I just bought a copy of this book. The clerk who rang me up gave

>>8823051
>The clerk who rang me up gave me a weird look, why would she?
it's probably the first time she saw a non-YA book

>>8823070
She would be quite out of place if that were the case. The store's known for having ancient books of every genre. I even once overheard a customer complaining about how they didn't carry enough modern lit.

I was just wondering, since those guys know me as a regular, and they've never acknowledged what I bought until today. This book is pretty much an impulse buy, and it was for $8. I know nothing about it, and I pretty much bought it for the surrealist and abstract art inside.

>>8823094
Do you know mathematics? Not kiddie shit like calculus but know how to read proofs? Set theory? Discrete?

The book is not easy to read and ultimately doesn't deliver on what it is hinting at.

my dad loves this book and Douglas Hofstadter was Dave Chalmers's thesis advisor

read it

reading hard books is how you get better at reading

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>>8823102
>Do you know mathematics? Not kiddie shit like calculus but know how to read proofs? Set theory? Discrete?
rofl

>>8823102
Would I really have to know all of that in order to enjoy it? I'm absolute shit at maths.

From what little I've perused, it seems like everything's being explained in a very thorough way. I like logic problems, and it seems like there's a lot of that in here.

>>8823051
That book is really great if you take it for what it's worth and are interested in it. By this I mean you should skip/brush past chapters that you're not into. You should also not have high expectations that it's going to change your life like this guy >>8823102 did. It is filled with clever dialogue and thought-provoking ideas. If you have been on the internet as long as I have, you may already be familiar with a lot of what it's saying. Again, in that case just skip. Don't feel compelled to read the whole thing basically.

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>>8823102
>calculus
>kiddie shit

w-what did he mean by this?

>>8823131
He means that taking two semesters of calc doesn't mean you're good at math

>>8823051
i've seen you before.

>>8823131
I hope he doesn't mean it, either. Calculus is fucking me in the ass.

>>8823131
Calculus is essentially the barrier to (respectable) stem fields. I wouldn't call it kiddie shit but somebody working in math, physics, or a good field of engineering has to know it as well as you know how to add.
I've never read GEB and know very little about it. Is it an interesting read? What does it "hint at" delivering like >>8823102 was saying?

>>8823125
Yes and No. There's going to be a lot of axiomatic system and defining involve. Lots of proofs and logic.
The best way to go about it is to think of mathematics as symbol manipulations. The symbols themselves don't mean anything. How they are manipulated and compared is what matters. A simple question is do you understand Godel's incompleteness theorem? If yes then you can read the book and understand it to be failing in its task. If no, you can read it and be wowed, I don't what this guy is talking about but I feel it is deep.

If you read and understand it, you'll find a lot of it is redundant and that Douglas was just trying to describe what a pattern is without knowing himself what a pattern is.

>>8823130
I'd feel a little guilty for skipping over parts that this author probably spent so much time researching on, but I'll keep your advice in mind, especially for mathematics-super-heavy chapters.

>>8823157
I'm not really trying to unlock the secrets of life here; I'm just a bio major that's interested in obscure lit. Sorry that I've angered the gatekeepers.

I will very much keep in mind what you've said about maths essentially being symbol manipulation, though. That alone has changed how I'm going to go about this.

Thanks.

>>8823173
No, you need to learn it. But all means you want to learn how to read proofs. It is essential to being a well rounded person. Just start with discrete and take a course on it. Learn to prove that adding two odd numbers result in an even number. It's fun and not that hard. You'll be better than 99% of the people here.

>>8823156
Patterns.

>>8823185
I understand that now. I appreciate it, and I will try to brush up on my proofs sometime soon.

>>8823108
> reads hard book
> doesn't understand any of the terms at all
> doesn't even know where to begin
> throws book away

you are demonstrably wrong.

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>>8823130
>By this I mean you should skip/brush past chapters that you're not into.


did this. skipped the entire book. btw is that Rudy Rucker in OP's pic?

>>8823250
google is cool, yo

this is how I got good

do you not keep notes on hard books? you just dive in like they're agatha christie novels?

>>8823256
literature, i can understand. partial differential equations, not so much. when some cunt throws in an equation using symbols i've never seen before, and you look the symbols up and they refer to other equations arranged in ways you can't understand, and then they sneer "oh, i guess you just don't understand mathematics".. that does not help at all. i suppose even mathematicians have to feel superior about something as they go through the job advertisements looking for work at Burger King's drive-through.

>>8823287
douglas hofstadter isn't a mathematician and he didn't write this book for mathematicians

>>8823051
it's engaging and thought provoking but you're not going to unlock the goddamn universe and it doesn't give you any fucking math homework.

hopefully you enjoy it, it's a good way to spend 8 bucks

>>8823349
I've been slowly reading the introduction about Bach while waiting for more responses, and I've already learned so much about musical forms and history, that it sort of worries me, since I was in an orchestra throughout high school. Hofstadter doesn't use any sort of complex prose whatsoever, and just lets the ideas flow into you. If only history textbooks — or textbooks in general — were this interesting.

So far, it's fucking fantastic; I really hope there's a lot more about music to come. Definitely worth $8, and the stupid look the clerk shot me.

>>8823303
"Every equation you include in a book halves the book's potential audience." - Stephen Hawking

>>8823108
>reading hard books is how you get better at reading
yeah that's why all the kids are prescribed War in Peace in 5th grade.

>>8823837
this is precisely how you learn to read well: you read books that are above your reading level

please see >>8823256

also, godel escher bach isn't to a literate adult as war and peace is to a 10 year old

>>8823837
War in Peace really is easier than most of what /lit/ praises of praises as proper literature.

>>8823385
I've not read GEB but read and thoroughly enjoyed his later book I Am a Strange Loop, which from what I gather is a continuation of some of the same themes and ideas in GEB.

I'm terrible at maths and a lot of that stuff flew straight over my head but I still found it to be a really compelling and interesting read. I personally found all the linguistic stuff about metaphor and analogy fascinating. I think Hofstadter is good at presenting reasonably complex ideas in an easily digestible way. It's not life changing stuff but it's definitely thought provoking.

So yeah, I'd say go for it m8.