Talk:Gödel, Escher, Bach/Archive 1

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Early text

The book's title actually has commas, a subtitle, and an umlaut: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Arguably the subtitle (and the umlaut) shouldn't be in the article title. But the commas really should be included. Right? If I were certain about the form the page title should take, I'd change it myself. Opinions? - Rootbeer 2002-04-04

you can do that cleanly by going to Goedel Escher Bach and opening "pages that link here" in a new window. Then edit Goedel Escher Bach to say #REDIRECT [[new article name]]. (You'll have to substitute -- for the colon if you include the subtitle.) Save that, and at the new page, paste in what was at the old page. Then change links to the old page to point to the new one. Cheers, and welcome, BTW! love the username, Koyaanis Qatsi, Saturday, April 6, 2002

Or maybe you were just asking if the real "title" should be as close as possible to the actual one on the book? I'd take that as a given. My $.02. We can always have redirects to the correct one.  :-) Koyaanis Qatsi

Okay: I'm moving it to Gödel, Escher, Bach. (The subtitle is too unwieldy for making links.) - Rootbeer 2002-04-07

Important publication in mathematics?

I've reverted the addition of this book into Category: Important publication in mathematics. Although GEB could certainly be considered an "important publication", and it does indeed discuss a lot of mathematical concepts, I don't think it belongs in this category. It did not really have any significant impact on the world of mathematics (in the way that The Elements or Principia Mathematica did), as the book did not come up with any new mathematical ideas (this is not a failure of the book, of course - it was not attempting to do so). It would be most suitable to a category "Important Publications in Artificial Intelligence" if such a category existed. Category:Important publication in computer science could be acceptable, but even that might be pushing it. Keithmahoney 14:45, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

then please create sucha category fr storage, before you subtract an existing one.

Chinese

In the paragraph on translation, I don't see what "including Chinese" is doing there. Is the fact that it was translated into Chinese, as opposed to any other particluar language, relevant? I'd like to remove it, but I've been warned about removing information before. But I think irrelevant information should be removed. I suppose we could list every language that the book has been translated into, but who cares? That doesn't seem like the job of an encyclopedia. Lots of books have been translated into lots of languages, it's not our job to list them all. --GGano

I think the reason why Chinese was mentioned was because of the Chinese room argument. Hofstadter says the central idea of GEB is the idea of emergent intelligence, the Chinese room argument tries to dismiss the idea. The Chinese room argument is aimed at non-chinese readers, so to make it work for Chinese people you'd need to change the language to a different language - but then it wouldn't be a Chinese room! The fact that the book has been translated into Chinese could be argued is more interesting than the fact it's been translated into French - think about the themes of base versus ground and of strange loops. --Number 0 18:39, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
If you have read the book, and if you understand the problems of any translation, you will wonder how translation of this book is at all possible. And, obviously, translation into a remote language, belonging to a remote culture, is extremely difficult. Hofstadter discusses this in another book of his, Le Ton beau de Marot.
--S.
I have read the book, and I do wonder how translation of this book is at all possible. Therefore I'm not any more curious about the fact that it was translated into Chinese than any other language. In fact, as the article states, I'm more curious about how it was translated into French and other languages that appear in the book. (I don't remember any Chinese in it, but I could be wrong.) In any case, when I read that sentence, it isn't at all clear to me that "including Chinese" is there because Chinese is "a remote language, belonging to a remote culture," and so some people are more interested in the book's translation into Chinese than other languages. I think it should either be clarified or (preferably) removed. --GGano
I've read it in both English and French :-) --Tarquin 22:38 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)
The book was originally thought to be nigh untranslateable (at least, impossible to translate really well). That it's been translated so many times in interesting in and of itself. The subtitle changes for each language, which is a sort of cunning wordplay in and of itself. (In Chinese, it's "Ji Yi Bi", meaning "Collection of Exquisite Jade", or so I'm told.) Note to self: look up alternate-language titles and make a new section on that. --grendel|khan 18:43, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

