Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site u1100s.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!spuxll!abnji!u1100a!u1100s!sjs From: sjs@u1100s.UUCP (Stan Switzer) Newsgroups: net.books Subject: Re: Godel, Escher, Bach Message-ID: <195@u1100s.UUCP> Date: Mon, 29-Apr-85 14:56:15 EDT Article-I.D.: u1100s.195 Posted: Mon Apr 29 14:56:15 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 30-Apr-85 07:44:43 EDT References: <262@cmu-cs-gandalf.ARPA> <582@tpvax.fluke.UUCP> Reply-To: sjs@u1100s.UUCP (Stan Switzer) Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway, NJ Lines: 65 Summary: In article <582@tpvax.fluke.UUCP> inc@fluke.UUCP (Gary Benson) writes: > > I was wondering if anyone knew where to get this book in hardcover. I > > have never seen it in this form, but would like a hardcover edition if > > possible. It is a wonderful book, by the way. > > > > --- Peter Su > > I'm not certain, but I don't think it was ever published as a hardcover. > When I got my copy, I don't remember ever seeing it that way, at least. > > I agree that its the sort of book you'd rather have in hard than soft-bound, > but two years after reading it, I'm not sure I'd agree that it's all that > "wonderful". For one thing, it's harder reading than many college > textbooks, and for another, it struck me that LOTS and LOTS of what he was > trying to say was just a bunch of fluff and trying too hard for effect. > > -- Gary Benson GEB was, indeed, published in hardcover. My copy was, at least. I liked it as I was reading it, but it was later that I became annoyed with it. Maybe it was the endless and pointless Scientific American "Metamagical Themas" column; maybe it was the slew of Eastern-Philosophy/ Quantum-Physics books that began to fill the bookstores; maybe it was the fact that the book was too clever (a whole chapter whose only point was to lead up to a pun "All in one swell floop"). Unfortunately, if the book had any fatal flaw, it was not that it was too difficult, it was that it was too "popular." In particular, I truly wish that after having read this tome I would have really understood Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. It just wasn't there (but read Raymond Smullian's "The Lady and the Tiger"). The book just didn't get deep enough into formal systems to properly deal with Incompleteness. What it lacked in depth, however, it made up for in breadth. However, I know biologists who are not too impressed with the book's Biology, and mathematicians not to impressed with its Mathemetics. The Philosophy, well, that's a topic to itself. The Philosophy in GEB could only have arisen in California. Just as with the Incompleteness Theorem, the Zen is not presented well. I mean, analyzing Zen is the paradigm of futility. While I have no personal antipathy toward eastern philosophy, and in fact am rather inclined toward Taoism, this silly approach to Zen really bugs me. To Hofstader, the main attraction of Zen is that the koans are just SO clever. Yes, there was a lot of fluff, and yes, too much was for just for effect. On the positive side, however, I really enjoyed some of the cleverness. Look in the annotated bibliography under "Gebstadter." The entry goes something like this: Gebstatder, Egbert B., "Copper, Silver, and Gold: an Indestructable Metallic Alloy," Acidic Books: A formidable hodgepodge: turgid and confused, yet remarkably similar to the present work.... Clever, yes, but too true. By the way, I have never actually met anyone else (face-to-face) who has really read GEB cover-to-cover (and is willing to admit it). --------------------------------------------------------------------- Stan Switzer | "A good book is hard to find, and a hard book ihnp4!u1100s!sjs | is good to find." -- Mae West, sort-of.