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Pulitzer Prize Winner
  • Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter book cover
  • Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter book cover
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Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

by Douglas R. Hofstadter

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Formal systems, minds, and machines

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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    Pulitzer Prize winner

    The metadata describes the book as a Pulitzer Prize winner.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Formal systems, minds, and machines

Douglas R. Hofstadter connects questions about formal systems with the emergence of complex phenomena. The description frames the book around “maps”—the links between systems—and considers how life can arise from chemistry and consciousness from neural activity. From these examples, Hofstadter advances the possibility that computers, too, may attain human intelligence. The book’s central thread is the relationship between a system’s underlying rules and what can emerge from them, bringing philosophy of mind and machines into conversation.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence.
  • Readers curious about formal systems and emergence.
  • Readers seeking conceptual connections among biology, consciousness, and computing.

Themes

Formal systems and their connectionsEmergence of life and consciousnessComputers and human intelligence

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Book overview

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll

Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of "maps" or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. G

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