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Eh. I started reading his book "I am a Strange Loop", and it became obvious that the author is an enormous blowhard. Is it really worth reading despite the pret
by lbarrett 12y ago
Eh. I started reading his book "I am a Strange Loop", and it became obvious that the author is an enormous blowhard. Is it really worth reading despite the pretentiousness?
- psychometry 12y agoWhy do you consider him pretentious? Expressing in interest in mathematics, classical music, cognitive science, etc., isn't pretentious if you have a legitimate interest in those things and it's relevant to what you're discussing.
- kachnuv_ocasek 12y agoPerhaps, it's not the author who's pretentious.
- stonogo 12y agoAre you accusing the copy editor of something?
- kachnuv_ocasek 12y agoWell, you never know... People are strange.
- jamesbritt 12y agoI really liked GEB (as well as The Minds' I, and Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies, the later being a more CompSci book) and was looking forward to I am a Strange Loop because it had been a while since Hofstadter had published anything. I was very disappointed and never finished it. It never gave me the impression he was a blowhard or pretentious, but it was something of a 180 from his other works in that there seemed to be much, much idle speculation on minds and souls and such without out suitable rigor. Basically it's his personal philosophic musings, and it felt a bit too "Deepak Chopra" to me.