Gödel, Escher Bach: an eternal golden braid.

Hofstadter, Douglas R., 1945-

ISBN 10: 0394745027 / ISBN 13: 9780394745022

Published by New York : Vintage Books, a division of Random House, 1980, 1980

About this Item

ISBN:0394745027 ; LCCN:80-11354 ; xxi, 777 pp. ; stiff paper wrappers ; Contents: A musico-logical offering -- The MU puzzle -- Meaning and form in mathematics -- Figure and ground -- Consistency, completeness and geometry -- Recursive structures and processes -- The location of meaning -- THe propositional calculus -- Typographical number theory -- Mumon and Godel -- Levels of description and computer systems -- Brains and thoughts -- Minds and thoughts -- BlooP and FLooP and GlooP -- On formally undecidable propositions of TNT and related systems -- Jumping out of the system -- Self-Ref and Self-Rep -- Church Turing Tarski and Others -- Artificial intelligence retrospects -- Artificial intelligence : Prospects -- Strange loops or Tangled hierachies. ; well worn copy with a slight waterstain ; reading copy only, FAIR. Seller Inventory # 005889

Bibliographic Details

Title: Gödel, Escher Bach: an eternal golden braid.

Publisher: New York : Vintage Books, a division of Random House, 1980

Publication Date: 1980

Binding: Soft cover

Condition: Fair

Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

Book Type: Book

About this title

Synopsis:

Everything is a symbol, and symbols can combine to form patterns. Patterns are beautiful and revelatory of larger truths. These are the central ideas in the thinking of Kurt Gödel, M.C. Escher, and Johann Sebastian Bach, perhaps the three greatest minds of the past quarter-millennium. In a stunning work of humanism, Hofstadter ties together the work of mathematician Gödel, graphic artist Escher, and composer Bach. Gödel, Escher, Bach, a Pulitzer prize-winning treatise on genius, explores the workings of brilliant people's brains with the help of historical examples and brainteaser puzzles. Not for the dim or the lazy, this book shows you, more clearly than most any other, what it means to see symbols and patterns where others see only the universe. Touching on math, computers, literature, music, and artificial intelligence, Gödel, Escher, Bach is a challenging and potentially life-changing piece of writing.

From the Inside Flap:

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this book applies Godel's seminal contribution to modern mathematics to the study of the human mind and the development of artificial intelligence.