Hacker News Reader

Comment by labarilem | Hacker News Reader

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Introduced me to the beauty of logic and its limits. Also gave me solid mathematical thinking foundations.

Pro tip: Try listening to Bach while you read about Bach.

As a high school student, I had all sorts of interests: Math, science, electronics, music, computers. GEB reinforced my interest in math as being more than just useful (for physics and electronics), and led me to choose math as my college major. Not surprisingly, getting interested in math as an end unto itself was what got me good enough at it, to actually make it useful for those other things, and I ended up doing my graduate work in physics.

+1, Same here. Like, I'm not even happy about it, I could have done something very different if i didn't read that book. "It blew my mind at an impressionable age" is a comment I read online about this book, very accurate!

Yes, the same for me - this book was the most influential in my life!

I spent three years of my life reading this book from cover to back three times and it was a different experience every time.

That was in 1985 and in Germany, during my education as a typesetter. I was 20, into computers (ZX81, C64), the Internet was still years away and this book just mesmerized my brain.

The German version of GEB is also a typographical marvel (printed by Klett-Cotta, fonts Syntax and Weidemann) - much nicer than the US version.

This. This book is so much more than math. It's about using multidisciplinary approach to tackle a series of deep philosophical problems. The math-inclined crowd here unsurprisingly sees inspiration from the math perspective (which is a perfectly fine and valid view), but there's also a lot of ideas from art (Escher), music (Bach), and classic philosophy (both from Western and Eastern traditions!), not to mention as a book written in the 1970s, it is (AFAICT) well-informed in the a state of art theory of computation and bioinformatics.

The sheer breadth and depth of understanding from the author blew my mind away. I suspect my attitude towards cross-disciplinary learning was probably reinforced by reading the book.

I think what you get out of this book really depends on where you are intellectually when you approach it. I read this book decades ago while in college and it helped me conceptualize a recursive universe; thus, how complexity comes from simplicity. It was a mind blowing experience where I wasn't able to sleep for days as my mind raced to make sense of it all.

Ultimately, the ideas I formulated while reading this book set the foundation for my understanding of the universe in general. It gave me a mental model that has served me well for over 20 years and freed my mind to wonder about other things.

Honestly don’t get the hype about this one.

I picked out GEB randomly at a bookstore like 20 years ago. The cover grabbed my attention and I started flipping through it and was instantly curious. My mom ended up buying it for me, on Valentine's Day I believe, ha.

Read the whole thing pretty quickly after that, I couldn't put it down.

I quite like your description of what you got out of it, it's been a pretty fuzzy concept to me for a long time but "the beauty of logic and its limits" is a great way to put it. :)

I need to re-read it.

I came here to post this, and look it's rightfully already present here. This book completely changed how I think about consciousness and existence.

+1. After reading this is ninth grade, my lifelong trajectory of interest in computers, neuroscience, and the philosophy of mind was set.

+1 for influenced. A charismatic high school philosophy teacher recommended it to us and it prompted me to read G's collected works they had in my uni library. Came up liking more the set theoretic bit than the incompleteness conundrum.

Same goes for me. Changed my outlook towards any intellectual matter or pursuit.

Yes, this is the book that got me interested in computer science.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com