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Has anyone actually read Gödel, Escher, Bach, or is it just one of those "popular books people pretend to have read after reading the first chapter"? It looks i

Has anyone actually read Gödel, Escher, Bach, or is it just one of those "popular books people pretend to have read after reading the first chapter"? It looks intriguing, but at the same time very heavy.

jasoncrawford 9y ago
I read it when I was in high school. It was fun, especially the dialogues. I don't recall it being heavy.
- kens 9y ago
  I read it in high school too and found it very thought-provoking; I still think about some of its ideas. You'll definitely get more out of the book if you put effort into it, but it's not heavy like reading Knuth or SICP or anything on category theory, which I never made it all the way through. I'm not sure how well GEB has aged though since it seemed very tied to a particular point in AI history. Has anyone read it recently?
  - burkaman 9y ago
    I read it a few years ago, I think it's aged very well. The parts about art, music, and math are pretty much timeless, and I think the overall theme of AI is general and high-level enough to not really be tied to one era of computer science. You're not going to learn much that can be practically applied to contemporary AI techniques, but that's not really the purpose of the book.
- ctdonath 9y ago
  Also read it in high school. Could only read about 2-3 pages at a time before brain was overwhelmingly & delightfully engaged and had to go have a long think.
dugditches 9y ago
I personally found it 'heavy'. There's a lot to think about and take in. As it's not like reading typical technical books or papers. There's a great charm/fun and cleverness once things fall into place. There's an excellent MIT course for it. All the Lectures on Youtube as well. https://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/humanities-and-social-sciences/godel-escher-bach/ https://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/humanities-and-social-scienc... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWZ2Bz0tS-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWZ2Bz0tS-s
burkaman 9y ago
It's one of the best books I've ever read. I wouldn't call it heavy, it's just very long and very dense, but I found it pretty captivating and easy to read.
- AJRF 9y ago
  Wouldn't Long + Dense ~= Heavy?
  - burkaman 9y ago
    Well it is literally a heavy book, but I take heavy to mean difficult to read and understand. GEB for me was easy to read and hard to put down, but there are a ton of ideas and layers packed in to every chapter.
hobs 9y ago
I think besides some of the excessive explanations about how to generate sequences and strange loops yourself it is quite fun, though I read it slowly; it's not a book you can digest faster than a month or two imo.
unhammer 9y ago
Not heavy, exactly, though I guess it can get slightly repetitive after a while (or maybe "loopy" is a more fitting word :]). It's actually quite entertaining. If you want heavy-but-popular, try Foucault's Pendulum or House of Leaves …
glenstein 9y ago
I read it, and I feel it's one of the best non-fiction books I've read. I think the math can be tricky and there are parts I had trouble understanding, but I think the book was amazing and that Hofstadter was onto something really important about the nature of recursivity and the role it might play in thinking.
grey-area 9y ago
Yes, I've read it twice, it's fun, actually not very heavy at all. Yes parts of it you may not fully understand (I remember being lost once or twice), but he gives a nice gloss if you don't understand all the technical details and it covers a lot of ground. It's more a layperson's overview of lots of subjects than a serious academic work, but is all the more powerful for that. My favourite bits were a dialogue on the six part ricercar and a piece of music that can shake the player to pieces, it's full of playful but profound little ideas, definitely worth reading.
riffraff 9y ago
it's a really fun book, and not particularly. The dialogues (Achilles & Turtle) between the "essay" chapters are insanely enjoyable if you like wordplay and divertissement writing. "Crab Canon" is amongst the pages of literature I can re-read ad infinitum. It gets somewhat harder to follow as it proceeds, and the lack of a "plot" makes it easy to abandon it, but I'd still recommend it.
cbcoutinho 9y ago
I'm reading it right now actually, and I actually do find it pretty heavy. That being said, I really enjoy it and find it surprising how applicable the arguments he makes in the book are to the conversations today surrounding AI. Would highly recommend
nevster 9y ago
It's very readable. It's only heavy in the sense that it will make you think a lot.
metaphorical 9y ago
More readable than In Search of Lost Time by Proust :)
AlexCoventry 9y ago
Yes, I read it in approximately 1988. Changed my life.
intrasight 9y ago
Read it when it came out, then worked on getting friends and family to read it (rare for me). I recently suggested it to my daughter. I should re-read myself!
mirimir 9y ago
I've read it probably about five times, over the years. I'm neither a mathematician nor a musician, so there are parts that I still don't fully get. But so it goes. For the gist of it, I recommend I Am a Strange Loop.
ptr_void 9y ago
Read bunch of chapters from here and there but didn't complete it. Learned some interesting concepts that I wasn't familiar with, didn't seem like it had any central focus, went on to various tangents. I was recommended to read this to learn about AI, on that, I didn't find it very interesting.
maaaats 9y ago
I can't edit my post anymore, but I would like to say thanks for all the comments. It was a bit off-topic, but I've wondered about this for some time. Will give it a try this summer.

