5.0 out of 5 based on 2 reviews. – Customer review on 15/04/2008

The most incredible book in the world. It is not only about mathematics, art, and music nor just link mathematics, art, and music together, as the author said, "What Gödel, Escher, Bach was really about - and I thought I said it over and over again - was the word I. Consciousness. It was about how thinking emerges from well-hidden mechanisms, way down, that we hardly understand. How not just thinking, but our sense of self and our awareness of consciousness, sets us apart from other complicated things. How understanding self-reference could help explain consciousness so that someday we might recognize it inside very complicated structures such as computing machinery. I was trying to understand what makes for a self, and what makes for a soul. What makes consciousness come out of mere electrons coursing through wires."
It's not the kind of books you can simply flick through, so please treat it seriously(oh sure have fun on the wordplay and dialogs), you will get what Hofstadter is trying to tell.
It's an amazing book, read it.

5.0 out of 5 based on 2 reviews. – Customer review on 19/05/2008

Be prepared to be engaged a long time with this book if you read it, especially if you manage to get all the way through it. The ideas inside though are well worth grappling with though, as Hofstadter presents some of the most enthralling studies of the mind and the nature of thought and consciousness that I have ever read. Some of the maths is difficult but can be worked through and the connections made in the book are some of the most thought provoking I have read. And even now, the book does not feel out of date. Truly awe inspiring. Highly recommended.