Finally finished it! It's entertaining to visit the realms at the edge of human understanding. There are plenty of excellent reviews well before mine but I feel compelled to write a review none the less to celebrate the long read's conclusion.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems may be taken for granted by Hofstadter from my understanding and reflection but it's not fatal. If you take Gödel straight up ... mathematics and numbers might never be understood, let alone proven. Our minds have great difficulty constructing vocabulary to rationalize mathematics. That's not `news'. The multiplicity of examples and variants that Hofstadter provides regarding this subtle reality of human understanding are fun. I suppose we all comprehend the fuzziness that words contribute or fail completely in communicating mathematical constructs. Hofstadter reinforces the notion that we can't put our finger on our mind's dilemma with the exactitude we desire. I came away with a better appreciation that I'm not alone in the quagmire.
Many, many years ago, I simply enjoyed the whimsy of Escher's art. As a young physicist, I had not come to appreciate the relationship between "art" with science beyond the medium. The curious and repetitious appearance of unconscious ratios in non-mathematical, natural and abstract contexts does `feel' a bit (should I say it?) unnatural. The golden ratio, Fibonacci numbers, Euler characteristics, omega constant, etc affect everything but nothing that can be verbally expressed. Why? No idea. It just does. Hofstadter expresses this `feeling' perhaps as well as we can elucidate it.
Bach ... I got it! I enjoyed Hofstadter's excursions with Bach. Why? ... I was a terrible piano student. I didn't get it. My sister did. It bothered me to no end as a kid. Some few years ago I ran across a detailed Pythagorean statement about how tone/music is recognized as concordant and related by small integer ratios. It was magic to my mind. I'm ready to try again. It seems so simple!
Hofstadter uses narrative `gimmicks' (for lack of a better word ) to link the Gödel, Escher and Bach theme into vertical and horizontal systems and system of systems that may or may not withstand peer review. That's not really the point. I'd call it mind fertilizer ... lots and lots of it.
And that's my criticism ... the read is massive. You have to want to press on through verbosity and detours. It's a book that I would imagine not every reader will preserver to finish. I must admit I was almost one.
In reflection upon the six months or so that I took to read it I'd say it was worth it. There will be times that you'll ask yourself why you ever picked the book up. It's mind candy ... that's what it is.
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