Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Conoscevo Bach (ne ho persino letto la biografia, vedi nella mia libreria), conoscevo Escher e conoscevo G��del. Ma non li avevo mai accostati.
N�� li avevo mai capiti cos�� a fondo.

E' un libro affascinante anche se difficile. sarebbe da studiare. Credo di averlo capito anche se non imparato.

Devo dire che non gli ho dato 4 stelle perch�� verso il fondo si perde. Troppe elucubrazioni personali dell'autore, oltretutto obsolete

Conoscevo Bach (ne ho persino letto la biografia, vedi nella mia libreria), conoscevo Escher e conoscevo G��del. Ma non li avevo mai accostati.
N�� li avevo mai capiti cos�� a fondo.

E' un libro affascinante anche se difficile. sarebbe da studiare. Credo di averlo capito anche se non imparato.

Devo dire che non gli ho dato 4 stelle perch�� verso il fondo si perde. Troppe elucubrazioni personali dell'autore, oltretutto obsolete.
Povero, chiss�� cosa direbbe di quanto si sta facendo oggi.

Il Dipartimento di Robotica dell'Iit, diretto dal Prof. Giulio Sandini ha sviluppato una piattaforma umanoide aperta (open source), denominata ICub, che �� stata replicata in 8 copie identiche e messa a disposizione di selezionati centri di ricerca internazionali con l'obiettivo di creare un modello di intelligenza artificiale condiviso a livello europeo in grado di apprendere autonomamente e di interagire con l'uomo.

Da sottolineare la piacevolezza dei Dialoghi.
In conclusione: prendete il coraggio a quattro mani e leggetelo!

Every few decades an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, clarity, range, wit, beauty and originality that it is recognized at once as a major

Every few decades an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, clarity, range, wit, beauty and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is such a work.

Is it possible that one single symbol could be awakened in isolation from all others? Probably not. Just as objects in the world always exist in a context of other objects, so symbols are always connected to a constellation of other symbols. This does not necessarily mean that symbols can never be disentangled from each other. To make a rather simple analogy, males and females always arise in a species together: their roles are completely intertwined, and yet this does not mean that a male cannot be distinguished from a female. Each is reflected in the other, as the beads in Indra's net reflect each other.

...Likewise, symbols, with, all their multiple links to each other, are meshed together and yet ought to be able to be teased apart. This might involve identifying a neural network, a network plus a mode of excitation -- or possibly something of a completely different kind. In any case, if symbols are part of reality, presumably there exists a natural way to chart them out in a real brain. However, if some symbols were finally identified in a brain, this would not mean that any one of them could be awakened in isolation.

The fact that a symbol cannot be awakened in isolation does not diminish the separate identity of the symbol; in fact, quite to the contrary: a symbol's identity lies precisely in its ways of being connected (via potential triggering links) to other symbols. The network by which symbols can potentially trigger each other constitutes the brain's working model of the real universe, as well as of the alternate universes which it considers (and which are every bit as important for the individual's survival in the real world as the real world is).

...Now that we have hypothesized the existence of very high-level active subsystems of the brain (symbols), we may return to the matter of a possible isomorphism, or partial isomorphism, between two brains. Instead of asking about an isomorphism on the neural level (which surely does not exist), or on the macroscopic suborgan level (which surely does exist but does not tell us very much), we ask about the possibility of an isomorphism between brains on the symbol level: a correspondence which not only maps symbols in one brain onto symbols in another brain, but also maps triggering patterns onto triggering patterns. This means that corresponding symbols in the two brains are linked in corresponding ways. This would be a true functional isomorphism?the same type of isomorphism as we spoke of when trying to characterize what it is that is invariant about all butterflies.

It is clear from the outset that such an isomorphism does not exist between any pair of human beings. If it did, they would be completely indistinguishable in their thoughts; but in order for that to be true, they would have to have completely indistinguishable memories, which would mean they would have to have led one and the same life. Even identical twins do not approach, in the remotest degree, this ideal.

How about a single individual? When you look back over things which-you yourself wrote a few years ago, you think ""How awful!"" and smile with amusement at the person you once were. What is worse is when you do the same thing with something you wrote or said five minutes ago. When this happens, it shows that you do not fully understand the person you were moments ago. The isomorphism from your brain now to your brain then is imperfect. What, then, of the isomorphisms to other people, other species...?

The opposite side of the coin is shown by the power of the communication that arises between the unlikeliest partners. Think of the barriers spanned when you read lines of poetry penned in jail by Francois Villon, the French poet of the 1400's. Another human being, in another era, captive in jail, speaking another language . . . How can you ever hope to have a sense of the connotations behind the facade of his words, translated into English? Yet a wealth of meaning comes through.