Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

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

Publication Date:

February 05, 1999

Number of pages:

824 pages

Language:

English

Binding:

Paperback

ISBN-10:

0465026567

ISBN-13:

9780465026562