Godel, Escher, Bach : An Eternal Golden Braid

by Hofstadter, Douglas R.

• ISBN13: 9780465026852
• ISBN10: 0465026850
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1979-03-01
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

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 Hofstadter is professor of computer science and cognitive science at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

Table of Contents

Preface to GEB's Twentieth-anniversary Edition	P-1
Overview	p. viii
List of Illustrations	p. xiv
Words of Thanks	p. xix
GEB
Introduction: A Musico-Logical Offering	p. 3
Three-Part Invention	p. 29
The MU-puzzle	p. 33
Two-Part Invention	p. 43
Meaning and Form in Mathematics	p. 46
Sonata for Unaccompanied Achilles	p. 61
Figure and Ground	p. 64
Contracrostipunctus	p. 75
Consistency, Completeness, and Geometry	p. 82
Little Harmonic Labyrinth	p. 103
Recursive Structures and Processes	p. 127
Canon by Intervallic Augmentation	p. 153
The Location of Meaning	p. 158
Chromatic Fantasy, And Feud	p. 177
The Propositional Calculus	p. 181
Crab Canon	p. 199
Typographical Number Theory	p. 204
A Mu Offering	p. 231
Mumon and Godel	p. 246
EGB	p. 275
Prelude ...	p. 285
Levels of Description, and Computer Systems	p. 285
... Ant Fugue	p. 311
Brains and Thoughts	p. 337
English French German Suite	p. 366
Minds and Thoughts	p. 369
Aria with Diverse Variations	p. 391
BlooP and FlooP and GlooP	p. 406
Air on G's String	p. 431
On Formally Undecidable Propositions of TNT and Related Systems	p. 438
Birthday Cantatatata ...	p. 461
Jumping out of the System	p. 465
Edifying Thoughts of a Tobacco Smoker	p. 480
Self-Ref and Self-Rep	p. 495
The Magnificrab, Indeed	p. 549
Church, Turing, Tarski, and Others	p. 559
Shrdlu, Toy of Man's Designing	p. 586
Artificial Intelligence: Retrospects	p. 594
Contrafactus	p. 633
Artificial Intelligence: Prospects	p. 641
Sloth Canon	p. 681
Strange Loops, Or Tangled Hierarchies	p. 684
Six-Part Ricercar	p. 720
Notes	p. 743
Bibliography	p. 746
Credits	p. 757
Index	p. 759
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