GEB is nominally a book about a mathematician, an artist, and a musician but as the author writes in the 20-year anniversary edition, "In a word GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter." Or to the point, "I have tried to weave an Eternal Golden Braid out of these three strands: Godel, Escher, Bach."
The book is structured in an unusual way: as counterpoint between Dialogues and Chapters. Math is hard enough but this structure tends to lessen the burden. I'm resigned to not fully understanding the math in my first reading. The book is essentially about "Strange Loops" with perhaps the most pressing today being can intelligent behavior be programmed? The author puts forth that this seeming contradiction is no contradiction at all. I guess we'll see.
The book has been called the bible of artificial intelligence since it first came out who's to argue.
It's a good read. I own it, but haven't read it in probably 30 years. I should probably dust it off and crack it open again sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteEnjoying it so far but it is slow going because I've learned to read to understand not just to finish pages and his points can be kind of esoteric. The dialogues help. I'm also reading a fiction mind candy book as a mind cleanser each day - that helps too.
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