@@tamiratsolomon4655 I found I already had a list in my cellphone: - J R R Tolkein - Lord of the Rings (1954 - 1955) Gregory Bateson - Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (1979) Douglas Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979) John Crowley - Little, Big (1981) Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene (1976) James Lovelock - Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979) Anaïs Nin - The Diary of Anaïs Nin (Volumes I - VII) (1931 - 1974) Charles Stross - Accelerando (2005) Frank Herbert - Dune (1965) Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles (1950)
It’s been decades since I read this book (I’m probably due for another spin.) My biggest takeaway was an exploration of the nature of information. A book, in this case this book, can contain a lot of interesting ideas on the nature of information. I could rip the spine off, and hand you a pile of pages with the page numbers redacted. You could attempt to put them in order, but it would be incredibly challenging. You could still read each page, and develop a decent understanding of the points being made and the ideas being put forth. I could then take those pages and cut out each word. Handing them to a new reader, they would have an extremely difficult time developing any idea what the book was about. That being said, if someone really wanted to develop an understanding of the book, they could parse the words through an algorithm and discover which words had an above average representation to develop a sense of what ideas are being discussed, if not what points are being made about them. I could then take each of those words and cut them into letters. Almost no information can no be extrapolated from this pile of letters. There is the knowledge that this was text, there is information on the alphabet used, and therefore some idea of the language the book was written in. I could then take these letters and break them down into atoms. Gone are the letters, the text, the meaning. What information there resides? A preponderance of carbon. A balance of hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen that suggests these were once organic compounds. Everything that made up the book is still present, therefore the information was never in the paper or the letters or the words. Sure, some information was present in all of these things, but information isn’t a matter of substance but form. I can tell you what was IN Godel, Escher, Bach, but I can not give you an UNDERSTANDING of Gödel, Escher, Bach without you experiencing it’s form.
Thank you for your review. Your description of getting lost in it was exactly my fear when I heard what the layout of the book was like. I know now to get the later book first. Go through it, get a grasp of the basic argument and then go to his earlier work. The second could be a kind of primer maybe.
Great explanation. Love the book. And like you said at the end, it also changed how I view things. I'm confident there's as yet undiscovered mappings of one branch of mathematics to another. So that we would be able to transfer a question impossible to answer in one branch to another. Maybe Wile's 130 page proof of Fermat's last theorem could maybe take 5 if we mapped the question correctly. And I also find it plausible that our brain uses an advanced form of Godel numbering to be able to reference itself.
This book has been on my shelf intimidating me for two years. I still wonder if I have enough gears in my head to tackle it. Thanks for your wonderful review! This video somehow ended up on UA-cam home scrolling screen and it was very entertaining. I like math. I love tea. I’ll be watching more. 😃
Good Review! This was the first book I chose to read and it was totally great. He lost me at the end but getting there was super cool. I was only like 19 when I read it so I think some of the finer points might have been lost on me, even though I reread a bunch of sections trying to understand them.
A good terse review that would be strengthened by mentioning the fact that there is humor on almost every page. Of all the books I've read, "Godel, Escher, Bach" and Darwin's, "The Origin of Species" alternate as favorite depending on my mood. Coming a very close second is Julian Jaynes great book, "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". I'll bet that anyone who enjoys "Godel, Escher, Bach" will be absolutely tickled pink by it. It is a 'must read' for anyone interested in consciousness.
I just read „I Am A Strange Loop“ and found it pretty engaging and deep! It’s going to take some time but maybe I‘m going to read GED too. Thanks for doing your best at describing what the book is about, I understand the notion of self-referential loops a little better bc of it.
I found that I had to read some parts over again in order to make certain that I got the point the author wanted to make...but it was MORE than worth it. Strangely enough, as I read this book, I kept thinking back to 'Magister Ludi' by Hermann Hesse and his ideas of interplay between between art, mathematics and music. I recommend this book to anyone who has the patience to plow through it.
I can see how many you read it, nice work, respect you. I'm Korean, and want to read it, so I bought it, but it's hard to keep reading because it's not my mother-language, and it is way thick to read. Would you review all the minor chapter for your subscribers who are interested in it but hard to read it? I found MIT lecture of it at UA-cam, but the playlist is too long to watch.
”What is an "I", and why are such things found (at least so far) only in association with, as poet Russell Edson once wonderfully phrased it, "teetering bulbs of dread and dream" -- that is, only in association with certain kinds of gooey lumps encased in hard protective shells mounted atop mobile pedestals that roam the world on pairs of slightly fuzzy, jointed stilts?”English is not my first language. Can someone explain this quote in simple words?
