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I made a pledge to finally read through the entirety of GEB instead of just getting a few chapters in and stopping over and over again. From others I have talked to, they seem to have this same issue as well of only getting a few chapters in.
While I work on reading this book, would anyone else like to join me? I plan on reading 1 chapter a week at the very least. I don't know how interested I am in discussing the chapters, but it would be nice to see others reading through the book to know I'm not alone and to keep each other accountable. The few folks I know who have read through the entire book mentioned that the book changed how they view a lot of things in everyday life, so I think it's important to finish this book.
If folks are interested in joining, I plan on reading through the introduction and Chapter 1 by Saturday, October 26th. I feel like Saturdays are a good day to touch base and see how folks are doing on their progress of reading through the book. That would mean Chapter 2 would be finished by Saturday, November 2nd, Chapter 3 by Saturday, November 9th, and so on.
At least for the paperback edition I have, there are 742 pages and 23 (1 introduction + 22 normal) chapters. That would average about 32-33 pages a week or a little under 5 pages a day.
Oct 18 · 2 months ago · 👍 zinricky, mimas2AC, hyol
I'm also doing this :) Someone else join and make it three! For those who don't know the book, Godel Escher Bach is about understanding how human consciousness arises from self-referential loops through fictional dialogues between Achilles and the Tortoise filled with wordplay and silliness. You'll have a wonderful time!
It's a lovely book. If you're specifically interested (perhaps after reading it) in the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorems, I would recommend reading a straightforward treatment afterwards (e.g. Peter Smith's "Gödel without tears"), because Hofstadter's treatment isn't actually that good once you boil away the (wonderful) digressions. But the digressions are the main point of the book, of course.
As I observed for some 40 years+, the book is not conducive to reading through sequentially.
I would suggest picking random chapters and discussing.
On the scale of Turing's proof of the exsitence of none-halting Turing machine to Wiles's proof of fermat's last, how complex is the proof of the incompleteness thorem? formal logic class was a long long time ago for me.
@decant if those are 1 and 100 respectively, I'd estimate it's around 7. The ideas aren't too complicated, but the details are a bit detailed.
I'll try to join in. I've now tried to pull through the book 4 times over the last 15 years or so, maybe five times is the charm.
I don't know my reading schedule, but I think it'll go along the lines of "whenever I take an extended bath", so I don't know yet whether I can keep up with y'all.
@greg @vi
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