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IMO, to read GEB for its content would be missing the point: what I think is the greatest thing about the book is that it's simply, purely, Hofstadter having fu

by svat 4y ago

IMO, to read GEB for its content would be missing the point: what I think is the greatest thing about the book is that it's simply, purely, Hofstadter having fun. The linked post says "GEB is really idiosyncratic in a way no one can imitate", but I'd put it as: it's a deeply personal book. The author's personality shines through in a way I had not encountered before in a mathematics text, and so the book was a revelation for me. Hofstadter's actual thesis/intent with the book, and what he has to say about Gödel numbering (note: the book goes over Gödel's theorem and some implications, but Hofstadter's real interest is less in Gödel's theorem than in the proof technique—Gödel numbering—that Gödel used, because he is tickled by the self-reference), or Escher or Bach for that matter, are not really what make the book most worthwhile. What matters is the marriage of form and content, the perfect puns that seem to be set up several hundred pages apart, the way you'd be reading another dialogue before suddenly realizing that the lines are spelling out an acrostic, the satisfaction of things working themselves out perfectly (even the puns) (a feeling similar to the satisfying tying-together of the plots of certain novels, some of Wodehouse's included), and so on. Very few authors can write about technical topics in a way their personality shines through. (Knuth is another IMO, except with the personality staying in second place to the technical content, while with Hofstadter it's the other way around!) (Or non-technical writing: did you know about Hofstadter's translation of Eugene Onegin? He learnt Russian just to be able to read and translate that poem (see https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/hofstadter-translation.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/r... https://www.tralalit.de/en/2018/07/25/a-tale-of-two-or-so-translations/ https://www.tralalit.de/en/2018/07/25/a-tale-of-two-or-so-tr... https://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/pml1/onegin/ https://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/pml1/onegin/ for the story, and https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/09/12/reviews/990912.12louriet.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/09/12/r... for the very negative NYT review) and the result is amazing for exactly the reasons the reviewer complains about: yes it can't stand alone and it's best read alongside a "real" translation say Falen's, but throughout you can see Hofstadter having fun with his word games, and somehow his personality shines through even in just the way he's choosing to translate Pushkin; it's so amazing how he manages to have so many things just work out. “Till his creditors cast their nyet's”)

patcon 4y ago
I've never read it, but I can tell it has something deep to say, due to have channeling the knowledge learnings into the production of the knowledge object has brought so much joy and intrigue and life-changing epiphanies to readers. I mean, there must be some deep truth to the content, if the execution of said content (in the form of the book) is so touching to so many people... :)
- svat 4y ago
  Or maybe it's not that there's deep truth to the content, and instead the form is what brings joy and intrigue. :)
jll29 4y ago
Well said. The original review post focuses on Gödel, but you cannot truly review GEB without Escher and Bach. Yes, self-referentiality is a key theme of Hofstadter, but also recursion, symmetry and the foreground/background ambiguity in visual arts and music, after all the whole book is essentially a recursive, self-similiar poem (alternating chapters with prose and dialogues, one dialogue has palindrome form). Despite that I disagree about his fundamental view of AI, namely that AI is an emergent epiphenomenon, it is still the most-read and most-appreciated book ever for me. I read it first in German and then in English, and given the playfulness with form versus function/content, it is also the best-translated work that I have ever encountered. I'm grateful that I bought it when I was sixteen, simply because it was mentioned in a computer magazine and in a completely different context, so I got curious. I know many people that deeply appreciate it, or that went into AI careers because of it.

by svat 4y ago

patcon 4y ago

I've never read it, but I can tell it has something deep to say, due to have channeling the knowledge learnings into the production of the knowledge object has brought so much joy and intrigue and life-changing epiphanies to readers. I mean, there must be some deep truth to the content, if the execution of said content (in the form of the book) is so touching to so many people... :)

svat 4y ago
Or maybe it's not that there's deep truth to the content, and instead the form is what brings joy and intrigue. :)

jll29 4y ago

Well said. The original review post focuses on Gödel, but you cannot truly review GEB without Escher and Bach. Yes, self-referentiality is a key theme of Hofstadter, but also recursion, symmetry and the foreground/background ambiguity in visual arts and music, after all the whole book is essentially a recursive, self-similiar poem (alternating chapters with prose and dialogues, one dialogue has palindrome form). Despite that I disagree about his fundamental view of AI, namely that AI is an emergent epiphenomenon, it is still the most-read and most-appreciated book ever for me. I read it first in German and then in English, and given the playfulness with form versus function/content, it is also the best-translated work that I have ever encountered. I'm grateful that I bought it when I was sixteen, simply because it was mentioned in a computer magazine and in a completely different context, so I got curious. I know many people that deeply appreciate it, or that went into AI careers because of it.