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07/16/11(Sat)16:15 No.52038735Gödel, Escher, Bach From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
Author(s) Douglas Hofstadter Country USA Language English Subject(s) Consciousness, intelligence Publisher Basic Books Publication date 1979 Pages 777 pages ISBN ISBN 978-0465026562, ISBN 0140179976 OCLC Number 40724766 Dewey Decimal 510/.1 21 LC Classification QA9.8 .H63 1999 Followed by I Am a Strange Loop Gödel,
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (commonly GEB) is a book by
Douglas Hofstadter, described by the author as "a metaphorical fugue on
minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll".[1] On its
surface, GEB examines logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher and
composer Johann Sebastian Bach, discussing common themes in their work
and lives. At a deeper level, the book is an exposition of concepts
fundamental to mathematics, symmetry, and intelligence. Through
illustration and analysis, the book discusses how self-reference and
formal rules allow systems to acquire meaning despite being made of
"meaningless" elements. It also discusses what it means to communicate,
how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations
of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of
"meaning" itself. |