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I heard a story from an AI professor a few years ago, who had an interesting heuristic for picking grad student applications to trash: if it mentions GEB, off i

I heard a story from an AI professor a few years ago, who had an interesting heuristic for picking grad student applications to trash: if it mentions GEB, off it goes into the circular file. Fun book. Hofstadter actually doesn't like computers, apparently: this is in the record, and I've heard him mention that fact multiple times. He just likes playing with ideas.

Kiro 10y ago
> if it mentions GEB, off it goes into the circular file Why?
- thomasahle 10y ago
  Professors are sometimes worried that students are more interested in a subject on a 'spiritual level' than they are interested in the practical, nitty gritty, hard work and math. Perhaps this one had bad experience with people who talked too much about GEB.
- jessermeyer 10y ago
  Because it's a Strange Loop.
  - theoh 10y ago
    Hmm, yes, I can see a product idea here: Klein bottle waste baskets. When your waste basket is nonorientable, life becomes much simpler. Everything is both inside and outside the trash.
    - vram22 10y ago
      He he, good one. That reminds me of a joke I once made, in some relevant context, referencing Heisenberg and Pauli, but I'm uncertain what it was now, so I'll exclude it from here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Pauli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Pauli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg
  - mathetic 10y ago
    Nope. Strange loops are not by definition not intentionally circular (while a circular graph in a file system is in this case). He makes that clear I think in the final chapter of GEB.
  - taormina 10y ago
    For anyone missing the joke, his follow-up book attempting to better convey some of the same ideas is called "I Am a Strange Loop".
- dvt 10y ago
  Because GEB is, in many regards, pop-science (or pop-math). It's a fun introductory read, but it won't really (and by really I mean rigorously) explain (and by explain I mean prove) much of anything. Any reference to it in the context of academia is a bit on the nose. It's like trying to study piano and saying you love Mozart. Like, yeah, okay.
  - andrepd 10y ago
    What's wrong with Mozart? He is popular for a reason: he is freaking great. I hate that some people smugly dismiss things that are popular as beneath them, or conversely, that you have to like hyper-obscure artist or else you're not into real art. Bullshit, Mozart is great.
    - alexkobold 10y ago
      Sure, but if the only math you're into is pop math then you're not a mathematician.
    - mrkgnao 10y ago
      It might be that, in GP's experience, people who straightaway reply "I love Mozart" are less likely to actually have heard a substantial amount of his work, perhaps to have sat with them for some time, and (for lack of a better word) pondered over them, than someone who says they like something else but replies in a manner that sounds more sophisticated, e.g. "I enjoy the structure inherent in Bach's music" or what-have-you. (I might just be putting words in their mouth, though. Apologies if that's the case.) Answers of the latter kind can indicate that one has actually spent some time thinking about whatever it is one has learned, however elementary it might be. And that's always great! It's probably the equivalent of someone saying "omg fractals" or "the incompleteness theorems, man, math is broken, I find that so beautiful" in response to "So you like math/CS?" After a while, that becomes a red flag that you learn to small-talk your way out of, albeit with some shame: while I agree with GP, to some extent, I do understand how this can be exclusionary, though. Almost by construction, someone who isn't in really deep is far more likely to have met the parts of a field that have been popularized than other things, and putting them down for this can be counterproductive if you're looking to attract more people or, well, just evangelize. I don't know of a good way out of this. I do seem to have noticed that this isn't the case if you replace "fractals" by, say, "differential equations" or even "trisection". Maybe what one really needs to avoid in introductory literature is powerful ideas that are easy to lossily summarize for a lay audience in the form of really general, unexpected-sounding incorrect-when-unqualified statements that seem to say profound things about life, the universe, and everything. Leaving off the last condition shouldn't make an appreciable difference in hype/excitement-generating power: you could very well do, say, some topological/geometric staple like the hairy ball theorem, or some knot theory, and so on. That way, you retain the visual appeal that $REALLY_BIG_NUMBER-x zooms of Mandelbrot give you, while significantly decreasing the tendency for the target to go into (partial or full) "woah, dude, everything is connected and I am pure energy" mode in the way that Gödel often does.[0] As an aside, GEB can be a good (rigorous, even) introduction to a few very powerful ideas. For me, what I call "interpreter-y thinking" was a good example, as was a healthy respect for how complex emergent behavior can arise from simple rules. This is something that's unfortunately hampered by the "bag of really cool ideas" nature that the book seemed to have when I read it four or five years ago. [0]: I've actually heard the "everything is connected" bit from a good friend who loves watching videos like in TFV, so it isn't entirely a strawman. :)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
closed 10y ago
Most neuroscientists that I know love GEB, and many came into the field in part because of it. maybe mentioning GEB is a high risk / high reward situation?!
mathetic 10y ago
He likes computers, he even likes AI. He doesn't buy into Ray Kurzweil's ideas about singularity [0,1]. He also (as I understand) is in Chomsky school of statistical learning as opposed to Peter Norvig (or Google) school [1,2]. Those two are highly unpopular stances to have these days, so I can see how that can be confused with not liking computers/AI. If you read GEB, you can see in different chapters that he is a big fan of computers, simulations, attempts at AI, and the such. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhj6fDDnckE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhj6fDDnckE [1] http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/douglas-r-hofstadter http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/douglas-r-hof... [2] http://norvig.com/chomsky.html http://norvig.com/chomsky.html
- pvg 10y ago
  I'm not seeing him expressing a position on language that goes as far as Chomsky's (as described by Norvig) in that interview. Has he written more about this somewhere that you know of?
- curuinor 10y ago
  I mean, the source is, I had dinner with the guy for a school dealio and he said he didn't really like computers and had grad students to do all the programming. GEB is full of mathematical content, but it isn't hung up on computers as machines and concrete things.
code_duck 10y ago
For someone who doesn't like computers, he spends a lot of time writing about Lisp.

