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Also, mentions of genius is not unwarranted when you think about the 3 names mentioned: Godel, Escher, Bach. The book ties things back to how these three people

Also, mentions of genius is not unwarranted when you think about the 3 names mentioned: Godel, Escher, Bach. The book ties things back to how these three people thought about the world, and how their art and thinking can be tied into math. I think if your mind isn't changed after reading about these figures, then you haven't really gotten it. Hofstadter isn't necessarily the main attraction here. He created a framework (ie the structure of the book) where these subjects can be reasoned about.

beat 12y ago
Not to mention Lewis Carroll! Admittedly, I read it in formative years, but until I read GEB, I didn't really grok what "genius" meant. Understanding strange loops in context of great thinkers who expressed it, and seeing strange loops as the nature of consciousness, and wondering how it could be expressed in software... blew my mind, in several senses of the phrase.