4.7 ⭐️, 2.2k+ ratings (Amazon)
4.3 ⭐️, 48.5k+ ratings (Goodreads)
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Amazon Description:
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll
Douglas Hofstadter’s book is concerned directly with the nature of “maps” or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.
“Every few decades an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, clarity, range, wit, beauty and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event. This is such a work.”
― Martin Gardner, Scientific American
“In some ways, Godel, Escher, Bach is an entire humanistic education between the covers of a single book. So, for my next visit to a desert island, give me sun, sand, water and GEB, and I’ll live happily ever after.”
― John L. Casti, Nature
“A brilliant, creative, and very personal synthesis without precedent or peer in modern literature.”
― The American Mathematical Monthly