num_pages: 799
description: 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.Originally published by Penguin in 1980, when it was winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction, an anniversary edition of an illustrated examination of the nature of human thought processes.
language: English
title: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
titlecomplete: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
genres: Art, Unfinished, Philosophy, Science, Computer Science, Music, Psychology, Nonfiction, Mathematics, History
ratings_count: 48460
awards: awardedAt: 315561600000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: General Nonfiction, awardedAt: 315561600000
name: National Book Award
category: Science (Hardcover), awardedAt: 284025600000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: General Nonfiction
publisher: Harvester Press