Something about what Hofstader said in the 20th anniversary preface to do with gender and translation should possibly be mentioned. I don't have the book with me but the gist is that Hofstader regretted that all his characters were male and was pleased that in french "mr tortoise" became "madame tortue". Teutanic 16:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I quoted the preface concerning the Tortoise in the article, so that the translation section would be more balanced out. I also found that to be quite interesting, as a reader of the book in both French and English. 87.90.149.129 13:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC) Alexandra Sourisseau

Jean-Yves Girard

This text was added to the article recently: 

  Mathematician Jean-Yves Girard criticized the book for being
  a "masterpiece of vulgarity". presenting Gödel's theorem as
  a kind of arcane curiosity in a move to impress to audience.

Where and when did he express that opinion? --Bevo 22:53, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)


Read this thread on c2. It links to a paper which is in PostScript format, which I can't read right here, as a source. Numerous criticisms of the book are included; perhaps we could merge something in.
I had just read Le Ton Beau de Marot at one point, and was all fired up about machine translation. I spoke to a computer science professor of mine about some ideas I'd had, and she sort of looked down her nose at the idea that I'd been reading Hofstadter, saying that it was really a poor introduction to the idea of translation, and that AI was way ahead of what he'd said it was at the time of writing (the book includes some laughably bad SYSTRAN et al. output), and seemed quite... defensive. Is there something about Hoftstadter that threatens or insults academics?
There's also a lot of criticism of his prose, both below and on the c2 thread. While his work is admittedly dense, I really enjoy reading it. (He's the sort of author I'd read even if he were discussing tofu densities for six hundred pages.) That's a matter of taste, though. As with anything else non-bland, you can't please everyone. --grendel|khan 18:41, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)
It was a required book when I studied Computer science at UCL. Mind you that was a little while ago :-) --Phil | Talk 10:56, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)


Over-rated

This book has got to be the most over-rated book of all time and in my opinion, the most nauseating piece of pseudo-intellectual ostentation ever written. -- --K1 07:43, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You've shared your opinion. So? --grendel|khan 18:35, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)
Stating an opinion without backing it up with argument or examples is meaningless.CharlesTheBold (talk) 04:07, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


I happen to thing it's the best book of all time. To each his own.
Yes, to each his own. I'm actually quite curious: which books are considered not nauseating by K1? --SaulPerdomo 15:23, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
We do need information on the book's reception. Leon math (talk) 20:59, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and felt that I understood it in enough detail to accept its conclusions, I am not a mathematician; and I've often wondered if it contains material that would cause someone with more training than me to raise an eyebrow. Unfortunately, I have a hard time finding any review that approaches the book with a skeptical eye. Does anyone know of any such reviews? Solemnavalanche (talk) 20:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree that it would be great to have more professional-level responses to the book, and Im sure the sheer size and scope makes that difficult. Plus a lot of the content's value is asthetic more than directly intellectual, but also serve to illustrate the point. With regards to your concern on the math, I really wouldn't worry about it. From what I know about him, Hofstadter has plenty of training and the basic ideas being used aren't all that sophisticated by math/physics standards. Also to the original comment, I cant hide the fact that I absolutely adore this book, but (seriously) it would be great to hear someone actually argue that case rather than just state it, but I'm not holding my breath. Isocliff (talk) 00:44, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Dialogue Characters

I admit it's been a few years since I last read this book, but I don't remember a Genie anywhere. I remember the Crab mentioning his Gene, during his speech in the middle of the Crab Canon. As far as other characters go, I remember an Anteater and a Sloth. Do I just need to read the book again? Is there a Genie I've forgotten? --Squidd 21:00, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

The Genie character occurs in the dialogue Little Harmonic Labyrinth. This is the fifth dialogue... the one that discusses "pushing", "popping", and "GOD". The Genie appears after Achilles is retrieved from the "hanging" lamp in an Escher drawing. Do you need to read the book again? If you enjoyed it the first time through. --laonoodlekeemow 08:51, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Right, right. I remember that now. I'd hardly call him one of the "main" characters, as the article does, but I don't think it's worth an edit.
I actually enjoyed the book the second time through, too--but that's not going to stop me from forgetting large portions of it. --Squidd 21:06, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Achilles

Going to remove the link to the Achilles article as it doesn't really add anything or to either article if I do. --Whispering 22:10, 11 November 2005 (UTC) disambiguation link repair (You can help!)


