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I managed to get halfway through Godel Escher Bach. Glad I'm not alone in not having finished it.

by mixmax 17y ago

mquander 17y ago
Am I the only one who found GEB to be a light read? There are many books on computer science, math, and philosophy which I have to think hard and spend a great deal of time to absorb, but GEB was most definitely not one of them. I know Steve Yegge is probably smarter than me, and it baffles me to hear him describe how it is too rich and dense for him to finish. I found it fairly playful and easy to get through, and hard to put down until I was done.
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  No, you're not the only one. I, and at least three people I know, all found it to be an entertaining and fairly straight-forward read. Certainly not unfinishable. I'd be interested to know what it is that people find makes them stop.
  - _delirium 17y ago
    It may have been that I just read it at the wrong time in my life, but I found parts of it really tedious. I can imagine it would've been more enlightening if I'd read it earlier in my life, as opposed to trying to read it after I already had a CS degree and was in grad school studying AI...
  - afterz 17y ago
    I found it light, and boring because of how light it was. I had studied Gödel's theorems, etc., so I really could not take the pace for explaining the logic stuff (most of the book) in GEB.
    - afterz 17y ago
      By the way, I would recommend any programmer interested in physics "The Road to Reality" by Penrose. I think that's a very challenging book, that can be interesting for programmers, even if it's not about programming. Compared to that kind of material, GEB is very, very light.
- b-man 17y ago
  and it baffles me to hear him describe how it is too rich and dense for him to finish I'm not saying that this is your case, but usually when this happens it is because the other person is looking at things that you are not. Reminds me of a time when I heard Robert Sapolsky saying that he did not handle his own stress in a good way. I'm pretty sure he handles it better than me and most people, but he has the knowledge that he is just scratching the surface. Looks also like that quote from Socrates 'I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.'
- sjf 17y ago
  No, it may not be a dense read. But this is exactly what made it hard to finish (for me). Meandering anecdotes and self-indulgent tangents bore me. I've read a couple of Hoftstader's books and I think he could really benefit from an editor with a bit of backbone.
- camccann 17y ago
  I read it when I was fairly young; I know I didn't fully grasp many of the concepts in the book, but it didn't feel "difficult". GEB's strength is also its weakness--it's engaging and inspiring, showing evocative connections between all manner of concepts that are themselves intricate and fascinating, in a manner that gives even a reader with little knowledge of the subjects a glimpse of the underlying abstract beauty. It's little wonder that many people cite it as having been a major influence on choosing to study some topic it touches on (particularly AI). But now, returning a decade hence, equipped with a deeper understanding of the material--particularly with the many faces of the self-reference paradox (which amusingly includes fixed-point combinators such as Y) that so deeply fascinates Hofstadter--a lot of GEB comes across as somewhat superficial and self-absorbed. Yet had I not read it, I doubt I would have ever explored the topics in the first place, so in a way the book itself has indirectly ruined my ability to enjoy it, an almost Hofstadter-esque twist of fate! In the end, GEB is a beautiful but fundamentally shallow book that ties together a lot of very deep concepts--so perhaps I can understand that, if one takes it at face value, it might seem intimidating. Taken as the intellectual candy that it is, though, it's a delightful bit of light reading (so long as the material is mostly new to you).

I managed to get halfway through Godel Escher Bach. Glad I'm not alone in not having finished it.

by mixmax 17y ago

I managed to get halfway through Godel Escher Bach. Glad I'm not alone in not having finished it.

Am I the only one who found GEB to be a light read? There are many books on computer science, math, and philosophy which I have to think hard and spend a great deal of time to absorb, but GEB was most definitely not one of them. I know Steve Yegge is probably smarter than me, and it baffles me to hear him describe how it is too rich and dense for him to finish. I found it fairly playful and easy to get through, and hard to put down until I was done.

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
No, you're not the only one. I, and at least three people I know, all found it to be an entertaining and fairly straight-forward read. Certainly not unfinishable. I'd be interested to know what it is that people find makes them stop.
- _delirium 17y ago
  It may have been that I just read it at the wrong time in my life, but I found parts of it really tedious. I can imagine it would've been more enlightening if I'd read it earlier in my life, as opposed to trying to read it after I already had a CS degree and was in grad school studying AI...
- afterz 17y ago
  I found it light, and boring because of how light it was. I had studied Gödel's theorems, etc., so I really could not take the pace for explaining the logic stuff (most of the book) in GEB.
  - afterz 17y ago
    By the way, I would recommend any programmer interested in physics "The Road to Reality" by Penrose. I think that's a very challenging book, that can be interesting for programmers, even if it's not about programming. Compared to that kind of material, GEB is very, very light.
b-man 17y ago
and it baffles me to hear him describe how it is too rich and dense for him to finish I'm not saying that this is your case, but usually when this happens it is because the other person is looking at things that you are not. Reminds me of a time when I heard Robert Sapolsky saying that he did not handle his own stress in a good way. I'm pretty sure he handles it better than me and most people, but he has the knowledge that he is just scratching the surface. Looks also like that quote from Socrates 'I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.'
sjf 17y ago
No, it may not be a dense read. But this is exactly what made it hard to finish (for me). Meandering anecdotes and self-indulgent tangents bore me. I've read a couple of Hoftstader's books and I think he could really benefit from an editor with a bit of backbone.
camccann 17y ago
I read it when I was fairly young; I know I didn't fully grasp many of the concepts in the book, but it didn't feel "difficult". GEB's strength is also its weakness--it's engaging and inspiring, showing evocative connections between all manner of concepts that are themselves intricate and fascinating, in a manner that gives even a reader with little knowledge of the subjects a glimpse of the underlying abstract beauty. It's little wonder that many people cite it as having been a major influence on choosing to study some topic it touches on (particularly AI). But now, returning a decade hence, equipped with a deeper understanding of the material--particularly with the many faces of the self-reference paradox (which amusingly includes fixed-point combinators such as Y) that so deeply fascinates Hofstadter--a lot of GEB comes across as somewhat superficial and self-absorbed. Yet had I not read it, I doubt I would have ever explored the topics in the first place, so in a way the book itself has indirectly ruined my ability to enjoy it, an almost Hofstadter-esque twist of fate! In the end, GEB is a beautiful but fundamentally shallow book that ties together a lot of very deep concepts--so perhaps I can understand that, if one takes it at face value, it might seem intimidating. Taken as the intellectual candy that it is, though, it's a delightful bit of light reading (so long as the material is mostly new to you).