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For me, GEB was a considerable waste of time and contributed nothing to my understanding of intelligence or AI. The time would have been be better spent elsewhe

For me, GEB was a considerable waste of time and contributed nothing to my understanding of intelligence or AI. The time would have been be better spent elsewhere. If you want to understand Godel's proofs then I recommend "Godel's Proof" by Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman: http://www.amazon.com/Gödels-Proof-Ernest-Nagel/dp/081475837.. http://www.amazon.com/Gödels-Proof-Ernest-Nagel/dp/081475837.... Instead of Hofstadter's GEB, read some of his papers, e.g., "Analogy as the Core of Cognition" http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/analogy.h.. http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/analogy.h.... But there are others who have focused longer on analogy, e.g., George Lakoff: "Metaphors we Live by" http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/022.. http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/022.... "Where Mathematics Come From: How The Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being": http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Come-Embodied-Brings.. http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Come-Embodied-Brings.... "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things" http://www.amazon.com/Women-Fire-Dangerous-Things-Lakoff/dp/.. http://www.amazon.com/Women-Fire-Dangerous-Things-Lakoff/dp/....

eieio 13y ago
All of your links appear to be broken. Looks like they were copy pasted from an auto-truncated source or something.
- zachrose 13y ago
  Here's a better link for Analogy is the Core of Cognition: http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/analogy.html http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/analogy.h...
pjungwir 13y ago
I'll second Nagel & Newman. I read that in college and met a few times with a math prof to talk about it. What fun to work through the whole proof and see each piece build on the last! Now, over 15 years later, I'm still telling myself to read GEB, but I always wonder how much point there is. A very worthwhile book to read in parallel to N&N is Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometries, by Greenberg. It's more textbooky, but still short, and it will let you see how some of the same themes played out in geometry as well as arithmetic.
tmzt 13y ago
I would also suggest "Advent of an Algorithm" more of a history of mathematics including Godel. http://www.amazon.com/The-Advent-Algorithm-300-Year-Computer/dp/0156013916 http://www.amazon.com/The-Advent-Algorithm-300-Year-Computer...

eieio 13y ago

All of your links appear to be broken. Looks like they were copy pasted from an auto-truncated source or something.

zachrose 13y ago
Here's a better link for Analogy is the Core of Cognition: http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/analogy.html http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/analogy.h...

pjungwir 13y ago

I'll second Nagel & Newman. I read that in college and met a few times with a math prof to talk about it. What fun to work through the whole proof and see each piece build on the last! Now, over 15 years later, I'm still telling myself to read GEB, but I always wonder how much point there is. A very worthwhile book to read in parallel to N&N is Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometries, by Greenberg. It's more textbooky, but still short, and it will let you see how some of the same themes played out in geometry as well as arithmetic.

tmzt 13y ago

I would also suggest "Advent of an Algorithm" more of a history of mathematics including Godel. http://www.amazon.com/The-Advent-Algorithm-300-Year-Computer/dp/0156013916 http://www.amazon.com/The-Advent-Algorithm-300-Year-Computer...