Hebrew Meaning

The phrase "Gödel Escher Bach" transliterated into Hebrew is

גדל אשר בך

which literally means "The greatness that is in you". I don't know if this was intentional or not, so I don't know whether I should add it to the article. It is a very interesting fact and I think it should be recognised in the page, but I don't know whereabouts to put it or how it should be put. Can someone with more wikipedia experience please place this fact somewhere where it will seem to flow naturally in the article --AndreRD 12:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like a meaningless coincidence to me. How many foreign phrases come out as something meaningful in Hebrew when you transliterate them? What did you do with the vowels? If you asked a Hebrew speaker how to say "The greatness that is in you", would he pronounce the words "Gödel Escher Bach", or would there be a more natural way to say it? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Hofstadter is a smart guy, but I think that is giving him too much credit. --maru (talk) contribs 19:38, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

If a hebrew speaker were to say "the greatness that is in you", they would say "Gadal Asher Bach" which I think is close enough to "Gödel Escher Bach" to be taken notice of. I won't deny that it could be a co-incidence, but if it is then I see no reason not to put it on the page.--AndreRD 15:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

If it's a coincidence, which it sounds like, then it certainly shouldn't go on the page because there are meaningless coincidences like it everywhere. Facts reported by an encyclopedia should be meaningful. Also, facts should be reported elsewhere so that they are verifiable - your observation seems like original research. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 19:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree - leave it out, unless there's some evidence that it's not just a coincidence. - DavidWBrooks 02:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
This and the other discussions going on in this article appear to walk the razor's edge of "original research" and therefore the data seem (to me) to belong in the discussion section until someone publishes. It is unclear to me where the critical threshold lies whereby we could then edit the article to state "certain people have noted that..."dvd 23:50, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


Someone should at least send Hofstadter a note about it, though; it seems like the sort of thing he'd find amusing. grendel|khan 17:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


I think this talk of "meaningless" coincidence is quite apt, given the central thesis of GEB... anyway, at least it's discussed here, if not in the main article. It's amused and delighted me. I suspect it's deliberate; one of the little unannounced puzzles and gems to be found all over the GEB work... Sinewalker (talk) 01:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

An isomorphism whose meaning is a pointedness toward the main theme of the book; us. Or what we are. Consciousness. A trinity of great people used as studies to uncover the meaning of meaning, who when combined communicate to an observer "the greatness that is in you." That's beautiful whether or not Hofstadter meant to do it. Leximorph 11:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

This is frankly pretty amazing stuff, and I have a hard time not wondering if the people who quickly dismissed this actually read the book. Meaning is such an important component of the message, and specifically hidden meaning. That and as leximorph said, clearly among the most meaningful isomorphisms in all is the one from the ideas in the book to the reader themselves. It is another example of transcending frame (outer message) and content (inner message), wholism and reductionism. In short I REALLY dont think its a coincidence. And if it is, its a coincidence of insane, nearly asteroid impact-level probability. I would say that this should definitely go into the article, but I'm hesitant because it would arguably destroy some of the beauty of the hidden message. That said, Im extremely glad I found this. Isocliff (talk) 00:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Will the book ever be translated into Hebrew? If so, we've already gotten a major difficulty out of the way (although no competent translator would need us to tell her that...). Leon math (talk) 05:19, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I Am A Strange Loop

Anyone heard any information about Hofstadter's new book I Am A Strange Loop? It seems to be a continuation of Godel Escher Bach. --24.125.103.109 05:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Amazon's editorial summary certainly makes it sound that way. --maru (talk) contribs 05:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm almost done reading it during my lunch-half-hours, and it's quite different from GEB -- though I'm 30 years older and more jaded. It's more of a discussion on the meaning of concsiousness and what he calls the soul. It's thought provoking, but not eye-opening like GEB was to me as I read it deep in the North Atlantic during the cold war. -- Nonenmac 00:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Humorous self-referential bibliography entry?

