5 ms·

Ask HN: Has anyone actually read the whole thing? What did you think?

pohl 7y ago
I read it cover to cover in high school (85-86, maybe) and another time through in college. I loved it. I don’t get the modern backlash against it.
- asplake 7y ago
  My experience too, and I look back on it with fondness
- apricot 7y ago
  Same here. Found it in high school and was blown away by the cleverness of the dialogues. Didn't understand everything else, but the chapter on TNT opened my eyes to how simple rewriting rules could be used to perform computation, and that insight was an important reason for my studying theoretical computer science later. It's a book that helped me dream. I reread it years later. The dialogues didn't age well, but the rest of the book is still great.
llamataboot 7y ago
yes. A number of times. A tremendously useful book that has the capability to blow open young minds that encounter it for the first time, and a book that can be mined for deeper insights many times around even after you decide you agree or disagree with his fundamental premises about cognition and consciousness, etc. Hofstadter's wordplay may at times seem heavy handed or over the top but he is also doing something in his writing that allows you to experience something about consciousness while you read it that is pretty slippery. Reading his writing very seriously always has glimmers of experiential knowledge gained through psychedelics, meditation, etc that seem to go beyond the intellectual arguments he is making into the realm of the metaphysical.
- llamataboot 7y ago
  which I suppose was always his point. I am always struck by the incredibly deep love of humanity and the human mind in his work, in how we work. Le Ton beau de Marot is quite beautiful as well, and is in large part why I've owned the domain name lostinthetranslation since the early 2000s and why I think translation in general is one of the most fundamentally difficult, beautiful, and useful things a human can do :)
  - smcameron 7y ago
    Yeah, Le Ton Beau de Marot is pretty good too. Lots of light shed on the art of translation (since it's about the translation of GEB, which at first glance would seem damn near untranslatable.)
rawburt 7y ago
Yes. It was fun and interesting. I recommend it to anyone interested in logic and metaphysics.
gumby 7y ago
Yes, I'm a repeat reader, once every 5-10 years.
barkingcat 7y ago
Yes, read it in highschool. Was a game changer and made that time in my life bearable.
- smcameron 7y ago
  One Saturday I spent the one day of "in school suspension" I ever experienced during high school reading this book. (I was suspended for participating in "senior skip day", lol. "In school suspension" or "detention",... was kind of like what you see in The Breakfast Club, but much more boring, or at least it would have been, if you didn't have a good book to read to pass the time.)
erikschoster 7y ago
I read it in college and plan to read it again! It blew my mind the first time and I'm looking forward to coming back to it 15+ years later. Like _Manufacturing Consent_ it's one that I think I'll probably revisit in pretty wide intervals because of the commitment involved, but I think it's worth it.
thret 7y ago
Loved it and own a copy. I often remind myself of Aunt Hillary when thinking about large organisations such as the military. There are quite a lot of topics in GEB that are simply fun to think about.
DavidWoof 7y ago
I read it when it came out. I thought it was absolutely amazing. At the time, I'd say that the vast majority of my computer-ish friends had read both GED and Lord of the Rings. I find it interesting that so many people here are saying they couldn't get through it.
Kinnard 7y ago
> "The One has variously been called the Good, God, the Cosmos, the Mind, the Void, or (perhaps most neutrally) the Absolute. No door in the labyrinthine castle of science opens directly onto the Absolute. But if one understands the maze well enough, it is possible to jump out of the system and experience the Absolute for oneself." http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2012/08/01/memories-of-kurt-godel/ http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2012/08/01/memories-of-kurt-g...

pohl 7y ago

I read it cover to cover in high school (85-86, maybe) and another time through in college. I loved it. I don’t get the modern backlash against it.

asplake 7y ago
My experience too, and I look back on it with fondness
apricot 7y ago
Same here. Found it in high school and was blown away by the cleverness of the dialogues. Didn't understand everything else, but the chapter on TNT opened my eyes to how simple rewriting rules could be used to perform computation, and that insight was an important reason for my studying theoretical computer science later. It's a book that helped me dream. I reread it years later. The dialogues didn't age well, but the rest of the book is still great.

llamataboot 7y ago

yes. A number of times. A tremendously useful book that has the capability to blow open young minds that encounter it for the first time, and a book that can be mined for deeper insights many times around even after you decide you agree or disagree with his fundamental premises about cognition and consciousness, etc. Hofstadter's wordplay may at times seem heavy handed or over the top but he is also doing something in his writing that allows you to experience something about consciousness while you read it that is pretty slippery. Reading his writing very seriously always has glimmers of experiential knowledge gained through psychedelics, meditation, etc that seem to go beyond the intellectual arguments he is making into the realm of the metaphysical.

llamataboot 7y ago
which I suppose was always his point. I am always struck by the incredibly deep love of humanity and the human mind in his work, in how we work. Le Ton beau de Marot is quite beautiful as well, and is in large part why I've owned the domain name lostinthetranslation since the early 2000s and why I think translation in general is one of the most fundamentally difficult, beautiful, and useful things a human can do :)
- smcameron 7y ago
  Yeah, Le Ton Beau de Marot is pretty good too. Lots of light shed on the art of translation (since it's about the translation of GEB, which at first glance would seem damn near untranslatable.)

rawburt 7y ago

Yes. It was fun and interesting. I recommend it to anyone interested in logic and metaphysics.

gumby 7y ago

Yes, I'm a repeat reader, once every 5-10 years.

barkingcat 7y ago

Yes, read it in highschool. Was a game changer and made that time in my life bearable.

smcameron 7y ago
One Saturday I spent the one day of "in school suspension" I ever experienced during high school reading this book. (I was suspended for participating in "senior skip day", lol. "In school suspension" or "detention",... was kind of like what you see in The Breakfast Club, but much more boring, or at least it would have been, if you didn't have a good book to read to pass the time.)

erikschoster 7y ago

I read it in college and plan to read it again! It blew my mind the first time and I'm looking forward to coming back to it 15+ years later. Like _Manufacturing Consent_ it's one that I think I'll probably revisit in pretty wide intervals because of the commitment involved, but I think it's worth it.

thret 7y ago

Loved it and own a copy. I often remind myself of Aunt Hillary when thinking about large organisations such as the military. There are quite a lot of topics in GEB that are simply fun to think about.

DavidWoof 7y ago

I read it when it came out. I thought it was absolutely amazing. At the time, I'd say that the vast majority of my computer-ish friends had read both GED and Lord of the Rings. I find it interesting that so many people here are saying they couldn't get through it.

Kinnard 7y ago

> "The One has variously been called the Good, God, the Cosmos, the Mind, the Void, or (perhaps most neutrally) the Absolute. No door in the labyrinthine castle of science opens directly onto the Absolute. But if one understands the maze well enough, it is possible to jump out of the system and experience the Absolute for oneself." http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2012/08/01/memories-of-kurt-godel/ http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2012/08/01/memories-of-kurt-g...