I think there are at least two groups of people here, completely talking past each other. This happens a lot on HN. The two big groups seem to be (1) people tal

I think there are at least two groups of people here, completely talking past each other. This happens a lot on HN. The two big groups seem to be (1) people talking about enjoying popular science writing, and (2) technical practitioners talking about what they do. The only thing we maybe forget as a community is that (1) and (2) are different genres that don't overlap very much. One group is trying to read GEB as a popular science book and saying, wow, it's an unusually good one. The dialogs are a nice rest from the technical stuff and probably convey something. Another group is trying to read GEB as an introductory technical book and saying it's a mixed bag. The dialogs are a distraction from the technical stuff and sometimes don't convey enough.