There is an entry in the bibliography which is clearly intended to be a satirical self reference to the book itself. ("Copper, Silver, Gold: An Indestructable Metallic Alloy" or something similar...) I am not a big fan of giving a lot of content of the book in the article, but if any one piece of wordplay, self reference, metafiction or structural pun captures the spirit of these in the book as a whole, this reference is it. Also, as this is in the bibliography (which is quite extensive), most readers of the book are not likely aware of it.

What does anyone think about mentioning it? Baccyak4H 18:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Already an article on Egbert B. Gebstadter... AnonMoos 02:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


Book Contents?

This article discusses a lot of meta-book (ha ha..:), talkign about structure, yet there's not ,much there about content or even a general overview..this article is seriously lacking.--Procrastinating@talk2me 18:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I have to disagree; it gives a sufficient discussion of the content, for a book like this. We really don't need any of the tedious "and then the turtle talks to Achilles, and in the next chapter blah blah" that clutters up many wikipedia book articles. - DavidWBrooks 20:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
The third paragraph provides the overview, the rest of the article specifics about the content. ∴ here…♠ 21:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleaning up the introduction

I would like to remove the phrase "A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll" from the first bold sentence of the introduction, as I think it makes the intro hard to read. The discussion of this book seems like it could use some clarification and streamlining, which I will try my humble best to do shortly. Still, it's a neat phrase, and I don't exactly want to throw it out. I'm just not sure it would be best to put it in the opening sentence. I'm adding this note here as good faith to show I'm not trying to delete the phrase, I'm just unsure where to put it at the moment. --Culix 18:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to clean up the page a bit. I think this article might be better served discussing the overall themes and intent of the book rather than trying to list all of the topics individually. As I haven't finished the book yet, I'm not an ideal candidate to do that, so I'm going to do more reading before I do much more editing. --Culix 14:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The difficulty with trying to "discuss overall themes and intent" is that it's very easy to slip into Essay Land, full of review-style philosophizing about Hofstadter's thought process, which quickly descends into edit wars. Sticking to the individual topics may be less elegant but makes it easier to stay on the straight and narrow. That doesn't mean your approach is impossible, only that it's fraught with peril.
But, yeah, you probably should finish reading it first. - DavidWBrooks 16:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Good call. In the meantime I have done my best to clean things up and add references. Would anyone complain if I removed the "Needs Citations" template? --Culix 21:16, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Error on italian word

The article refers to "signorina Tarturaga". The italian correct spelling is "signorina Tartaruga". I wonder if the mistake is in the book or it is only a mispelling of the editor of the english wikipedia article. In the second case, it should be changed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.57.253.130 (talk) 04:20, 22 June 2007

Good catch. The book correctly spells the word "Tartaruga". I have fixed the spelling. --Culix 19:32, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Original reasearch

Please make text bazed on published reviews of the book. All unreferenced opinions will be deleted. `'Míkka 15:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Self-reference in the lead section

The lead section seems an inappropriate emphasis on the theme of 'self-reference' and states the matter in terms that seem far less subtle than is indicated by an impartial reading of the book itself. Moreover, the depth and scope of the book itself make this particular "interpretation" only one of infinitely many. Therefore, I request that the lead be reformed: 1) to rely more on language from the book itself about the scope, purpose, and interpretation of the book (yes, I am asking for more "self reference"); and 2) to suggest the breadth of subtlety of this book, without being so conclusory.