Heavens! Hofstadter created a deep rabbit hole full of delicious reasoning "just" to make Gödel's proof palatable. The result is impossibly yummy because he connected together three geniuses Gödel (logician), Escher (artist) and Bach (composer). Armed with wit and ingenuity, he goes about showing off isomorphisms among mathematics, art, and music. He even teases you with Lewis Carroll type of dialogs. Suddenly you are chewing very complex ideas but having lots of fun. The main goal is, of course, to understand how the smart-stupids (computers) could outperform the human brain. In the end, he jumps in his own damn book bringing Babbage and Turing to close the whole thing brilliantly. While(true){WOW!}.
I love your work sir. Could you please advise someone where should he begin his math journey? Is there any book that is not as boring as a maths textbook but can make you fall in love with math with nice stories or explanations or imagination or something similar? Exploring basic concepts to lay a foundation of understanding and passion for math?
It's the only book that I have never been able to finish out of 9 years of academic science. If you believe you are intelligent - then test yourself with this bad boy. One page might have you in contemplation for a month. In my top 3 for sure.
Palmarius a German "o" with an umlaut is like trying to pronounce an "o" while shaping your lips to pronounce a "u" If you're not used to doing it it may sound like an "ir" Practice it :)
I read this in 1985 when in my early thirties. It was a profound influence and I still rate it among the top ten books of my life.
what are the rest of nine top books ?
@@tamiratsolomon4655 That was a figure of speech, but you have prompted me to make that list. I will reply in due course.
@@tamiratsolomon4655 I found I already had a list in my cellphone: -
J R R Tolkein - Lord of the Rings (1954 - 1955)
Gregory Bateson - Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (1979)
Douglas Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)
John Crowley - Little, Big (1981)
Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene (1976)
James Lovelock - Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979)
Anaïs Nin - The Diary of Anaïs Nin (Volumes I - VII) (1931 - 1974)
Charles Stross - Accelerando (2005)
Frank Herbert - Dune (1965)
Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles (1950)
Thank you 🙏🙏
Dude, you're really old. How is it hanging?
Reading the Book is an experience. It requires your full attention and dedication to absorb it all. NOT a simple read!!
It’s been decades since I read this book (I’m probably due for another spin.) My biggest takeaway was an exploration of the nature of information.
A book, in this case this book, can contain a lot of interesting ideas on the nature of information.
I could rip the spine off, and hand you a pile of pages with the page numbers redacted. You could attempt to put them in order, but it would be incredibly challenging. You could still read each page, and develop a decent understanding of the points being made and the ideas being put forth.
I could then take those pages and cut out each word. Handing them to a new reader, they would have an extremely difficult time developing any idea what the book was about. That being said, if someone really wanted to develop an understanding of the book, they could parse the words through an algorithm and discover which words had an above average representation to develop a sense of what ideas are being discussed, if not what points are being made about them.
I could then take each of those words and cut them into letters. Almost no information can no be extrapolated from this pile of letters. There is the knowledge that this was text, there is information on the alphabet used, and therefore some idea of the language the book was written in.
I could then take these letters and break them down into atoms. Gone are the letters, the text, the meaning. What information there resides? A preponderance of carbon. A balance of hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen that suggests these were once organic compounds.
Everything that made up the book is still present, therefore the information was never in the paper or the letters or the words. Sure, some information was present in all of these things, but information isn’t a matter of substance but form. I can tell you what was IN Godel, Escher, Bach, but I can not give you an UNDERSTANDING of Gödel, Escher, Bach without you experiencing it’s form.
The MIT lectures are a great companion.
unlockthepower yes! And the reddit subgroup dedicated to dissecting and group reading sessions
Thank you for your review. Your description of getting lost in it was exactly my fear when I heard what the layout of the book was like.
I know now to get the later book first. Go through it, get a grasp of the basic argument and then go to his earlier work. The second could be a kind of primer maybe.
Great review. Liked style of hugging the book. Could feel the affection. It was much more than a book review. Good job.
Love your description. Reading now and my brain is exploding.
Great explanation. Love the book. And like you said at the end, it also changed how I view things. I'm confident there's as yet undiscovered mappings of one branch of mathematics to another. So that we would be able to transfer a question impossible to answer in one branch to another. Maybe Wile's 130 page proof of Fermat's last theorem could maybe take 5 if we mapped the question correctly. And I also find it plausible that our brain uses an advanced form of Godel numbering to be able to reference itself.
