What does /lit/ think about Godel Escher Bach?

Pretty neat pop science.

>>9069613
It's a good book. Interesting, entertaining, and engaging. Just don't think it answers any big questions in life or anything. Then you'll come off like a dumb old redditor. The math in it is only advanced if you don't do any math, but it's a nice meditation on some cool ideas.

>>9069622
What ideas does it put forward. My basic understanding from reading about it is that it has to do with self-referential systems and how it leads to consciousness. Is that correct?

Dances around some quite interesting ideas for far too long.

Possibly a nice introduction to formal logic if you've never encountered it before. It teaches you a bit for the purpose of sketching some interesting ideas rather than for the sake of it which might be compelling for some.

The overall theme of trying to solve the problem of consciousness is, again, interesting but personally I think Hofstadter's student, David Chalmers, has been far more successful in this field. The endless digressions and thinly veiled pedagogical parables wore thin about halfway through for me.

>>9069635
Yeah, that's correct. Hofstadter puts forth a lot of ideas about the way we think and remember things, the way our brain processes symbols and formal systems, what self reference is and how it can manifest in formal systems, and how human minds interact with self reference.

It's all very interesting and well presented, but as a theory of consciousness I don't think it would make it into the psychology journal. It may not be wrong, but it's argued for conceptually rather than scientifically.