I'm going to modify the lead after I post this, but I post this in advance to explain my rationale, in case anyone wishes to object. dr.ef.tymac 20:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that Hofstadter himself said in the introduction to I Am A Strange Loop that he wanted people to understand that GEB is primarily about self-reference. I quote from the preface of Strange Loop: "I started working on my first book, whote title I imagined would be "Godel's Theorem and the Human Brain", my overarching goal was to relate the cocept of human self and the mystery of consciousness to Godel's stunning discovery of a majestic wraparound self-referential structure." So thus discussing "self-reference" in the lead section is appropriate. This "particular interpretation" just happens to be the author's own, and I encourage you to read at least the intro to Strange Loop before rewriting the intro here. --JayHenry 20:35, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. That's all I am after, the author's own words. I was not protesting "self-reference" as a theme but rather the inappropriate emphasis placed on this theme by the exact wording of the lead section. For example:
   Strange loops are Hofstadter's attempt to explain how formal systems are 
   able to relate to or perceive themselves and thus become 
   self-aware.
Really? Does Hofstadter ever make this assertion directly (I mean within GEB, not his other works)? Sure, it's not an unreasonable conclusion that one can derive through examination, but is this an unambiguous conclusion that must be derived from a neutral reading of GEB itself? If yes, I recant, If not, it seems like an inappropriate and conclusory reliance on a theme from the book to make statements that are (deliberately) not entirely spelled out by the book itself. dr.ef.tymac 20:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Ah, the new lead section is an improvement, in my opinion. I was writing my comment on the talk page at the same time you were writing the new lead so I didn't see your revision when I made my comment. I was mostly just concerned that you might take out self-reference altogether, but the way it's handled in your new intro is quite appropriate. Cheers! --JayHenry 21:32, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Hoaxes?

Has anyone heard any claim that there are known hoaxes in GEB. Currently there is a discussion at Talk:PQ (logic).Gregbard 14:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

"Fields of study" section

The following list is entirely unsourced and the lack of context makes it difficult to see what value it's adding to the article. If it's original research in the form of random themes Wikipedians have identified in the book, it shouldn't go back in in this form.

Fields of study covered in GEB

Ideally, this list should be rewritten in a prosaic format which identifies how these fields are discussed and what this adds to the book. Even more ideally, this would be done by editors in their free time by using the cleanup category system as a reminder, but that option is apparently unavailable here (what with cleanup tags being summarily removed from it). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:45, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah - now, that is changes to wikipedia should proceed, prompted by a well-thought-out explanation of perceived shortcomings. Much better than a "nag tag" slapped down without explanation.
Your argument is compelling; the list doesn't add anything, does it? Now that you've drawn attention to it, I'm hard-pressed to think how it could be written as anything other than somebody's thumb-sucker essay. I think it could be tossed completely without loss. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:27, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Editions?

It might be useful to include information about various editions and releases of the book. Every time I think about looking for a copy I end up scouring the web for such information. --Volkris (talk) 16:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The 1996 edition reads "I cannot be played on CD player X" and the 2011 edition reads "I cannot be played on iPhone X". Plus it includes the example "I cannot be stated on Wikipedia, because this would be OR." 88.217.122.207 (talk) 01:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Funny, but I don't think so. Hofstadter refused to revise the work, and we're left with phonographs. HereToHelp (talk to me) 04:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Some Concerns

'GEB' is an amazing book and I feel that the Wikipedia article should do it justice.

  1. Is word play part of a book's structure?
  2. Is "puzzles" the right word for what the section of that name describes?
  3. The major theme of the book, about meaning and consciousness arising from meaninglessness and mindless systems, should be mentioned in the section on themes.
  4. To a non-reader of the book, from the content in the article after the introduction, the book would seem a random collection of obscure nonsense. (I understand that this is a difficult task...) Each field explored had a specific purpose and served to exemplify and illustrate one or more of the major themes. The article should be structured accordingly.
  5. Shouldn't there be (a lot) more of the book's content mentioned in the article? I know there's already another section on the discussion of this, but I figured I'd put it here as well.
  6. Does anyone have information about the reception of the book? It seems to me everyone likes it, but if there's any reviews of the book being an over-rated, nauseating piece of pseudo-intellectual ostentation (--K1, above), we should put it on here too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leon math (talk • contribs) 21:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

A semi-major rewrite may be in order... does anyone agree?

