Overview

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. Godel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

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Reviews

Godel, Escher, Bach was a triumphantly successful presentation of quite difficult concepts for a popular audience. There has been nothing like it in computer science before or since. --Ernest Davis, IEEE Expert A wondrous book that unites and explains, in a very entertaining way, many of the important ideas of recent intellectual history. --Commonweal A triumph of cleverness, bravura performance. --Parabola A huge, sprawling literary marvel, a philosophy book disguised as a book of entertainment disguised as a book of instruction. --Atlanta Journal-Constitution I have never seen anything quite like this book. It has a youthful vitality and a wonderful brilliance, and I think that it may become something of a classic. --Jeremy Bernstein 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 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 Winner of the National Book Award in Science Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction A brilliant, creative, and very personal synthesis without precedent or peer in modern literature. --The American Mathematical Monthly

Even without the contemporary relevance lent the book by the specter of global warming. The Little Ice Age would be an engrossing historical volume.

Winner of the National Book Award in Science --- Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction--- Godel, Escher, Bach was a triumphantly successful presentation of quite difficult concepts for a popular audience. There has been nothing like it in computer science before or since. --Ernest Davis, IEEE Expert A brilliant, creative, and very personal synthesis without precedent or peer in modern literature. --The American Mathematical Monthly A huge, sprawling literary marvel, a philosophy book disguised as a book of entertainment disguised as a book of instruction. --Atlanta Journal-Constitution A triumph of cleverness, bravura performance. --Parabola A wondrous book that unites and explains, in a very entertaining way, many of the important ideas of recent intellectual history. --Commonweal 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 I have never seen anything quite like this book. It has a youthful vitality and a wonderful brilliance, and I think that it may become something of a classic. --Jeremy Bernstein 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

Author Information

Douglas R. Hofstadter is College of Arts and Sciences Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he also directs the Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition. He is the author or co-author of nine books, including I Am a Strange Loop and Surfaces and Essences, and has contributed to ten more. He lives in Bloomington.

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