Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image. Usual wear.
What do a mathematical logician, a Dutch graphic artist, and a Baroque composer have in common? In Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter weaves together the lives and works of Kurt Gödel, M.C. Escher, and Johann Sebastian Bach into a breathtaking intellectual tapestry that argues for a unified theory of mind, meaning, and self-reference. The book chronicles the strange loops and tangled hierarchies that arise in mathematics, art, and music, using playful dialogues — inspired by Lewis Carroll — alongside rigorous exposition to illuminate how consciousness and meaning can emerge from seemingly simple formal systems. At its core, it presents Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems not merely as dry mathematical proofs, but as profound philosophical revelations about the limits of formal reasoning and the nature of intelligence itself. A Pulitzer Prize-winning tour de force published in 1979, Hofstadter's magnum opus stands as one of the most ambitious and celebrated works of popular science and philosophy of the twentieth century. His style is simultaneously rigorous and whimsical, guiding the reader through recursive structures, artificial intelligence, Zen koans, and molecular biology with infectious curiosity and wit. The result is a book that does not merely instruct — it transforms the reader's understanding of what it means to think, to be, and to know. Whether you approach it as a mathematician, a philosopher, or simply a curious mind, Gödel, Escher, Bach promises a journey from which you will not return unchanged.
Author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
Format: Paperback
Published: 1983, Penguin Books
Genre: Philosophy
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image. Usual wear.
What do a mathematical logician, a Dutch graphic artist, and a Baroque composer have in common? In Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter weaves together the lives and works of Kurt Gödel, M.C. Escher, and Johann Sebastian Bach into a breathtaking intellectual tapestry that argues for a unified theory of mind, meaning, and self-reference. The book chronicles the strange loops and tangled hierarchies that arise in mathematics, art, and music, using playful dialogues — inspired by Lewis Carroll — alongside rigorous exposition to illuminate how consciousness and meaning can emerge from seemingly simple formal systems. At its core, it presents Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems not merely as dry mathematical proofs, but as profound philosophical revelations about the limits of formal reasoning and the nature of intelligence itself. A Pulitzer Prize-winning tour de force published in 1979, Hofstadter's magnum opus stands as one of the most ambitious and celebrated works of popular science and philosophy of the twentieth century. His style is simultaneously rigorous and whimsical, guiding the reader through recursive structures, artificial intelligence, Zen koans, and molecular biology with infectious curiosity and wit. The result is a book that does not merely instruct — it transforms the reader's understanding of what it means to think, to be, and to know. Whether you approach it as a mathematician, a philosopher, or simply a curious mind, Gödel, Escher, Bach promises a journey from which you will not return unchanged.