Godel, Escher, Bach

Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeA metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis CarrollDouglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of "maps" or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

"Godel, Escher, Bach was a triumphantly successful presentation of quite difficult concepts for a popular audience. There has been nothing like it in computer science before or since."--Ernest Davis, IEEE Expert, "A brilliant, creative, and very personal synthesis without precedent or peer in modern literature."--The American Mathematical Monthly, "A huge, sprawling literary marvel, a philosophy book disguised as a book of entertainment disguised as a book of instruction."--Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "A triumph of cleverness, bravura performance."--Parabola, "A wondrous book that unites and explains, in a very entertaining way, many of the important ideas of recent intellectual history."--Commonweal

Douglas R. Hofstadter is College of Arts and Sciences Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he also directs the Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition. He is the author or co-author of nine books, including I Am a Strange Loop and Surfaces and Essences, and has contributed to ten more. He lives in Bloomington.