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Comment by jrq | Hacker News Reader

I certainly disagree that GEB was pretentious. For beings that can understand information, surely computation is the highest possible goal. To that end, a certain seriousness and prestige is available when referring to CS.

We all have our opinions.

Did you find GEB to be a helpful reference? What kind of science were you studying?

Not to invade your privacy, I was just curious.

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> For beings that can understand information, surely computation is the highest possible goal.

That sounds almost like a statement of religion. I am a being that understands information; "computation" is not even remotely close to my highest goals.

Maybe not as an individual, but as a society or as a species, there are few absolutes for us to pursue. History and Math are the only absolutes we really have.

What I'm meaning to say is its a righteous goal compared to pursuing art or literature, because it's universal in nature.

I think Turing will be remembered as one of the few people who changed the course of human thought in its entirety.

I understand what you're saying, and sure, my goal right now this weekend is to get some plane tickets and an airbnb booked, there's no computing mysticism there.

But as a whole, I think we humans have an objective to find four the most information possible and to do the most computing as possible. That's essentially what the singularity is about, a human creation coming to a point of autonomy. That's the next step for humans, I think, abandoning flesh and spreading autonomous machines throughout the cosmos.

I guess it IS my religion.

I didn't find GEB helpful. It presented its information in a way that, if you're being charitable, sounded like, "Check out this cool thing these interesting people have in common that will tweak your brain!" The problem for me was that it often lapsed into, "Check out how cool I am that I can understand these acknowledged deep thinkers, and impose this pattern on their thought even when it's only peripherally appropriate!". Some of that perception may have been from my assessment of the people I knew who talked about it too much, though, now that I think of it.

The language in GEB can be a bit much, but I find it to be a consistently effective took for opening someone's eyes to the vast universe of computer science.

There should be a GEB for Hackers or something like that, though. Accessibility is an issue. Maybe not accessibility in the sense of grokking the content, but certainly in staying engaged to it throughout the text. It feels like a lot of work.

Humility is important too. GEB could definitely use some more of that too.

Thanks for your insight

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