Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is still something of a marvel. Besides being a profound and entertaining meditation on human thought and creativity, this book looks at the surprising points of contact between the music of Bach, the artwork of Escher, and the mathematics of Gödel. It also looks at the prospects for computers and artificial intelligence (AI) for mimicking human thought. For the general reader and the computer techie alike, this book still sets a standard for thinking about the future of computers and their relation to the way we think. Hofstadter's great achievement in Gödel, Escher, Bach was making abstruse mathematical topics (such as undecidability, recursion, and "strange loops") accessible and remarkably entertaining. Borrowing a page from Lewis Carroll (who might well have been a fan of this book), each chapter presents dialogue between the Tortoise and Achilles, as well as other characters who dramatise concepts discussed later in more detail. Allusions to Bach's music (centring on his Musical Offering) and Escher's continually paradoxical artwork are plentiful here. This more approachable material lets the author delve into serious number theory (concentrating on the ramifications of Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness) while stopping along the way to ponder the work of a host of other mathematicians, artists, and thinkers.The world has moved on since 1979, of course. The book predicted that computers probably won't ever beat humans in chess, though Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997. And the vinyl record, which serves for some of Hofstadter's best analogies, is now left to collectors. Sections on recursion and the graphs of certain functions from physics look tantalising, like the fractals of recent chaos theory. And AI has moved on, of course, with mixed results. Yet Gödel, Escher, Bach remains a remarkable achievement. Its intellectual range and ability to let us visualise difficult mathematical concepts help make it one of this century's best for anyone who's interested in computers and their potential for real intelligence. --Richard Dragan
Advantages: Brings difficult concepts to life. Brilliantly original. Disadvantages: Not an easy read.
...programmer. There is an argument that this is impossible - described eloquently by Roger Penrose in The Emperor's New Mind. There is also an argument that, given enough processing power and enough complexity, that intelligence will arise automatically. This may seem more likely, after all our brains have evolved with a finite number of neurons and neural pathways. Equally, advances in computing power, which is growing at a phenomenal rate, may one day reach and even surpass our own intelligence. Then again, this could be an impossibility. Hofstadter is definitely in the "AI is possible" camp.
Written in 1979, Godel Escher Bach (GEB) is Hofstadter's pioneering and brilliant attempt at popularising his own approach to artificial intelligence. It explores things from the ground up - How can we simulate thoughts on a computer? What process might...
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helpful 27.01.2007
(30.01.2007)
R.I.P Douglas Adams Review ofThe Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy - Douglas Adamsby
Ganj
Advantages: The best sci-fi i've read Disadvantages: You won't be able to put it down..
Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
somewhat helpful 21.06.2005
Douglas Adams R.I.P. Review ofThe Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy - Douglas Adamsby
Salgirl
Advantages: Written by the late, great Douglas Adams Disadvantages: There'll be no more of his unique humour
...I've just seen the tragic announcement that Douglas Adams has died after a heart attack at the criminally young age of 49. I love the guy's writing and this is a very real loss to the literary world. An extraordinary talent cut brutally short. God bless you, Douglas, you've given me some real laughs, fun and enjoyment with your books. May you rest in peace.
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Douglas Adams considered the idea of hopping round space whilst in a drunken stupor. Fair play to the guy. As we all know, we've had some fantastically brilliant ideas when under the influence, but very few are looked on in the same way the following morning. Thankfully for the literary world, this one was still a right corker.
The book centres around the exploits of two friends, Arthur Dent and Ford...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
helpful 12.05.2001
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