jasoncrawford 9y ago

I read it when I was in high school. It was fun, especially the dialogues. I don't recall it being heavy.

kens 9y ago
I read it in high school too and found it very thought-provoking; I still think about some of its ideas. You'll definitely get more out of the book if you put effort into it, but it's not heavy like reading Knuth or SICP or anything on category theory, which I never made it all the way through. I'm not sure how well GEB has aged though since it seemed very tied to a particular point in AI history. Has anyone read it recently?
- burkaman 9y ago
  I read it a few years ago, I think it's aged very well. The parts about art, music, and math are pretty much timeless, and I think the overall theme of AI is general and high-level enough to not really be tied to one era of computer science. You're not going to learn much that can be practically applied to contemporary AI techniques, but that's not really the purpose of the book.
ctdonath 9y ago
Also read it in high school. Could only read about 2-3 pages at a time before brain was overwhelmingly & delightfully engaged and had to go have a long think.

dugditches 9y ago

I personally found it 'heavy'. There's a lot to think about and take in. As it's not like reading typical technical books or papers. There's a great charm/fun and cleverness once things fall into place. There's an excellent MIT course for it. All the Lectures on Youtube as well. https://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/humanities-and-social-sciences/godel-escher-bach/ https://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/humanities-and-social-scienc... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWZ2Bz0tS-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWZ2Bz0tS-s

burkaman 9y ago

It's one of the best books I've ever read. I wouldn't call it heavy, it's just very long and very dense, but I found it pretty captivating and easy to read.

AJRF 9y ago
Wouldn't Long + Dense ~= Heavy?
- burkaman 9y ago
  Well it is literally a heavy book, but I take heavy to mean difficult to read and understand. GEB for me was easy to read and hard to put down, but there are a ton of ideas and layers packed in to every chapter.

hobs 9y ago

I think besides some of the excessive explanations about how to generate sequences and strange loops yourself it is quite fun, though I read it slowly; it's not a book you can digest faster than a month or two imo.

unhammer 9y ago

Not heavy, exactly, though I guess it can get slightly repetitive after a while (or maybe "loopy" is a more fitting word :]). It's actually quite entertaining. If you want heavy-but-popular, try Foucault's Pendulum or House of Leaves …

glenstein 9y ago

I read it, and I feel it's one of the best non-fiction books I've read. I think the math can be tricky and there are parts I had trouble understanding, but I think the book was amazing and that Hofstadter was onto something really important about the nature of recursivity and the role it might play in thinking.

grey-area 9y ago

Yes, I've read it twice, it's fun, actually not very heavy at all. Yes parts of it you may not fully understand (I remember being lost once or twice), but he gives a nice gloss if you don't understand all the technical details and it covers a lot of ground. It's more a layperson's overview of lots of subjects than a serious academic work, but is all the more powerful for that. My favourite bits were a dialogue on the six part ricercar and a piece of music that can shake the player to pieces, it's full of playful but profound little ideas, definitely worth reading.

riffraff 9y ago

it's a really fun book, and not particularly. The dialogues (Achilles & Turtle) between the "essay" chapters are insanely enjoyable if you like wordplay and divertissement writing. "Crab Canon" is amongst the pages of literature I can re-read ad infinitum. It gets somewhat harder to follow as it proceeds, and the lack of a "plot" makes it easy to abandon it, but I'd still recommend it.

cbcoutinho 9y ago

I'm reading it right now actually, and I actually do find it pretty heavy. That being said, I really enjoy it and find it surprising how applicable the arguments he makes in the book are to the conversations today surrounding AI. Would highly recommend

nevster 9y ago

It's very readable. It's only heavy in the sense that it will make you think a lot.

metaphorical 9y ago

More readable than In Search of Lost Time by Proust :)

AlexCoventry 9y ago

Yes, I read it in approximately 1988. Changed my life.

intrasight 9y ago

Read it when it came out, then worked on getting friends and family to read it (rare for me). I recently suggested it to my daughter. I should re-read myself!

mirimir 9y ago

I've read it probably about five times, over the years. I'm neither a mathematician nor a musician, so there are parts that I still don't fully get. But so it goes. For the gist of it, I recommend I Am a Strange Loop.

ptr_void 9y ago

Read bunch of chapters from here and there but didn't complete it. Learned some interesting concepts that I wasn't familiar with, didn't seem like it had any central focus, went on to various tangents. I was recommended to read this to learn about AI, on that, I didn't find it very interesting.

maaaats 9y ago

I can't edit my post anymore, but I would like to say thanks for all the comments. It was a bit off-topic, but I've wondered about this for some time. Will give it a try this summer.