Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award
A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll
“Every few decades an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, charity, range, wit, beauty, and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event. This is such a work.” —Scientific American
GEB is a unique insight into the nature of “I,” self, soul, and consciousness, centered on a notion that its youthful author dubbed “strange loop,” inspired by the twisty self-referential construction invented by logician Kurt Gödel, whereby a sentence asserts its own unprovability. The book’s chapters alternate with Bach-like contrapuntal dialogues between whimsical characters (especially Achilles and the Tortoise), and each dialogue’s intricate structure exemplifies the notion being discussed in it, thus creating indirect self-reference (a fact unsuspected by the characters). The book, filled with analogies, wordplay, humor, and mind-twisting prints by M. C. Escher, has inspired generations of bright students to study cognitive science and the philosophy of mind.
Author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2/5/1999
Pages: 824
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 2.4 lbs
Size: 9.2″ H x 6.5″ L x 1.8″ W
ISBN: 9780465026562
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