Thank you for this passionate review. I will be reading it.
Just got this book from my grandfather yesterday. Really enjoying it !
This book has been on my shelf intimidating me for two years. I still wonder if I have enough gears in my head to tackle it.
Thanks for your wonderful review! This video somehow ended up on UA-cam home scrolling screen and it was very entertaining.
I like math. I love tea. I’ll be watching more. 😃
Reading the book this winter break!
Good Review!
This was the first book I chose to read and it was totally great. He lost me at the end but getting there was super cool. I was only like 19 when I read it so I think some of the finer points might have been lost on me, even though I reread a bunch of sections trying to understand them.
A good terse review that would be strengthened by mentioning the fact that there is humor on almost every page. Of all the books I've read, "Godel, Escher, Bach" and Darwin's, "The Origin of Species" alternate as favorite depending on my mood. Coming a very close second is Julian Jaynes great book, "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". I'll bet that anyone who enjoys "Godel, Escher, Bach" will be absolutely tickled pink by it. It is a 'must read' for anyone interested in consciousness.
I just read „I Am A Strange Loop“ and found it pretty engaging and deep! It’s going to take some time but maybe I‘m going to read GED too. Thanks for doing your best at describing what the book is about, I understand the notion of self-referential loops a little better bc of it.
I found that I had to read some parts over again in order to make certain that I got the point the author wanted to make...but it was MORE than worth it. Strangely enough, as I read this book, I kept thinking back to 'Magister Ludi' by Hermann Hesse and his ideas of interplay between between art, mathematics and music. I recommend this book to anyone who has the patience to plow through it.
Thank you brother
Thank you! 😊
I love this guy
I can see how many you read it, nice work, respect you. I'm Korean, and want to read it, so I bought it, but it's hard to keep reading because it's not my mother-language, and it is way thick to read. Would you review all the minor chapter for your subscribers who are interested in it but hard to read it? I found MIT lecture of it at UA-cam, but the playlist is too long to watch.
How was the font size of that edition?
This Math major prefers Strange Loop to GEB, but one title is greater in a tea lounge ole chaps and you know which one that is.
”What is an "I", and why are such things found (at least so far) only in association with, as poet Russell Edson once wonderfully phrased it, "teetering bulbs of dread and dream" -- that is, only in association with certain kinds of gooey lumps encased in hard protective shells mounted atop mobile pedestals that roam the world on pairs of slightly fuzzy, jointed stilts?”English is not my first language. Can someone explain this quote in simple words?
Heavens! Hofstadter created a deep rabbit hole full of delicious reasoning "just" to make Gödel's proof palatable. The result is impossibly yummy because he connected together three geniuses Gödel (logician), Escher (artist) and Bach (composer). Armed with wit and ingenuity, he goes about showing off isomorphisms among mathematics, art, and music. He even teases you with Lewis Carroll type of dialogs. Suddenly you are chewing very complex ideas but having lots of fun. The main goal is, of course, to understand how the smart-stupids (computers) could outperform the human brain. In the end, he jumps in his own damn book bringing Babbage and Turing to close the whole thing brilliantly. While(true){WOW!}.
I love your work sir. Could you please advise someone where should he begin his math journey? Is there any book that is not as boring as a maths textbook but can make you fall in love with math with nice stories or explanations or imagination or something similar? Exploring basic concepts to lay a foundation of understanding and passion for math?
Read " the joy of x " by mathematician Steven Strogatz. It's exactly what u need
@@RahulJain-uo5ol thank you sir
give it to me straight like a strange loop made from 100 percent strange loop
Do self referential loops has biological origins or is it entirely pyscologically related ? Are we able to do reasoning without referential loops ?
What kinda of teacher assigns GEB to a high school class?
It was a mathematics topics course for students who had passed the calculus courses available. So we covered whatever the teacher felt like covering.
which high school made you read this book?!!
I want to know
It's the only book that I have never been able to finish out of 9 years of academic science. If you believe you are intelligent - then test yourself with this bad boy. One page might have you in contemplation for a month. In my top 3 for sure.
This comment is epic
Why do Americans pronounce it Girdle?
I thought that was the proper german pronunciation
Palmarius a German "o" with an umlaut is like trying to pronounce an "o" while shaping your lips to pronounce a "u"
If you're not used to doing it it may sound like an "ir"
Practice it
:)
@@mrnarason Ö
Wait... you're around 30? Bro... exercise a bit