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I've read about a third of it. It's too long and too focused on other topics for me personally. I also read the book 'Gödel's Proof' a long time ago, before I

I've read about a third of it. It's too long and too focused on other topics for me personally. I also read the book 'Gödel's Proof' a long time ago, before I had much familiarity with pure math, and remember it describing a very interesting sort of 'architecture' that Gödel had put together—but I left still wondering about any applications other than producing the incompleteness theorems. Maybe I'd get more out of it now though...

alasdair_ 10y ago
GEB is well worth a second attempt. It's one of the very few books that completely changed my worldview.
- westoncb 10y ago
  I lost interest when certain other ideas made me think his basic project of accounting for consciousness mathematically was deeply flawed (and it wasn't Penrose's argument about formal systems!). I did find it entertaining though, so maybe I'll revisit before too long. I'm curious what shift it caused for you, if you don't mind saying.
  - empath75 10y ago
    At least for me, it wasn't so much about computers or computer science, as it was the first time I really deeply considered what consciousness is. It's actually the book, along with The Selfish Gene that made me dismiss the necessity of any kind of 'soul', fresh out of Catholic School.
    - westoncb 10y ago
      The more time I've spent reading about and considering the nature of subjectivity, the more I believe arguments from evolution or computer simulation are irrelevant. They're talking about something different.
- fenomas 10y ago
  I read GEB a few years ago, and it struck me as a book full of ideas that would have transformed me had I been encountering them for the first time. I think the book may have been so influential that its big ideas had largely filtered out into places where I'd encountered them. If I'd read it at 19, say, I think it would have rocked my world. Note that I'm mostly talking about the book's first half (about incompleteness and canons and whatnot). The second half (ants, etc) struck me as much more dated.
  - empath75 10y ago
    I did read it at 19 and it did rock my world.
    - mr_overalls 10y ago
      Same here. I read it just after Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Rite of passage for nerds. :-)

alasdair_ 10y ago

GEB is well worth a second attempt. It's one of the very few books that completely changed my worldview.

westoncb 10y ago
I lost interest when certain other ideas made me think his basic project of accounting for consciousness mathematically was deeply flawed (and it wasn't Penrose's argument about formal systems!). I did find it entertaining though, so maybe I'll revisit before too long. I'm curious what shift it caused for you, if you don't mind saying.
- empath75 10y ago
  At least for me, it wasn't so much about computers or computer science, as it was the first time I really deeply considered what consciousness is. It's actually the book, along with The Selfish Gene that made me dismiss the necessity of any kind of 'soul', fresh out of Catholic School.
  - westoncb 10y ago
    The more time I've spent reading about and considering the nature of subjectivity, the more I believe arguments from evolution or computer simulation are irrelevant. They're talking about something different.
fenomas 10y ago
I read GEB a few years ago, and it struck me as a book full of ideas that would have transformed me had I been encountering them for the first time. I think the book may have been so influential that its big ideas had largely filtered out into places where I'd encountered them. If I'd read it at 19, say, I think it would have rocked my world. Note that I'm mostly talking about the book's first half (about incompleteness and canons and whatnot). The second half (ants, etc) struck me as much more dated.
- empath75 10y ago
  I did read it at 19 and it did rock my world.
  - mr_overalls 10y ago
    Same here. I read it just after Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Rite of passage for nerds. :-)