I'm not familiar with the protocol for massively editing articles... could someone link me to the relevant guidelines? Leon math (talk) 20:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Girard mistranslation

I would like to point out that Girard's phrase "masterpiece of vulgarity" (above) is probably mis-translated. In French "vulgariser" means to popularize an idea, making it accessible to a layman, as magazines such as SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN do. It is basically a neutral term. The English false-cognate "vulguarize" is insulting, and probably not what Girard intended. CharlesTheBold (talk) 03:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

GTATHB

Twice in the book's 20th Anniversary Preface, under the subtitle "GEB Is First Cooled off, Then Reheated", the author uses the acronym "GTATHB" in the phrases "Thinking GEB thoughts — or rather, GTATHB thoughts — was strictly verboten." and "On the other hand, the rekindling of old intellectual flames and especially the writing of GTATHB had breathed a new kind of self-confidence into me." I couldn't find anything about it on Google. Does anyone happen to know what it stands for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.68.27.194 (talk) 20:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Googling I see it refers to an early draft of GEB. Might stand for "Gödel's Theorem, Achilles, the Tortoise, the Hare, and Bach" or something like that, referring to topics in the draft. 69.228.170.24 (talk) 06:37, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
For anyone who doesn't have the book and is wondering about this: It stands for Gödel's Theorem and the Human Brain, the original working title of GEB (as explained on page P-2, in the second section of the Preface to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition), and this is intended to be obvious to the reader. False vacuum (talk) 09:25, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Chess, AI and self-reference

I’m just about a complete ignoramus in this subject, and on reading GEB many years ago, I felt truly humbled in the presence of a mortal with the enormous erudition and deep comprehension of Hofstadter. Then I read a section in which he wrote that he believed that when computers could play chess properly, they would also be intelligent enough to be bored, complain, and want to engage in other activities. I thought that this was complete rubbish, and today, especially after Deep Blue has beaten Kasparov and not requested a back rub and an appointment with Skanky Blue, I feel a lot taller and see Hofstadter as much shorter than I did. I read the page on Hofstadter today and was surprised to find that he now makes comments that suggest the very reverse of his position in GEB. For example, upon the defeat of Kasparov by Deep Blue, he commented that

It was a watershed event, but it doesn't have to do with computers becoming intelligent.

Any thoughts on this? Today, I feel very differently towards GEB. There are good things in it but it suffers from a condition that probably has no name in English: that of trying to explain something simply by going over every detail at enormous length and with endless analogies within analogies and paradoxically making the subject even more incomprehensible than it was previously. (An idea that might fit in well with the general theme of this work). In that respect, ironically, it is also rather like a lot of Wikipedia, where amateurs consistently write “explanations” which are far more obtuse than those written by professionals who know much more concerning the matter. To be specific, the constant invocation of the three eponymous geniuses today appears sufficiently contrived to be rococo. The book goes everywhere at once, and at all times sacrifices economy and clarity of thought to a constant farrago of “things I just dreamed up now” which seem have more to do with celebrating the author’s ego than anything else. The work involves endless musings on self-reflection, which has a rather coarse analogy in disappearing up one’s own fundament, and I think that GEB exemplifies this process with outstanding success. Myles325a (talk) 07:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

every last sentence?

