Deana's review
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Deana's review
rating:
recommended for: Anyone interested in Artificial Intelligence
status: Read in December, 2007
rating:
recommended for: Anyone interested in Artificial Intelligence
status: Read in December, 2007
The book was extremely interesting, and put together (with the exception of a few chapters around the middle, in my opinion) for just about anyone. It is a book about artificial intelligence - what he believes is and is not possible for a computer to "learn". Before each chapter there is a Dialogue, which consists of multiple characters carrying out a conversation in such a way to illustrate the point he will be discussing in the chapter - this REALLY helps to set the scene and show what he means by a concept, or why a particular concept is important. I would highly suggest doing the mind problems he gives throughout the book, because otherwise the concepts may become muddled in your head... especially if you have not been aquainted with first order logic and predicate calculus in the past (these are the sections in the middle that I don't think he explains very well... or rather, he goes through them very fast). Also, if you get to the point in the middle and get hopelessly ...more
