(no subject)
So, I took Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter off of Kyle's hands last night and promised to finish it before he heads off to GVSU. I know I'll keep my promise; I'm already over a hundred pages into it.
I adore the mathematics in the book, and my favorite essay section so far has probably been the pq-System (especially the part on interpretation versus meaningfulness). I also adore the paradoxes that Hofstadter presents, and my favorite so far (other than those in the Achilles and Tortoise stories) has been his set paradox. Run-of-the-mill sets are sets that do not encompass themselves, whereas self-swallowing sets are sets that contain themselves. Therefore, the set: the set of all run-of-the-mill sets is an impossible set because it can't be run-of-the-mill or self-swallowing. That was fuuuuun.
My favorite part of the book, though, are the Achilles and Tortoise dialogues. I'm trying to read in order, but I did jump ahead a little early to read what quickly became my favorite: the push-potion, pop-tonic, popcorn, pushcorn dialogue that had a story within a story within a story that ends without ending the primary story (based off of Bach's Little Harmonic Labyrinth in ways I won't explain).
The Crab Canon dialog is still hard for me to wrap my head around because of the sheer genius of it. The man wrote a dialogue that was a palindrome. Most people can't even a palindrome sentence that makes sense, but he managed to write a dialogue that was the same when lines are read forewards and backwards. I can't comprehend his genius.
I love this book. Love, love, love. Yay for Kyle.
I adore the mathematics in the book, and my favorite essay section so far has probably been the pq-System (especially the part on interpretation versus meaningfulness). I also adore the paradoxes that Hofstadter presents, and my favorite so far (other than those in the Achilles and Tortoise stories) has been his set paradox. Run-of-the-mill sets are sets that do not encompass themselves, whereas self-swallowing sets are sets that contain themselves. Therefore, the set: the set of all run-of-the-mill sets is an impossible set because it can't be run-of-the-mill or self-swallowing. That was fuuuuun.
My favorite part of the book, though, are the Achilles and Tortoise dialogues. I'm trying to read in order, but I did jump ahead a little early to read what quickly became my favorite: the push-potion, pop-tonic, popcorn, pushcorn dialogue that had a story within a story within a story that ends without ending the primary story (based off of Bach's Little Harmonic Labyrinth in ways I won't explain).
The Crab Canon dialog is still hard for me to wrap my head around because of the sheer genius of it. The man wrote a dialogue that was a palindrome. Most people can't even a palindrome sentence that makes sense, but he managed to write a dialogue that was the same when lines are read forewards and backwards. I can't comprehend his genius.
I love this book. Love, love, love. Yay for Kyle.