The last sentence in this paragraph from the article uses the phrase "every last sentence":

Hofstadter gives one example of translation trouble in the paragraph "Mr. Tortoise, Meet Madame Tortue", saying translators "instantly ran headlong into the conflict between the feminine gender of the French noun tortue and the masculinity of my character, the Tortoise".[7] Hofstadter decided to translate the French character as "Madame Tortue", and the Italian version as "Signorina Tartaruga".[8] Because of other troubles translators might have retaining the meaning of the book, Hofstadter "painstakingly went through every last sentence of GEB, annotating a copy for translators into any language that might be targeted".[7]

Just about anywhere else, the meaning would be clear, but in GEB, which discusses books which have no last sentence, and in view of all the different translations, it is strangely and perhaps aptly confusing. I take it that it has the simple meaning of "every single sentence" or just "every sentence", but if that is the case, it might be best to delete "last" and replace it with elision marks. Myles325a (talk) 08:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

people featured in GEB

I have removed the list of "people featured in" GEB, which has been marked as trivia for seven months, because it's does nothing to inform the reader about the book or about the people (none of those people's articles even mention GEB, for example). Others may disagree with this, of course! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I for one would keep it. It has some value to the article itself, it has even more as a navigation structure for people who've read the book and now want to find the relevant wiki article on the people mentioned. I can spell Turing or Church from memory well enough to search for them, but Ramanujan would be beyond me.
Besides which, this isn't "trivia" to WP's usual "mentioned in some trite anime" level. Our problem here with trivia clutter isn't article-relevant content in articles (as here), it's editors who don't understand that some web comic mentioning Macbeth doesn't make that web comic in turn relevant to a mention in the Macbeth article. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:23, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
You're right that this isn't the usual "trivia" issue. I was more concerned that it was pointless and seemed to add nothing to the article, any more than "list of foreign terms used in GEB" would have. But I hadn't thought of your argument about navigation. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Theorem: "All even numbers can be represented as a sum of one prime and one number which is a product of at most two primes"

This theorem is presented in the dialogue "Aria with Diverse Variations". Does anyone happen to know how it follows from the Vinogradov theorem (which states that every sufficiently large ODD number can be represented as a sum of no more than THREE odd primes), or how it is analogous to the corollary from Vinogradov that "any sufficiently large number 2N can be represented as a sum of FOUR primes, by first representing 2N - 3 as a sum of three primes, and then adding back the prime number 3".

I've been racking my brain with this problem for a while now, but for no avail, since the only conclusion I could draw was a simple inversion of the statement; that it is always possible to find a prime smaller than a sufficiently large even 2N, whereby the difference between them is always the product of at most two primes. Becoming suspicious that this might be another theorem from someone else whom the author clumsily didn't cite, I searched for it in Google, but without success. Is the reasoning behind this theorem obscure just for me, or can anyone make sense of it? Has anyone ever heard of it before, or could it be Douglas Hofstadter's own theorem published first in GEB? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.68.27.51 (talk) 21:12, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Smisteru

There is something I do not understand, that is, the Smisteru's rule: x ∨ y is equivalent to ¬x ⊃ y . It makes sense to me ONLY IF the OR is exclusive, but Hofstadter explicitly says that the OR is inclusive... can anybody help me? Is it an error? --Dejudicibus (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

@Dejudicibus: Anyway Smisteru can be found only in the Italian edition; in the original the rule is named Switcheroo "after Q. q. Switcheroo, an Albanian railroad engineer who worked in logic on the siding" (Q. q. Switcheroo is a fictional character and one of many linguistic plays in the book).--Carnby (talk) 13:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Well, it is quite common that in Italian translations also names are modified to maintain the "meaning" of the orginal name.--Dejudicibus (talk) 10:21, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

tagline "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll"

@@Snow Rise:If I remember correctly this tagline was written by the publisher rather than Hofstadter. Maybe including it in the lead isn't necessary? Jonpatterns (talk) 15:14, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Jonpatterns: Well, taglines typically are as much or more the purview of publishers as the authors themselves, so it's entirely possible. Personally I'm indifferent to whether the information is found in the lead. I do think it speaks rather directly to the subject and tone of the book and I suspect Hofstadter had some input on it, but critical information it certainly is not; I'd say you're free to be bold on this one. Not sure where else you would move it if you intend to keep it in the article though. Snow (talk) 18:52, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Gödel, Escher, Bach/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

