GEB
9/14/2010, ****: Hofstadter, Douglas. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Basic Books, 1979.
(And wow, over TWO MONTHS LATER, I am finally finished with this wondrous monstrosity! I still haven't really finished processing... One of the main points I took from the book, aside from Hofstadter's ideas about consciousness arising from strange loops in the mind, was what I took as him saying that free will and originality are illusory and beside the point. Most parts of me are very reluctant to believe it: "Noooooo... I refuse to believe that what I perceive as being my free will is in fact fundamentally determined by my collection of neurons and the interactions between the levels of my brain!!!) What I loved most about the book is the manner in which it's written. The smartness, ingenuity, voice, joy, etc. I adored how I felt like I was going on an adventure with him, or that we were having a conversation. An prime example of the playfulness and just generally lovely attitude was when he called notation using different letters instead of one letter with primes "luxurious." Fabulous.)
(And wow, over TWO MONTHS LATER, I am finally finished with this wondrous monstrosity! I still haven't really finished processing... One of the main points I took from the book, aside from Hofstadter's ideas about consciousness arising from strange loops in the mind, was what I took as him saying that free will and originality are illusory and beside the point. Most parts of me are very reluctant to believe it: "Noooooo... I refuse to believe that what I perceive as being my free will is in fact fundamentally determined by my collection of neurons and the interactions between the levels of my brain!!!) What I loved most about the book is the manner in which it's written. The smartness, ingenuity, voice, joy, etc. I adored how I felt like I was going on an adventure with him, or that we were having a conversation. An prime example of the playfulness and just generally lovely attitude was when he called notation using different letters instead of one letter with primes "luxurious." Fabulous.)