Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci it is my favorite book. Completely rewrote my wetware when I read it in my early 20s.
Only downside is I easily understand a lot of complex stuff — self reference, recursion, etc — but would take about 800 pages to explain it.
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
Wave-particle ambigram by Douglas Hofstadter.
An ambigram is a calligraphic composition of glyphs (letters, numbers, symbols or other shapes) that can yield different meanings depending on the orientation of observation. Although the concept is older, the term "ambigram" was coined by Douglas Hofstadter in 1983–1984.
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci GEB? I used it for my gmail account and then there’s…
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci I know GEB is beloved, but I can’t get through it. Perhaps it was insightful in 1979, but reading it in 2000s, it felt rather mundane. Mostly though, I thought it got repetitive (ha!) with a nerdy snooty voice I have come to associate with toxic geeks. But perhaps the most annoying thing about the book is that he thinks he’s a lot more funny than what he is. Reading made me wonder how weak the 1979 Pulitzer Prize field was.
A part of the canon that I do not recommend.
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci one of my favorite books
now worn out a copy and I have one beat up and one in
good shape
some people keep multiple bibles. id argue it's better to keep multiple GEBs
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci Finally reading GEB a couple years ago was a joyful experience for me, in much the same way that religion was once joyful for me when I was a believer. The more heavily mathematical parts of the book were difficult for me; the parts about consciousness were what most interested me.
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
GEB changed my life.
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Wave-particle ambigram by Douglas Hofstadter.
An ambigram is a calligraphic composition of glyphs (letters, numbers, symbols or other shapes) that can yield different meanings depending on the orientation of observation. Although the concept is older, the term "ambigram" was coined by Douglas Hofstadter in 1983–1984.
@AkaSci
Metamagical Themas -
Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci can't help thinking of his wonderful and sad Le Ton Beau de Marot and what facebook is about to do with deceased accounts
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Wave-particle ambigram by Douglas Hofstadter.
An ambigram is a calligraphic composition of glyphs (letters, numbers, symbols or other shapes) that can yield different meanings depending on the orientation of observation. Although the concept is older, the term "ambigram" was coined by Douglas Hofstadter in 1983–1984.
@AkaSci I involuntarily read this as "wavicle," and I can't un-see it.
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
I had a copy of it, and gave it away.
I always thought it reminded me of the 'better than thou', euridite for its own self-glorifying reason, talking above you because you are lesser, and similar paternalistic uber-academic types.
And much of GEB didn't really say anything at all either. Ive seen the similar profound profoundness on LinkedIn, that in reality, said a whole lot of words that meant nothing.
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@AkaSci
Metamagical ThemasThis is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci Is Hofstadter’s law an example of recursion?
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci A thousand years ago my mother was dating an engineer who was teaching me to play chess while he tried to rebuild a chess computer. One day, I found that big beautiful, black and gold book on his table and asked him what it was.
"That's the owner's manual," he replied.
"For what?"
"Everything."
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Wave-particle ambigram by Douglas Hofstadter.
An ambigram is a calligraphic composition of glyphs (letters, numbers, symbols or other shapes) that can yield different meanings depending on the orientation of observation. Although the concept is older, the term "ambigram" was coined by Douglas Hofstadter in 1983–1984.
Douglas Hofstadter in 2008 -
"I am a deep admirer of humanity at its finest and deepest ... and I would hate to think that all that beauty and profundity and goodness could be captured — even approximated — in the horribly rigid computational devices of our era.
I suppose AI will eventually happen. I wouldn’t want to be around then, though. Such a world would be too alien for me. I prefer living in a world where computers are still very very stupid."
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci
Love this book. First became aware of it in an article in Byte magazine. Lots of different related topics to read about. -
Douglas Hofstadter in 2008 -
"I am a deep admirer of humanity at its finest and deepest ... and I would hate to think that all that beauty and profundity and goodness could be captured — even approximated — in the horribly rigid computational devices of our era.
I suppose AI will eventually happen. I wouldn’t want to be around then, though. Such a world would be too alien for me. I prefer living in a world where computers are still very very stupid."
Check out this article for some outstanding examples of ambigrams, many used as logos and in books.
https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/a-clever-collection-of-40-inspiring-ambigrams--vector-3170
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Happy Birthday to Douglas Hofstadter (born 15 February 1945), cognitive and computer scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and "I Am a Strange Loop".
From GEB, Hofstadter's law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
From IAASL - “In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
How many of you were influenced by GEB?
@AkaSci as a child I loved receiving books and giving books to my grandfather. I found this one in a bookstore and gave it to grandpa, and I think it blew his mind. I still have his copy.
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@AkaSci it is my favorite book. Completely rewrote my wetware when I read it in my early 20s.
Only downside is I easily understand a lot of complex stuff — self reference, recursion, etc — but would take about 800 pages to explain it.
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