar topics. The book is called Metamagical Themas (an anagram of Mathematical Games, the name of the column by Martin Gardner that H's column replaced).