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Comment by fouc | Hacker News Reader

I tried to read GEB once, but I had a hard time getting past the feeling that it was more about appearing clever than actually being clever.

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I feel like it was an earlier attempt at something we are much better at now: multi-disciplinary storytelling about intellectual topics. The premise is interesting but it feels much more difficult to absorb than it should be. Or maybe its just over my head.

I wallowed in GEB while trying to tie together something called "Cognitive Science" in 1989. Which probably put me down in the "trying to appear clever" bucket, but I was confused by my first experience with academic Artificial Intelligence research. We all make mistakes at that age.

But yes, I believe we are better at telling such stories these days.

Easy to take for granted how transparent things become when we have the words, the vocabulary for telling the story.

And rather than a Thomas Kuhn paradigm shift, a sudden inflection point, we have a picture which slowly comes into focus, fifty years at a time.

I think the Tao Te Ching is more clever than Gödel, Escher, Bach. But, GEB is still fun-- I just don't think it completely deserves the "Holy Grail" status it has.

Both are pretty great if you ask me. Different perspectives are critical and any work of literature is full of flaws if you closely enough.

Tao Te Ching talks about good and evil and says that the Tao is older then god. Chinese mysticism doesn’t mix with western science or logic. For example western logic exposes the mysteries of the universe in a concrete way by telling us about atoms, fusion, relativity and more, while Tao te Ching talks about some vague mumbo jumbo while claiming only greater people understand the Tao while absolutely providing no concrete definition and no evidence.

Tao te ching is more comparable to works of fiction like lord of the rings or the Bible. I wouldn’t compare it to GEB which builds its foundations starting from axiomatic logic. One is concrete, the other is mythical. Do note that the Tao te Ching was written way back during a time when people were unclear about the reality of things and probability and the scientific method were not known. If anything Tao te Ching is a “fun” fictional work while GEB is genuinely trying to express something about the nature of consciousness.

Don’t be fooled by Chinese mysticism. It’s a bullshit industry where they sell false religions, bullshit herbal medicines, martial arts and bullshit philosophies in a genuine attempt to scam you. Some of it is practiced under a genuine belief but most are scams.

I would know I’m Chinese myself.

Don't be fooled by the concrete either, my friend. The Tao Te Ching is no different, in ways, to the Bible, the Quran, Lord of the Rings, Dune, Cat's Cradle, The Feynman Lectures... It's all what you take from it.

The lord of the rings and dune are works of fiction. Is that what you're saying Tao Te Ching is? I can assure you GEB is not a work of fiction.

Interviews with the author elucidate something interesting. He feels that GEB failed to convey his point so he wrote another book called strange loop. From what I recall he said that GEB is trying to express how a strange loop is what consciousness really is. GEB is grand in the sense that he wanted to convey this point starting from axiomatic logic. I think it ended up confusing a lot of people because almost any high level topic has foundations in axiomatic logic.

The title of GEB totally throws people off so they dive into the book not really knowing what direction the book is going to take them. But now you know, the book is ultimately trying to tell you what the author believes consciousness is... and he starts from axiomatic logic. All the clever ideas the author throws at you are foundational structures that are explained to you to eventually help you understand the authors idea of the true nature of consciousness.

I think it aims to be more of a fiction like experience than your typical nonfiction. Some of the clever stuff is delightful, imo. Also, I learned about the unsolvability of the word problem for groups from that book.

You aren't alone. I've tried twice to get through it, but have stopped fairly early on. I think what this means is there is another effective way to reach readers with the same "point" in another narrative.... maybe you can do that? I'd read it. :D

Unfortunate. You should have come away with an understanding of the Central Dogmap, as well as Gödel's and Tarski's theorems. If you have Tarski's Undefinability, then you learned enough.

I was super stubborn since I bought it and it started clicking for me on my fifth attempt but have no desire to read it again. YMMV.

Yep. The book club at work is reading GEB. I had it at one time, but after trying to go through it, I destined it to "Author trying to play moral superiority" card, and I destined it to the donation bin.

I'm sure that it's a literary masterpiece, just like the emperor's new clothes are so beautiful.

Same here. Tried reading it, but just couldn't connect the dots.

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