Kiro 10y ago

> if it mentions GEB, off it goes into the circular file Why?

thomasahle 10y ago
Professors are sometimes worried that students are more interested in a subject on a 'spiritual level' than they are interested in the practical, nitty gritty, hard work and math. Perhaps this one had bad experience with people who talked too much about GEB.
jessermeyer 10y ago
Because it's a Strange Loop.
- theoh 10y ago
  Hmm, yes, I can see a product idea here: Klein bottle waste baskets. When your waste basket is nonorientable, life becomes much simpler. Everything is both inside and outside the trash.
  - vram22 10y ago
    He he, good one. That reminds me of a joke I once made, in some relevant context, referencing Heisenberg and Pauli, but I'm uncertain what it was now, so I'll exclude it from here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Pauli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Pauli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg
- mathetic 10y ago
  Nope. Strange loops are not by definition not intentionally circular (while a circular graph in a file system is in this case). He makes that clear I think in the final chapter of GEB.
- taormina 10y ago
  For anyone missing the joke, his follow-up book attempting to better convey some of the same ideas is called "I Am a Strange Loop".
dvt 10y ago
Because GEB is, in many regards, pop-science (or pop-math). It's a fun introductory read, but it won't really (and by really I mean rigorously) explain (and by explain I mean prove) much of anything. Any reference to it in the context of academia is a bit on the nose. It's like trying to study piano and saying you love Mozart. Like, yeah, okay.
- andrepd 10y ago
  What's wrong with Mozart? He is popular for a reason: he is freaking great. I hate that some people smugly dismiss things that are popular as beneath them, or conversely, that you have to like hyper-obscure artist or else you're not into real art. Bullshit, Mozart is great.
  - alexkobold 10y ago
    Sure, but if the only math you're into is pop math then you're not a mathematician.
  - mrkgnao 10y ago
    It might be that, in GP's experience, people who straightaway reply "I love Mozart" are less likely to actually have heard a substantial amount of his work, perhaps to have sat with them for some time, and (for lack of a better word) pondered over them, than someone who says they like something else but replies in a manner that sounds more sophisticated, e.g. "I enjoy the structure inherent in Bach's music" or what-have-you. (I might just be putting words in their mouth, though. Apologies if that's the case.) Answers of the latter kind can indicate that one has actually spent some time thinking about whatever it is one has learned, however elementary it might be. And that's always great! It's probably the equivalent of someone saying "omg fractals" or "the incompleteness theorems, man, math is broken, I find that so beautiful" in response to "So you like math/CS?" After a while, that becomes a red flag that you learn to small-talk your way out of, albeit with some shame: while I agree with GP, to some extent, I do understand how this can be exclusionary, though. Almost by construction, someone who isn't in really deep is far more likely to have met the parts of a field that have been popularized than other things, and putting them down for this can be counterproductive if you're looking to attract more people or, well, just evangelize. I don't know of a good way out of this. I do seem to have noticed that this isn't the case if you replace "fractals" by, say, "differential equations" or even "trisection". Maybe what one really needs to avoid in introductory literature is powerful ideas that are easy to lossily summarize for a lay audience in the form of really general, unexpected-sounding incorrect-when-unqualified statements that seem to say profound things about life, the universe, and everything. Leaving off the last condition shouldn't make an appreciable difference in hype/excitement-generating power: you could very well do, say, some topological/geometric staple like the hairy ball theorem, or some knot theory, and so on. That way, you retain the visual appeal that $REALLY_BIG_NUMBER-x zooms of Mandelbrot give you, while significantly decreasing the tendency for the target to go into (partial or full) "woah, dude, everything is connected and I am pure energy" mode in the way that Gödel often does.[0] As an aside, GEB can be a good (rigorous, even) introduction to a few very powerful ideas. For me, what I call "interpreter-y thinking" was a good example, as was a healthy respect for how complex emergent behavior can arise from simple rules. This is something that's unfortunately hampered by the "bag of really cool ideas" nature that the book seemed to have when I read it four or five years ago. [0]: I've actually heard the "everything is connected" bit from a good friend who loves watching videos like in TFV, so it isn't entirely a strawman. :)

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

closed 10y ago

Most neuroscientists that I know love GEB, and many came into the field in part because of it. maybe mentioning GEB is a high risk / high reward situation?!

mathetic 10y ago

He likes computers, he even likes AI. He doesn't buy into Ray Kurzweil's ideas about singularity [0,1]. He also (as I understand) is in Chomsky school of statistical learning as opposed to Peter Norvig (or Google) school [1,2]. Those two are highly unpopular stances to have these days, so I can see how that can be confused with not liking computers/AI. If you read GEB, you can see in different chapters that he is a big fan of computers, simulations, attempts at AI, and the such. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhj6fDDnckE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhj6fDDnckE [1] http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/douglas-r-hofstadter http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/douglas-r-hof... [2] http://norvig.com/chomsky.html http://norvig.com/chomsky.html

pvg 10y ago
I'm not seeing him expressing a position on language that goes as far as Chomsky's (as described by Norvig) in that interview. Has he written more about this somewhere that you know of?
curuinor 10y ago
I mean, the source is, I had dinner with the guy for a school dealio and he said he didn't really like computers and had grad students to do all the programming. GEB is full of mathematical content, but it isn't hung up on computers as machines and concrete things.

code_duck 10y ago

For someone who doesn't like computers, he spends a lot of time writing about Lisp.