JazzManJim
On the Downbeat
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2001
- Posts
- 27,360
Have any of you brainy/metaphysical types out there read this book?
For those of you who have not, it was written by Douglas Hofstadter who has gone on to head the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of Indiana (I believe). The book won the Pulitzer Prize and was written in 1979. It is still in print and was even reissued a couple of years ago on it's 20th Anniversary.
The book tackles an interesting question: Can we build a machine that thinks like the human brain does? To answer this question (though I don't believe he actually does), he uses the phenomenon of paradox to outline the essential difference between human thought and computerized "thought" (namely that computers don't handle paradox well, if at all).
To do this, he introduces us to three people: German mathemetician Kurt Godel, composer and master musician Johann Sebastian Bach, and artist M. C. Escher. Each of them in their own ways played havoc with paradoxes in their various fields.
Hofstadter is both playful in his presentation (featuring a running dialogue based on a Lewis Carroll writing) and rock-solid scientific. His mind is brilliant and very active and both of those qualities show through very apparently.
Lastly, this is one of the few books I've ever read which always causes me to think very hard each time I read it. It's worth your time.
And for those of you who have read it, what did you think of it?
For those of you who have not, it was written by Douglas Hofstadter who has gone on to head the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of Indiana (I believe). The book won the Pulitzer Prize and was written in 1979. It is still in print and was even reissued a couple of years ago on it's 20th Anniversary.
The book tackles an interesting question: Can we build a machine that thinks like the human brain does? To answer this question (though I don't believe he actually does), he uses the phenomenon of paradox to outline the essential difference between human thought and computerized "thought" (namely that computers don't handle paradox well, if at all).
To do this, he introduces us to three people: German mathemetician Kurt Godel, composer and master musician Johann Sebastian Bach, and artist M. C. Escher. Each of them in their own ways played havoc with paradoxes in their various fields.
Hofstadter is both playful in his presentation (featuring a running dialogue based on a Lewis Carroll writing) and rock-solid scientific. His mind is brilliant and very active and both of those qualities show through very apparently.
Lastly, this is one of the few books I've ever read which always causes me to think very hard each time I read it. It's worth your time.
And for those of you who have read it, what did you think of it?
