Godel, Escher, Bach An Eternal Golden Braid

by Hofstadter, Douglas R.

• ISBN13: 9780465026562
• ISBN10: 0465026567
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-02-05
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of "maps" or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Godel Escher and Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

Author Biography

Douglas R. Hofstadter is College Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. His previous books are the Pulitzer Prizewinning Gödel, Escher, Bach; Metamagical Themas, The Mind’s I, Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, Le Ton Beau de Marot, and Eugene Onegin.

Table of Contents

Overview	viii
List of Illustrations	xiv
Words of Thanks	xix
Part I: GEB
Introduction: A Musico-Logical Offering	3	(30)
Three-Part Invention	29	(4)
The MU-Puzzle	33	(13)
Two-Part Invention	43	(3)
Meaning and Form in Mathematics	46	(18)
Sonata for Unaccompanied Achilles	61	(3)
Figure and Ground	64	(18)
Contracrostipunctus	75	(7)
Consistency, Completeness, and Geometry	82	(45)
Little Harmonic Labyrinth	103	(24)
Recursive Structures and Processes	127	(31)
Cannon by Intervallic Augmentation	153	(5)
The Location of Meaning	158	(23)
Chromatic Fantasy, And Feud	177	(4)
The Propositional Calculus	181	(23)
Crab Canon	199	(5)
Typographical Number Theory	204	(42)
A Mu Offering	231	(15)
Mumon and Godel	246	(39)
Part II: EGB
Prelude ...	275	(10)
Levels of Description, and Computer Systems	285	(52)
... Ant Fugue	311	(26)
Brains and Thoughts	337	(32)
English French German Suite	366	(3)
Minds and Thoughts	369	(37)
Aria with Diverse Variations	391	(15)
BlooP and FlooP and GlooP	406	(32)
Air on G's String	431	(7)
On Formally Undecidable Propositions of TNT and Related Systems	438	(27)
Birthday Cantatatata	461	(4)
Jumping out of the System	465	(30)
Edifying Thoughts of a Tobacco Smoker	480	(15)
Self-Ref and Self-Rep	495	(64)
The Magnificrab, Indeed	549	(10)
Church, Turing, Tarski, and Others	559	(35)
SHRDLU, Toy of Man's Designing	586	(8)
Artificial Intelligence: Retrospects	594	(47)
Contrafactus	633	(8)
Artificial Intelligence: Prospects	641	(43)
Sloth Canon	681	(3)
Strange Loops, Or Tangled Hierarchies	684	(59)
Six-Part Ricercar	720	(23)
Notes	743	(3)
Bibliography	746	(11)
Credits	757	(2)
Index	759