Godel, Escher, Bach Av Douglas R. Hofstadter

<P><B>Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award</B></P><P><B>A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll</B></P><P><B>“Every few decades an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, charity, range, wit, beauty, and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event. This is such a work.” —</B><I><B>Scientific American</B></I></P><P><I>GEB </I>is a unique insight into the nature of “I,” self, soul, and consciousness, centered on a notion that its youthful author dubbed “strange loop,” inspired by the twisty self-referential construction invented by logician Kurt Gödel, whereby a sentence asserts its own unprovability. The book’s chapters alternate with Bach-like contrapuntal dialogues between whimsical characters (especially Achilles and the Tortoise), and each dialogue’s intricate structure exemplifies the notion being discussed in it, thus creating indirect self-reference (a fact unsuspected by the characters). The book, filled with analogies, wordplay, humor, and mind-twisting prints by M. C. Escher, has inspired generations of bright students to study cognitive science and the philosophy of mind.</P>