About the Author
Douglas R. Hofstadter
b. 1945
Douglas Hofstadter is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, conscio...
Douglas Hofstadter is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics. His 1979 book *Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid* won both the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and a National Book Award for Science. His 2007 book *I Am a Strange Loop* won the *Los Angeles Times* Book Prize for Science and Technology.—*Wikipedia* 2021-03-03
Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll
Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of "maps" or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.
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