num_pages: 799
description: An Interlocked Collection of Literary, Scientific, and Artistic StudiesIn this entertaining and provocative book named after his recent column in 
  Scientific American
, Douglas Hofstadter presents a dazzling array of observations and ideas about how we perceive and think. With profound insight and an irrepressible sense of fun, he explores such subjects as artificial intelligence; sexist language in Chinese; experiments with the Prisoner's Dilemma; genetic evolution and its software counterpart; beautiful mathematical shapes known as "strange attractors"; nuclear war; and even 
  National Enquirer
 hoaxes. Balanced between art and science, magic and logic, humor and rigor, Metamagical Themas (a rearrangement of the letters in "mathematical games") probes the deepest paradoxes and mysteries of the human mind and heart.
language: English
title: Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern
titlecomplete: Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern
genres: Mathematics, Language, Computer Science, Linguistics, Philosophy, Popular Science, Psychology, Science, Essays, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 3607
publisher: Bantam