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==Book Contents?==

This article discusses a lot of meta-book (ha ha..:), talkign about structure, yet there's not ,much there about content or even a general overview..this article is seriously lacking.--Procrastinating@talk2me 18:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The article has been cleaned up a bit now. What else do you think it needs to be better than a "start" class? --Culix 03:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I would first start by rewriting the lead. The date of publication can be moved in front and the name of the publisher can be removed: an infobox should suffice. The lead is too loose and doesn't draw the reader in; tightening up the prose with active tense should solve that problem. —Viriditas | Talk 04:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Good ideas Viriditas. I have tried to improve the lead section and summarize the subject matter of the book more completely. I was also looking at Animal_Farm, which is listed as an example of an [A-class article]. Animal Farm is a work of fiction, so the sections are slightly different, but it talks about the plot and characters, and then the significance, how the book relates to events and people in the real world, and effects the book has had on the world. Perhaps the GEB article should be structured in a similar manner? It could discuss the subjects covered by the book, the fields of study related to or explained by those subjects, and then the significance of the book and the effect it has had (if any) on the real world or philosophical thought.
Phew! I guess that might take a bit of research, and we (obviously) don't want to just include the whole book in this article, but I'm just trying to get a feel for what the goal is. Perhaps we should also have a section on Hofstadter's motivations for writing the book? That would let us include quotations such as "I realized that to me, Gödel and Escher and Bach were only shadows cast in different directions by some central solid essence. I tried to reconstruct the central object, and came up with this book." It might also be steering in the wrong direction. --Culix 15:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest sticking with Category:Philosophy books. Are there any FA-Class articles in this category? I'll look. —Viriditas | Talk 04:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, here's five, non-fiction FA-Class articles to look at: Encyclopædia Britannica; Federalist No. 10; Peterborough Chronicle; Some Thoughts Concerning Education; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman —Viriditas | Talk 06:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 06:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 16:55, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Why is country mention in the infobox?

What relevance is it what country it was published in? Why not put how many centimetres the spine is, or how much it weighs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.168.54.3 (talk) 15:40, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Let's merge MU puzzle into Gödel, Escher, Bach.

I think it's fairly obvious that MU puzzle doesn't warrant its own article, and that it can easily (indeed, easilier) be explained within the context of GEB.

I would be WP:BOLD, but MU puzzle is fairly big, so I feel some discussion would do us well.

Thoughts?

TortillaDePapas (talk) 04:57, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

It’s currently too large to be cut-and-pasted into GEB without overwhelming the rest of that article. Are you suggesting that the hypothetical section would be significantly shorter? Given the paucity of citations and indications of notability, that could be worth discussing. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ 10:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I am suggesting that the section would be shorter. TortillaDePapas (talk) 00:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Succinctly put! As a fan of succinctness, I'm on board. With that said, the community at large might be more comfortable evaluating a preview of your condensed version of the “MU puzzle” section. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ 03:09, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
I favor to keep the article separate. The puzzle can be used to illustrate various aspects of computer science, such as formal languages, semi-Thue systems, invariants, problem solving, abstract interpretation, Gödel numbering, etc. This is reflected by the number (27) of ingoing links. It is definitely notable. I'd have no idea which part could be deleted completely. Merging it as is into Gödel, Escher, Bach would give it undue weight. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 13:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
I understand that it illustrates various aspects of comp sci, but I just don't see it as notable. You cite the number of ingoing links, 27. I've gone ahead and opened every link, and most of them are only on there because they had Template:Douglas Hofstadter. Otherwise, the article made appearances in disambiguation pages, footnotes, lists, etc. I only saw it referenced in any meaningful way in Invariant (mathematics) and to a lesser extent in Metamath. I see you've contributed to the article over the years; I am appreciative & mindful of that. But I just don't see how a little puzzle of questionable-at-best notability warrants its own article on our encyclopedia. Wikipedia:Notability. Wikipedia:Notability. TortillaDePapas (talk) 04:57, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes. Merge the above-->A U B

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